5. Bam Adebayo, Miami Heat21 OF 25
Charles Krupa/Associated Press
Though a bit on the older side at 24, this is as low as we can possibly rank a player who's already been the defensive anchor (and a key facilitator) on a Finals team. An All-Defensive second-teamer two years running and an All-Star in 2020, Bam Adebayo offers just about everything you could ask for in a modern center.
He can switch, pass, finish lobs and attack off the dribble against slower big-man opponents (which, compared to him, is essentially all of them). He's also making steady year-over-year progress as a mid-range shooter. If Adebayo's trajectory in that specific area continues, and he becomes a viable three-point threat, he could settle in as a perennial presence on All-NBA teams.
If you had to pick a nit, it'd be that Adebayo isn't an elite rim-protector, but that may just be part of the bargain with a center who's quick enough to shuttle all over the floor and spends plenty of time checking guards and wings away from the basket.
With 2020-21 averages of 18.7 points, 9.0 rebounds and 5.4 assists, plus more win shares than any other sub-25 player, Adebayo established himself as a genuine star with a strong likelihood of improving on that status. He's a two-way difference-maker and an integral piece on a big-time winner—a rarity for players young enough to make this list.
4. Zion Williamson, New Orleans Pelicans22 OF 25
Gerald Herbert/Associated Press
Projections are always harder without precedents.
We've never seen a player with Zion Williamson's combination of bulk and athleticism, which makes it difficult to know how he'll age and what kind of player he might someday become. It's easy to forecast an early peak, a short prime and a quick decline when you think about the sheer strain his size puts on his joints. A torn meniscus that produced a 24-game rookie season didn't exactly push those worries aside, particularly with a handful of previous health issues hitting in both high school and college.
Weigh all that against another unprecedented aspect of Zion—his early-career production—and the decision only gets more fraught. Why shouldn't the only 20-year-old to ever average at least 27.0 points per game with a true shooting percentage north of 60.0 percent be first on this list? And what to make of the fact that the concept of "Point Zion" was only implemented midway through last season? Maybe he'd been playing with one hand tied behind his back all along until the New Orleans Pelicans figured out how to use him.
What if he becomes a reliable outside shooter?
What's his future as a defender look like?
How long will it take for him to prove he can lead a winner?
Williamson is one of one. His risks are unique, as are his skills and production. That confounding package of uncertainty still lands the 21-year-old very high on this list. There's a roughly equal chance that he belongs as high as second or as low as 10th, depending on whether you put more stock in his offensive production or his health and non-scoring shortcomings.
3. Trae Young, Atlanta Hawks23 OF 25
Matt Slocum/Associated Press
At 22, Trae Young was the central figure on an Atlanta Hawks team that took the eventual champion, Milwaukee Bucks, to six games in the Eastern Conference Finals. Playoff success isn't always a factor in these rankings, but when the player in question is so clearly the driver of what makes his team a postseason threat, it has to be.
The single most valuable commodity in the NBA is offensive shot creation, and Young did that more effectively for the Hawks last season than almost anyone else in the NBA. He added 12.7 points per 100 possessions to their offensive rating when on the floor, a figure bettered only by Stephen Curry among lead guards.
A threat to heave from the logo at any time, a top-five passer in the league and already one of the most diabolical foul-drawers around, Young heads into his fourth NBA season with career averages of 24.1 points and 8.9 assists.
Booker may have advanced a round deeper last year, and he's also the more impactful defender, but Young is an offense unto himself like few other players—of any age—in the NBA.
2. Jayson Tatum, Boston Celtics24 OF 25
Kathy Willens/Associated Press
With four NBA seasons logged, Jayson Tatum is one of the old heads on this list. But he's still just 23, which makes his achievements to this point all the more impressive.
Tatum is the only player on this list (the man at No. 1 excluded) with an All-NBA nod, and he's also distinguished by his role in a remarkably consistent high level of team success. The Boston Celtics forward is laps ahead of the sub-25 field with 50 career playoff games, and it's not like Tatum was a bit player in any of them. A starter in every game of his career—regular season and playoffs—Tatum owns career postseason averages of 21.6 points, 6.8 rebounds and 3.5 assists. He's reached the conference finals twice, and 2021 was the first season his Celtics failed to advance past the first round.
