Lakers News: LA Stars Excluded From Expert's Top 10 NBA Player Rankings
Los Angeles Lakers stars LeBron James and Anthony Davis are two of the better players of this generation.
James? He has a solid case for being the greatest player of all time, while Davis, when healthy, has proven himself to be a dominant big man on both ends of the floor who'll likely be enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame when his career comes to a close.
They also both find themselves outside of the top 10 in CBS Sports' NBA player rankings.The rankings were compiled by hoops scribe Brad Botkin, James Herbert, Jack Maloney, Sam Quinn, Bill Reiter, Ameer Tyree, Colin Ward-Henninger and Jasmyn Wimbish.
CBS Sports asked their NBA experts for input on how they thought players across the league would perform in the upcoming season, and James and Davis are ranked at No. 12 and 13 respectively.
Again, this ranking is a projection of future success, but CBS Sports' Sam Quinn acknowledged the surprise that James is that low -- and the real possibility that the ranking for the league's all-time leading scorer may be off by the time this upcoming year ends.
"It's hard to say what's more startling: that LeBron James is getting ranked outside of the top 10 for the first time since, probably, his rookie year, or that he could very easily reclaim a top-10 spot when we revisit these rankings in a year."
As for Davis, Quinn mentioned his injury history and offensive inconsistency as his drawbacks.
"He's going to miss 25 games or so over the course of a season, and he's only going to reach his incredible offensive potential in around half of the games he does play."
via Sam Quinn, CBS Sports
I can understand Davis being outside the top 10 given his injury issues and occasional offensive drop-off. The Lakers even acquired a great insurance policy if he were to go down. But as for James, he's really shown no sign of slowing down and I don't think that he suddenly will this season.
What James has done over his 20 years in the league is unprecedented, and as he enters his third decade -- really, process that for a second -- in the NBA, he should still be very much a driving force for a contending Lakers team.
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