Everyone has been ranked from the Lakers so far, except for Kobe. How accurate do you guys think ESPN was/is this year? #448 - Jordan Clarkson...........NR #419 - Jeremy Tyler..............Last year #400.............-19 spots #394 - Wayne Ellington..........Last year #277..............-117 spots #382 - Robert Sacre..............Last year #432..............+50 spots #318 - Wesley Johnson..........Last year #366..............+48 spots #281 - Ryan Kelly................Last year #477..............+196 spots #262 - Xavier Henry.............Last year #451..............+189 spots #246 - Steve Nash...............Last year #88................-158 spots #185 - Ed Davis..................Last year #156...............- 29 spots #165 - Jordan Hill...............Last year #237...............+72 spots #150 - Nick Young...............Last year #228...............+78 spots #149 - Julius Randle............NR #137 - Carlos Boozer...........Last year #61.................-76 spots #100 - Jeremy Lin..............Last year #106................+6 spots ??? - Kobe Bryant...............Last year #25 Take out Nash and a pending Kobe and all our guys from last year, "Improved".
You think so? Wes & Kelly had nearly identical numbers last year. Wes is obviously much better on the defensive end, and his steal/block numbers were also incrementally higher. Kelly produced nearly the same line in less minutes. Kelly scored the same ppg in half the amount of shots. And if they're considering potential, Kelly takes the cake. Wes has been more or less the same player since his rookie year. I hope he worked on his 3 ball and D because we are going to need him this year. But Kelly is a pretty awesome player. Weren't you part of the crew (myself included) that was defending Kelly's worth on CL?
Interesting. With five players in the top 150, that gives us, I guess, an "average" starting unit. It is heavy in the 130-150 range though.
I love Ryan Kelly's potential to be an NBA player, but I'm not sure he should be preemptively ranked higher than Wes already. Wes has started in the NBA for a while now and maybe they're producing the same but Wes has generally played stiffer competition. I think Kelly DOES have a higher ceiling than Wes. Definitely. But I don't think he's ALREADY passed him.
The way that Nick Young is treated in this league is rather damn disgusting. This is a guy that put up VERY SIMILAR stat lines to Rudy Gay and Luol Deng and he made $1.1 million last season. That's it! Gay was at $19 and Deng was $14 or $15 I think and yet here is Swaggy P taking in a low $1.1 million because he wanted to come home to LA and be BFF's with Kobe. They think because he takes a 360 layup every other half of the season and occasionally throws up some crazy airball that he isn't able to perform at all. This dude had a higher true shooting percentage than Carmelo Anthony, Tony Parker, Ty Lawson, Klay Thompson and Paul George. And yet he is constantly looked at for being a fool because he smiles and occasionally messes up a fancy play. He is a beast and I am glad he is on this team. He deserve to be higher than #150. Hell, he probably deserves to be higher than Lin at #100. And the usual argument is 'well he doesn't play defense and Luol and George are so awesome at it!' Luol had Joakim Noah and Taj Gibson under the rim as his help side and George had Hibbert and West. We had Pau who didn't give an effort at all last season on defense and a mixture of players that were injured at various points of the season. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Swaggy is better than Melo, Parker, Lawson, Thomson, George, Deng or Gay (or that some of them are better than he is) and I really hate ranking players for any reason anyways. But the gap isn't as big as it's made out to be. Swaggy P is a far better addition to this team than he is a subtraction. I can't wait for that finger to heal up so we can get to our normal rotation.
Thanks @Punk-101. By chance I was dropping a deuce and saw the CL twitter post and decided to check it out. Some nice board software we got going here. And all the same names I remember, I mean ALL of them, lol.
A ranking by positions would make more sense ... It would get less reactions , of course , something ESPN isn't looking for . It does look severe with Hill and Young
Which may have turned for the best for the Lakers - home town discount and popular opinion allowed us to sign Nick relatively cheap, wouldn't you say?
Swagg was the only positive out of last season's disaster and he was what made last season even remotely bearable. Number #150 is wrong, straight up wrong. I agree with you lakerwiz.
Well we all know how BSPN loves to hate on the Lakers. I'll be shocked if Kobe is rated higher than last year.
