NBA: Ranking the top 5 future beasts of the East
Five years from now, which up-and-coming NBA stars will own the Eastern Conference? Here are projected rankings for the top five.
The NBA is a rapidly evolving ecosystem, and it’s amazing how much can happen over a simple five-year span. Dynasties emerge and crumble, promising rookies are traded away, and the cycle from good team to bad team can seemingly happen overnight.
If you need further proof, consider that five years ago today, LeBron James didn’t have a single championship to his name and was 0-2 in the Finals. Safe to say his legacy has changed drastically since then.
Here in 2017, it seems like a foregone conclusion that LeBron’s Cleveland Cavaliers will meet the Golden State Warriors in the Finals for the third straight year, which would mark the only time in NBA history the same two teams have met in the championship round three times in a row.
More from NBA
- Nuggets projected lineup and rotations heading into 2023-24 season
- Nets projected lineup and rotations heading into 2023-24 season
- NBA rumors: Embiid team switch, Mavs eyeing trade, Simmons back
- 76ers projected lineup and rotations heading into 2023-24 season
- NBA rumors: Zach LaVine trade, Knicks extensions, Kawhi future
That’s exciting in and of itself, especially with how much star power each team has, but for some fans, it takes some of the excitement out of the postseason with the title bout contenders feeling like a foregone conclusion. Even if the Warriors don’t get there, we’ll see the San Antonio Spurs — a team NBA fans are more than familiar with by now — in their place.
But what about another five years down the road, when LeBron will be 37 years old and the league will be wide open for a new generation of superstars?
In the spirit of unpredictability and injecting some life back into a somewhat predictable NBA season, it’s time to take a look at five youngsters in the Eastern Conference who will own the league five years from now, with precedence given to the ones who will be in the middle of their primes, rather than on the tail-end of them.
Honorable Mentions: Ben Simmons, Jabari Parker, Andre Drummond, Justise Winslow
5. Kyrie Irving
How could we NOT give some love to one of the NBA’s most controversial stars who will only be 29 years old five years down the line? For as much scrutiny as Kyrie Irving gets, people forget this guy is only 24 years old and has shown substantial improvement since the start of last year’s playoffs.
His teams didn’t win before LeBron James got there. Yeah, but he still somehow led the Cleveland Cavaliers to 33 wins with no help at age 22. He’s too injury-prone. Probably true, but isn’t that part of the reason it’s taken him so “long” to put everything together? He doesn’t play defense or get enough assists. Also true, but with LeBron James and a stout Cavs defense covering for him, does he really need to?
In the 2016 NBA Finals, we saw Kyrie at his best and at his worst. The first two games, he was an iso-disaster. After that, he was the quintessential complement LeBron James needed and a huge reason Cleveland clawed its way back in the series.
This season, Irving is averaging 23.9 points and 6.0 assists per game while shooting 48.1 percent from the field and 42.0 percent from three-point range — ALL career-highs, except for assists (6.1 APG in 2013-14).
He’ll need to shore up his defense and playmaking by then, and the fact that he’ll be 29 and entering the tail-end of his athletic prime holds him back in these rankings. But if the Cavs are looking for their successor to King James, it’s this frequently criticized superstar and clutch shot-maker who just finished outplaying the NBA’s first unanimous MVP in last year’s Finals.