In the social media and first take era of the NBA the way that players are perceived by fans and media feels like it follows a rather predictable pattern where players get built up when they first get in the league to be these great superstars but then when they don’t reward their supporters with a championship run after a few years then people grow impatient and want to label them a loser.
Now a version of this has always existed in the NBA, there are famous articles about how Michael Jordan wasn’t a winner written in the late 80s but I think now with social media and every day sports shows have made it so the swings from unknown to overrated to underrated back to overrated back to underrated is constantly happening at record speed.
Another reason for this repetitive cycle is that players are coming into the league super young. The first round is full of 19 and 20 year old 1 and done prospects. Many of them will become all stars in their first 2 or 3 seasons and the weight of expectations will fall upon them. Unfortunately for them we know from NBA history that most stars do not win a title until their peak in the late 20s.
Here’s a list of the best players on the title teams and their age going back to the last time a young Dwyane Wade lead the Heat to the finals (I know some of these guy didn’t win finals MVP but I’m not going to put Andre Iguodala on this list sorry Max Kellerman)
Best Player on a title team age
2023 Nikola Jokic: 28
2022 Steph Curry: 34
2021 Giannis Atentekoumpo: 26
2020 Lebron James: 35
2019 Kawhi Leonard: 27
2018 Steph Curry: 30
2017 Steph Curry: 29
2016 Lebron James: 31
2015 Steph Curry: 27
2014 Tim Duncan: 37 (this was a real team effort)
2013 Lebron James: 28
2012 Lebron James: 27
2011 Dirk Norwitzki: 33
2010 Kobe Bryant: 31
2009 Kobe Bryant: 30
2008 Kevin Garnett: 32
2007 Tim Duncan: 31
2006 Dwyane Wade: 24
So the players are anointed the next big thing in their early twenties but unless they are drafted into a uniquely special situation then they likely won’t make their career defining playoff runs until their late twenties. In the meantime they will be harshly criticized and possibly written off in their mid twenties for not winning enough.
Nikola Jokic and Giannis Antetokounmpo were the last players to come out of this cycle of being anointed and then written off in the last few years.
Giannis was on his way to becoming the NBA’s biggest star in the late 2010’s. The 2019 MVP race was between fun, humble and hustling budding superstar Giannis and selfish, lazy and ball hogging James Harden and Giannis won in a landslide.
Giannis lost in the ECF to the eventual champion Raptors but avoided major criticism because it was a big step forward from the previous year.
In the 2019-2020 season the Giannis train gained even more steam and he won MVP over Lebron James by an even larger margin than the year before and also took home Defensive Player of the year honors.
It was clear that the awards voters felt that Giannis was the far and away best player in the NBA and they acted accordingly.
However in the 2nd round of the playoffs Giannis’ squad ran into the Miami Heat. The Heat used a defensive strategy that became known as building the wall where they put as many big body defenders in the driving lanes to shut down Giannis’ downhill attacking style. Giannis didn’t have another reliable move to go to on offense once the Heat sold out to stop his drive and score drive and kick game and the Bucks offense ground to a halt.
On the defensive end Giannis came under scrutiny for not demanding to guard Jimmy Butler 1-1 instead opting to continue to play the same defense the Bucks had played all year which had him as a help defender around the rim.
Giannis went down with an injury in game 4 and didn’t finish the series but at that point the Bucks were already down 3-0.
Overnight Giannis went from the best player in the league to people determining that he wasn’t the kind of guy who could be the player on a championship team. The same people that had voted for him to be given the 2 biggest awards in the NBA were now saying that it was his destiny to be a “Robin” on a championship team.
The next year Giannis averaged 28.1 – 11 – 5.9 and finished a distant 4th in the MVP voting and 5th in the defensive player of the year voting, a far cry from easily sweeping both of those awards the year before. Throughout the year anytime Giannis or the Bucks were brought up as potential contenders people pushed back that he was a regular season player.
Giannis proved the doubters wrong and went on an incredible playoff run that he capped off with a 50 point game to finish off the Phoenix Suns.
Nikola Jokic won his first MVP in the shortened 2020-2021 season. Going into that season Jokic had some momentum from an exciting playoff run in the bubble where he lead the Nuggets to back to back 3-1 comebacks before running unto the eventual champion Lakers but he was still somewhat of a longshot for the award. Early in the season it looked like it would be Lebron’s MVP to lose (he was coming on strong after voicing his displeasure that he had finished 2nd the year before) but he was injured on an unfortunate play vs the Hawks and in his absence Jokic rose up averaging 26.4 – 10.8 – 8.3 and won the MVP by a larger margin than Giannis had in the previous 2 seasons.
Injuries to Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr made it so the Nuggets playoff run fizzled out in the second round as they were swept by the Suns but similar to Giannis in his first MVP year he was not widely scrutinized.
The next year Jokic won the MVP again leading an injury depleted roster to the 6th seed. This was controversial as most MVPs come from top 3 seeds and but the voters preferred Jokic’s carry job over the performances from other MVP contenders and Jokic went home with the award.
