Biggest Snubs from ESPN's NBA Rank Top 100 Players List

ESPN released its NBA Rank list for next season, listing the top 100 players in the league entering the 2025-26 season. As you can imagine, this list has brought on lots of scrutiny and debate. It’s impossible to know what all goes into these rankings. Are people taking into account past performances? Or is future production the main factor in the rankings?

One thing is for sure. The players that were left out of the top 100 are definitely not going to be happy. Here are a few of the best players that didn’t quite make the cut for ESPN. 

Jordan Poole

There is no way Jordan Poole wasn’t one of the top 100 players in the league last season. Not only did he average over 20 points per game, but he also shot almost 38% from three, a career high. Just because he was playing on a terrible team doesn’t mean he didn’t show improvement and wasn’t a solid player. ESPN’s Anthony Slater said about Poole, “It feels like his reputation is unfairly tainted by his blooper reel and the dramatic final 12 months of his Warriors chapter. Back in 2022, during a third-season mega leap, he averaged 18.5 points per game as a major part of an NBA title team. Circumstances became dicey the following preseason, but we've seen him be a key cog on a winner at the highest level. We've seen him lead the league in free-throw percentage. We've seen how much the Warriors miss his secondary scoring since they traded him. Then we saw him shake off a bad first season with the Wizards for a productive, efficient second season in D.C.”

Josh Giddey

Giddey is another player who deserves a spot on the top 100 list. Giddey averaged 14.6 points, 8.1 rebounds, and 7.2 assists last season for the Bulls. He was basically the focal point of their offense, and they were an okay team. Giddey might not be a great defender, but he is a solid offensive cog and definitely more valuable than a lot of other guys on the top 100 list.