With the 2023-24 regular season starting this week, The Ringer’s NBA writer staff decided to release their latest top-100 players ranking.
The year-round rankings are periodically updated, with the latest version publishing on Oct. 16. The staff of Bill Simmons, Rob Mahoney, Michael Pina, Chris Ryan and Justin Verrier participated in conducting the rankings.
The Oklahoma City Thunder enters the season with four players ranked in the top 100. A respectable amount considering Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s emergence and talented young core.
Let’s see what The Ringer’s staff had to say about the Thunder’s four core players and where they landed in their top 100 rankings.
No. 88: Chet Holmgren
What The Ringer had to say:
“Oh, there are plenty of reasons to doubt: the frankly iffy legacy of Gonzaga players in the NBA, the frame, the feet, the “missing his first season in the league after getting injured in a pro-am” piece. But in the limited amount of time we’ve seen Holmgren on a basketball court, he has not disappointed. He’s got handles, shooting touch from all over the floor, shot creation, an affinity for contact, and supernatural shot-blocking instincts”
No. 71: Jalen Williams
What The Ringer had to say:
“Williams checks all of the boxes of a prototypical modern wing: He can create off the dribble or drill a 3 off a kick-out pass, and he has the size, length, and physicality to blur positional lines…
Jalen was 21 years old when he entered the league, about two years older than most elite prospects, but there’s no concern about lack of “upside”—if anything, his measured, unselfish play is an asset on a young Thunder team. By merely refining his current skill set, he’ll be on track toward All-Star appearances in the near future.”
No. 64: Josh Giddey
What The Ringer had to say:
“Giddey is one of the most charismatic passers in the league. At 6-foot-8, he has the height to see over the defense, and he uses his size advantage and POV to come up with dazzling bursts of creativity…
Paired with a backcourt mate who has a legit chance to be in the MVP race (Shai Gilgeous-Alexander), he gets to be a kind of off-ball creator. He’s gotten statistically better in each of his first two seasons.”
No. 10: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
What The Ringer had to say:
“When you watch basketball’s best, most stifling defenders attempt to guard Gilgeous-Alexander, you can usually see their best-laid plans dissolve in real time. It takes awhile for go-to stoppers to even wrap their heads around the way SGA operates—how he swivels into and through the paint, shifting speeds and directions on a whim, getting exactly where he means to go by a route no one else would take. His fast rise through the ranks of the league is actually pretty explicable: Shai is just impossibly difficult to contain.”
