Re-Ranking ESPN's Top-10 NBA Players List
Sep 26, 2025
ESPN’s NBA Rank of the top 10 players heading into next season has officially been released. The list is always an exciting way to get ready for the next NBA season, ranking and debating who the best players are. ESPN’s top 10 list looks like this:
Nikola Jokic
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
Luka Doncic
Giannis Antetokounmpo
Victor Wembanyama
Anthony Edwards
Stephen Curry
Kevin Durant
LeBron James
Jalen Brunson
Our list looks like this:
Nikola Jokic
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
Luka Doncic
Giannis Antetokounmpo
Stephen Curry
Anthony Edwards
Kevin Durant
Victor Wembanyama
Jalen Brunson
Jalen Williams
Although this list doesn’t look all that different from ESPN’s, it may be a bit controversial. Moving Curry up isn’t too hard to argue with; he is still one of the few players who can be the focal point of a championship offense.
Dropping Wembamyama a few spots also seems defensible. While he’s shown incredible promise in his first two seasons, he hasn’t even led his team to the playoffs. He also hasn’t shown that he can stay healthy for a whole season. Until he does, he is not deserving of a top 5 spot on the list.
The biggest controversy will come from leaving LeBron James out of the top 10 NBA players list. On any given night, LeBron can still hang with the best of them. However, his age is finally catching up to him. This list needs to reward players who can play all regular season and playoffs healthy and with maximum effort. LeBron just can’t give that full effort night to night anymore.
