NBA: Reacting to ESPN’s ‘Top 25 players under 25’ list

Utah Jazz Donovan Mitchell (Jeffrey Swinger-USA TODAY Sports)
Utah Jazz Donovan Mitchell (Jeffrey Swinger-USA TODAY Sports)
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Oklahoma City Thunder
Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images)

NBA players under-ranked by ESPN

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (#10)

Ever since his senior year of high school, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has made a habit out of exceeding expectations. This season Shai’s gotten to the point where he’s pretty much un-guardable.

His herky-jerky/stop-and-start game flummoxes defenders across the league. Opposing teams have been throwing the kitchen sink at him – now that he’s the undisputed number-one option on a tanking Thunder squd – but Shai has counters to everything. He’s an outlier of historic proportions at driving the ball, and is currently shooting 40.9 percent on pull-up 3’s.

I think Shai has a case for the third-best young prospect in the NBA. Time will tell if he ever morphs into a top-dog on a contender; its tough to put a hard ceiling on him at this point- just look at what happens when he’s surrounding with a spaced floor.