Tatum basically entered the league ready to compete at the highest level. Maybe that's why it feels like he's not on the same kind of upward trajectory as some of the other players on this list. It's telling when a 22-year-old averages 26.4 points, 7.4 rebounds and 4.3 assists on a 45.9/38.6/86.8 shooting split, and it feels unsurprising.
With ideal positional size and length, Tatum is perhaps the most complete player on this list. His teams consistently perform better on both ends with him in the game, he's a high-usage scoring threat who doesn't sacrifice efficiency and he's a weapon on D—whether on or off the ball.
Maybe a few players ranked lower have marginally higher ceilings, but all of them have less experience than Tatum and would be lucky to sniff the level of reliable postseason success he's achieved.
1. Luka Doncic, Dallas Mavericks25 OF 25
Ashley Landis/Associated Press
Luka Doncic and Oscar Robertson, who benefitted from the comically uptempo early 60s, are the only players to average at least 25.0 points, 7.0 rebounds and 7.0 assists over their first three seasons in the NBA. You've got to go back a long way to find someone who was this good this young, in NBA history.
The Dallas Mavericks superstar is also the only player on this list with multiple All-NBA nods, not to mention a pair of top-six finishes in MVP voting.
That he entered 2020-21, his age-21 season, as the betting favorite to win the league's highest individual honor and finished a "disappointing" sixth says everything about Doncic's stature among his sub-25 peers. Actually...peers? More like subordinates.
Doncic's total offensive mastery—his feel, vision and control of every possession—are unmatched by virtually everyone in the NBA. Once, you could have pointed to his three-point shooting as a relative weakness, but he hit 35.0 percent overall from deep last season and an even more impressive 35.6 percent on pull-up treys.
Guys in his age bracket aren't even in the same conversation; none of them piloted what was, at the time, the most efficient offense in league history as 20-year-olds.
If you had to pick the player most likely to collect multiple MVP trophies over the next five years, you'd be a fool to go with anyone but Doncic, who'll probably win at least one before he ages himself off this list in 2024.
5. Bam Adebayo, Miami Heat21 OF 25
Charles Krupa/Associated Press
Though a bit on the older side at 24, this is as low as we can possibly rank a player who's already been the defensive anchor (and a key facilitator) on a Finals team. An All-Defensive second-teamer two years running and an All-Star in 2020, Bam Adebayo offers just about everything you could ask for in a modern center.
He can switch, pass, finish lobs and attack off the dribble against slower big-man opponents (which, compared to him, is essentially all of them). He's also making steady year-over-year progress as a mid-range shooter. If Adebayo's trajectory in that specific area continues, and he becomes a viable three-point threat, he could settle in as a perennial presence on All-NBA teams.
If you had to pick a nit, it'd be that Adebayo isn't an elite rim-protector, but that may just be part of the bargain with a center who's quick enough to shuttle all over the floor and spends plenty of time checking guards and wings away from the basket.
With 2020-21 averages of 18.7 points, 9.0 rebounds and 5.4 assists, plus more win shares than any other sub-25 player, Adebayo established himself as a genuine star with a strong likelihood of improving on that status. He's a two-way difference-maker and an integral piece on a big-time winner—a rarity for players young enough to make this list.
4. Zion Williamson, New Orleans Pelicans22 OF 25
Gerald Herbert/Associated Press
Projections are always harder without precedents.
We've never seen a player with Zion Williamson's combination of bulk and athleticism, which makes it difficult to know how he'll age and what kind of player he might someday become. It's easy to forecast an early peak, a short prime and a quick decline when you think about the sheer strain his size puts on his joints. A torn meniscus that produced a 24-game rookie season didn't exactly push those worries aside, particularly with a handful of previous health issues hitting in both high school and college.
Weigh all that against another unprecedented aspect of Zion—his early-career production—and the decision only gets more fraught. Why shouldn't the only 20-year-old to ever average at least 27.0 points per game with a true shooting percentage north of 60.0 percent be first on this list? And what to make of the fact that the concept of "Point Zion" was only implemented midway through last season? Maybe he'd been playing with one hand tied behind his back all along until the New Orleans Pelicans figured out how to use him.