In the playoffs that year the the Nuggets were once again shorthanded and were beaten handily by the Warriors in the first round and similar to how Giannis losing in his second year turned people against him Jokic losing in the first round after his second MVP even though the odds were against him made people turn against him. They had supported him and voted him to be the 2 time MVP and he had not rewarded them with a championship so now he would be criticized even though the reason he won the award that year was because people were impressed that he carried a BAD team to the playoffs.
With Giannis the skeptics had said that his offensive game was too limited to be the best player on a championship team with Jokic people began to say that his defense was too poor to anchor a championship team.
Regardless of the criticism Jokic came back the next year and won the title and proved the doubters wrong.
Giannis and Jokic are two extreme examples of this overrated to underrated swinging that is happening to players all the time. After Luka lead the Mavs on a deep playoff run in 2021 it seemed that he was for sure “up next” and now his team is an afterthought despite the fact that he continues to play at an extremely high level. Joel Embiid is having one of the best regular seasons in years and he still has more doubter than believers. Donovan Mitchell and Trae Young have both fallen to some degree after a few disappointing first round exits in a row.
On the other end of the spectrum there are players who have barely even made the playoffs or if they have also haven’t made it past the first round but because they are on the rise they are viewed in a much more positive light. which brings me to the 3 players that people don’t realize they are they are going to start to turn on.
Shai Gilgeous Alexander, Tyrese Haliburton and Anthony Edwards are viewed as rising stars in the league despite the fact that they have all been the league for at least 4 seasons and have not had the success of Luka, Trae, Mitchell and even Embiid.
Shai’s name is up in the MVP conversation and if Embiid doesn’t make it 65 games and if Jokic continues to troll the regular season with games where he only shoots 3 times he may very well win the award.
Shai has been to the playoffs twice but never as the number 1 option. Over the last few years on a tanking OKC team (which wasn’t his fault that Sam Presti was being a sicko and I think it is admirable he bought into the vision and has come out the otherside) he has become an elite offensive player but I think that when he gets to the playoffs people will be disappointed that certain aspects of his game won’t translate super well.
Shai doesn’t have the reputation of Joel Embiid as a free throw merchant but last year he averaged 10.9 free throw attempts per game and this year he’s third in the league at 8.9 when you look at the best playoff performers of the last decade most of them did not rely of free throws for such a large percentage of their points.
Besides the free throws Shai is a much worse 3 point shooter than you would think, this year he is shooting just 32% from 3 and he only makes about 1 per game.
Shai also is a very weak defender for someone with his size and length.
In a playoff setting with teams preparing to face him as a number 1 option I think teams will try to pack the paint and go under on screens and try to force him to take threes and when he does dare to drive into the crowded paint he will be disappointed and the much tougher playoff whistle. Not to mention that team will hunt him on the other side of the floor and try to tire him out that way.
Right now the Thunder are the 2 seed in the west and I think at the worst they will be the 3 seed and out of all the top seeds I think that the lower seeds will be trying to line themselves up with them and they will be prime for an upset against a veteran squad like the Suns or the Mavs and after a disappointing showing in the playoffs people will take Shai’s stats from his first 2 runs when he was a young player and combine them with whatever his stats are int he first round this year and paint him as a playoff choker and he’ll on his way to being on the wrong side of the overrated underrated swing.
Anthony Edwards is one of the most beloved players in the NBA right now. Every night it seems like there is a new incredible Anthony Edwards highlight with people comparing him the Michael Jordan, Dwyane Wade and Tracy McGrady and the Timberwolves have been the number 1 seed in the west for months now.
But with regular season success comes postseason expectations as the 1 seed they will be expected the cruise through the first round of the playoffs and will likely be favored in the second round. And if the Wolves fail to do that people will start to question Anthony Edwards.
I think Edwards is a very well rounded player and if you look at his stats it’s hard to poke holes in what he is doing but if you watch a lot of Timberwolves games you are sure to see a couple games a month where Edwards just doesn’t have and throws up an ugly statline and there will also be games where even if his statline looks fine there are stretches where he is icing out his teammates and forcing difficult shots. If a couple of those games stack up in a playoff series Edwards will come under scrutiny.
Fortunately for Edwards he plays with two of the least popular all star big men the league has seen in a long time and they will probably absorb a lot of the hate in the case that the Timberwolves flame out early but Edwards will not escape unscathed.
Tyrese Haliburton is an incredible playmaker. You have to be a truly special player to average 12 assists per game and he deserves a lot of credit for taking a Pacers team steeped in mediocrity and giving them the kind of juice that has them making big time mid season trades.
What Haliburton has to worry about is that the Pacers play at a very high pace and during the playoffs the game slows down. The Pacers will be a lowish seed in the East and will probably get matched up with one of the Celtics, Bucks or Sixers in the first round where most likely they will lose (although they’ve been a tough match up for the Bucks and Sixers don’t have an awesome playoff resume) and because of the slower pace of play all of Halliburton’s per game stats will be lower than what they are in the regular season and he’ll have to deal with the narrative that he’s been with the Pacer’s for three years made the playoffs once and didn’t look like the same guy (even if he did look like the same guy).
I am not saying this to say that these 3 guys are not superstars I’m just saying that this time next year the way that these three guys are viewed will likely be very different than how they are viewed now because I think it is unlikely any of them make a deep playoff run and when they don’t people will be ready to move onto other young stars.
The Dishwasher 
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