Limited Upside

Mirin Fader, new features writer for The Ringer and the author of the upcoming book "Giannis: The Improbable Rise of an NBA MVP," joins the show to talk about her new project and the other big thing that happened to Giannis recently. (We're talking about his decision to sign the supermax contract to stay in Milwaukee). Mirin explains why Giannis' commitment to Milwaukee is entirely in character, shares how family obligation gives him a sense of loyalty and duty that others don't possess, and much more insight she's already gleaned from reporting the book. She also discusses her approach when profiling athletes, how she is able to connect with them, and how she avoids falling into some of sportswriting's most obvious tropes when doing so.

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It's player ranking season, which also means it's time for our semi-regular tradition of projecting the best players in the NBA in four years. We did this on SB Nation in 2011, 2013, and most recently in 2017. Now, we've decided to move it to the podcast and do an abbreviated version. Tim Cato, Kristian Winfield, Ricky O'Donnell, and Matt Ellentuck – four of the folks behind the 2017 list – joined Mike and Ben (our moderator) to perform a special live draft of the 2025 rankings list. Five people picking. 25 players. Five picks each. There was plenty of roasting and plenty of arguing.

Here's our list for posterity's sake, along with their ages as of Jan. 1, 2025.

1. Luka Doncic (25) 

2. Trae Young (26)

3. Giannis Antetokounmpo (30)

4. Anthony Davis (31)

5. Zion Williamson (24)

6. Jayson Tatum (26)

7. Jamal Murray (27)

8. Nikola Jokic (29)

9. LeBron James (40)

10. Kawhi Leonard (33)

11. Cade Cunningham (23)

12. James Wiseman (23)

13. Karl-Anthony Towns (29)

14. Devin Booker (28)

15. Kevin Durant (36)

16. Joel Embiid (30)

17. Ben Simmons (28)

18. Stephen Curry (36)

19. Bam Adebayo (27)

20. Jimmy Butler (35)

21. Michael Porter Jr. (26)

22. Donovan Mitchell (28)

23. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (26)

24. Damian Lillard (34)

25. Jaren Jackson Jr. (25)

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GQ's Michael Pina, our most frequent podcast guest, joins Ben and Mike to begin thinking about the 2020-21 NBA season that's somehow imminent. We go through some hunches about the season to come that need further examination. Call them pre-predictions, opinions we feel comfortable thinking about but aren't ready to pin ourselves down to yet. Among them: Pina's Rockets optimism, Prada's Mavericks optimism, everyone's Kevin Durant optimism, and Ben's general season pessimism. Then, we use a listener question about rebuilding as a springboard to think about the Hawks, the NBA's offseason champions. Will their new-look roster mesh?

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Mike and Ben run through a hectic, but ultimately muted NBA free agency period. Did any team meaningfully improve its prospects? What do we make of the remade Bucks after the Bogdan Bogdanovic saga? Was Atlanta right to short-circuit its rebuild. Who makes up the West's second tier? Did the Lakers win the offseason? Plus, what will the Warriors look like without Klay Thompson.

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Haley O'Shaughnessy, the newest member of the Blue Wire family after her recent departure from The Ringer, joins Ben and Mike to consider the larger state of the NBA as an institution and business. Why is the league pushing forward with a "business as usual"-ish 72-game season amid a larger COVID-19 outbreak? Isn't this the ideal time to try something new? Is Adam Silver doing a good job with the league, or is he letting it run adrift? Why are TV ratings so bad, and how much does that matter? Why can't the NBA sell its own sport effectively? What can the league do to provide more on-court intimacy to its fans? We also talk about NBA media coverage and ways to further improve the marketing of the product.

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Kristian Winfield (@Krisplashed), our old SB Nation friend who now covers the Brooklyn Nets and NBA at large for the New York Daily News, stops by to talk about the possibility of James Harden in Brooklyn. Why would the Rockets trade Harden now? Do the Nets have enough to make a deal happen? What would this new superteam look like? What's James Harden's value around the league? Then, Ben and Mike (and briefly Kristian) wonder if the Bucks' big moves for Jrue Holiday and Bogdan Bogdanovic are enough to get over the top.

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Ricky O’Donnell (@SBN_Ricky) of SB Nation and Western Illinois Basketball Head Coach, joins the show to discuss everything about the draft. He and Ben discuss guards, bigs, euros, and so much more. What kind of defense can LaMelo Ball play? How do you pronounce Ulm? Is James Wiseman any good? Why can’t the White Sox do anything right? What player could probably bench press less than Ricky or Ben? All that, and so much more.

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Seth Partnow (@SethPartnow), NBA analyst for The Athletic and the former Director of Basketball Research for the Milwaukee Bucks, joins the show to discuss Ben's beloved Philadelphia 76ers hiring Daryl Morey to run their basketball operations. What does it mean for the analytics community (and the NBA as a whole) that Daryl is back in the saddle running an NBA team after his departure from Houston. What will be his toughest challenges? Then, we chat about Seth's Tiers project, a multi-part series separating the top 125 players in the league into tiers instead of ranking them. Why tiers over rankings? Why are rankings bad? (Music to Mike's ears!). What were some of the trickiest challenges of the project? What's even the point of categorizing players at all?

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Ben Taylor (@ElGee35), editor of the Thinking Basketball empire (YouTube channel, podcast, Patreon, book, etc) and newly dubbed "Professional Basketball Ranker," joins the show for a post-NBA Finals conversation that goes much wider than these NBA Finals. Ben explains the methodology he uses to rank players, why the exercise is more valuable to him as a way to learn what we don't know than anything else, and how he conceived of this year's top 10 list. We also wrestle with the idea of properly ranking these Lakers in history, why the LeBron/Jordan question can never be answered definitively, and why Anthony Davis' defensive performance made us all think of Bill Russell.

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The WNBA Finals are almost here! Matt Ellentuck of the Here's Basketball newsletter and SB Nation's Sabreena Merchant rejoin Mike to preview the Las Vegas Aces' monumental task against the Seattle Storm. Plus, we reflect on that ugly-but-dramatic series between the Aces and Sun, recap this bubble season, wonder why Candace Parker's peers disrespect her, and look ahead to what should be a fascinating offseason.

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