What if he becomes a reliable outside shooter?
What's his future as a defender look like?
How long will it take for him to prove he can lead a winner?
Williamson is one of one. His risks are unique, as are his skills and production. That confounding package of uncertainty still lands the 21-year-old very high on this list. There's a roughly equal chance that he belongs as high as second or as low as 10th, depending on whether you put more stock in his offensive production or his health and non-scoring shortcomings.
3. Trae Young, Atlanta Hawks23 OF 25
Matt Slocum/Associated Press
At 22, Trae Young was the central figure on an Atlanta Hawks team that took the eventual champion, Milwaukee Bucks, to six games in the Eastern Conference Finals. Playoff success isn't always a factor in these rankings, but when the player in question is so clearly the driver of what makes his team a postseason threat, it has to be.
The single most valuable commodity in the NBA is offensive shot creation, and Young did that more effectively for the Hawks last season than almost anyone else in the NBA. He added 12.7 points per 100 possessions to their offensive rating when on the floor, a figure bettered only by Stephen Curry among lead guards.
A threat to heave from the logo at any time, a top-five passer in the league and already one of the most diabolical foul-drawers around, Young heads into his fourth NBA season with career averages of 24.1 points and 8.9 assists.
Booker may have advanced a round deeper last year, and he's also the more impactful defender, but Young is an offense unto himself like few other players—of any age—in the NBA.
2. Jayson Tatum, Boston Celtics24 OF 25
Kathy Willens/Associated Press
With four NBA seasons logged, Jayson Tatum is one of the old heads on this list. But he's still just 23, which makes his achievements to this point all the more impressive.
Tatum is the only player on this list (the man at No. 1 excluded) with an All-NBA nod, and he's also distinguished by his role in a remarkably consistent high level of team success. The Boston Celtics forward is laps ahead of the sub-25 field with 50 career playoff games, and it's not like Tatum was a bit player in any of them. A starter in every game of his career—regular season and playoffs—Tatum owns career postseason averages of 21.6 points, 6.8 rebounds and 3.5 assists. He's reached the conference finals twice, and 2021 was the first season his Celtics failed to advance past the first round.
Tatum basically entered the league ready to compete at the highest level. Maybe that's why it feels like he's not on the same kind of upward trajectory as some of the other players on this list. It's telling when a 22-year-old averages 26.4 points, 7.4 rebounds and 4.3 assists on a 45.9/38.6/86.8 shooting split, and it feels unsurprising.
With ideal positional size and length, Tatum is perhaps the most complete player on this list. His teams consistently perform better on both ends with him in the game, he's a high-usage scoring threat who doesn't sacrifice efficiency and he's a weapon on D—whether on or off the ball.
Maybe a few players ranked lower have marginally higher ceilings, but all of them have less experience than Tatum and would be lucky to sniff the level of reliable postseason success he's achieved.
1. Luka Doncic, Dallas Mavericks25 OF 25
Ashley Landis/Associated Press
Luka Doncic and Oscar Robertson, who benefitted from the comically uptempo early 60s, are the only players to average at least 25.0 points, 7.0 rebounds and 7.0 assists over their first three seasons in the NBA. You've got to go back a long way to find someone who was this good this young, in NBA history.
The Dallas Mavericks superstar is also the only player on this list with multiple All-NBA nods, not to mention a pair of top-six finishes in MVP voting.
That he entered 2020-21, his age-21 season, as the betting favorite to win the league's highest individual honor and finished a "disappointing" sixth says everything about Doncic's stature among his sub-25 peers. Actually...peers? More like subordinates.
Doncic's total offensive mastery—his feel, vision and control of every possession—are unmatched by virtually everyone in the NBA. Once, you could have pointed to his three-point shooting as a relative weakness, but he hit 35.0 percent overall from deep last season and an even more impressive 35.6 percent on pull-up treys.
Guys in his age bracket aren't even in the same conversation; none of them piloted what was, at the time, the most efficient offense in league history as 20-year-olds.
If you had to pick the player most likely to collect multiple MVP trophies over the next five years, you'd be a fool to go with anyone but Doncic, who'll probably win at least one before he ages himself off this list in 2024.
