It’s that time of the year.

Well, it’s December, so it’s not the typical time of the year, but it’s a week or so before the league kicks off.

With the NBA season a week away, the major sports sites are releasing their predictions and rankings. This includes Sports Illustrated’s annual “Top 100 NBA Players” for 2020-21 season list. They’re again taking on the tedious (and fun) task of determining the 100 best NBA players of the upcoming 2021 season.

SI’s Top 100 NBA Players of 2021

Because everyone has opinions, who doesn’t love giving their options on these type of lists? Having seen and posted ESPN’s full list from a few days ago, we found that Sports Illustrated’s list is a much more thoughtful and accurate representation of the best players in the league. In our opinion, the difference between the two lists are night and day with the nod easily going to Sports Illustrated. Take a look at their list of the top players below:

Not every list is perfect

Do I disagree that Joe Harris (#86) is better than Lou Williams (#90) or Danilo Gallinari (#49) would be chosen over Caris LeVert (#62)? Yes, I definitely disagree with those positions, but we all will have our issues and preferences. By and large, the players on SI’s list feels more like the top hundred players in the league.

I don’t want to oversimplify a list of this scale because so many factors go into rankings players, but the easiest way to rank players is to think about how teams would draft them from #1 to #100.

Sports Illustrated’s list over ESPN’s

The fact that ESPN didn’t even include Lou Williams, Paul Millsap, JJ Redick, Goran Dragić, or Jonas Valančiūnas in their list should say it all, but the difference in some of the rankings help to flesh out the silliness of ESPN so-called expert rankings. Here’s a sampling where Sports Illustrated’s rankings feel more inline with actual basketball reality than ESPN’s

Not only was Sports Illustrated’s rankings just better, we also appreciate the sister article listing out the 25 players that were left off the list. This honorable mentions (or snubs depending on your point of view) goes into measured detail as to why those players we’re omitted from the list.

…the NBA’s Top 100 players is naturally a subjective task, and deciding who to omit can feel just as arbitrary as the ranking process itself. So much of players’ performance within basketball’s fluid construct is contextual—particularly in the case of those who work in complementary roles. As always, many of the players who missed the cut have legitimate cases, and others warrant mention regardless.

We appreciate the thought and effort that SI put forth in paying respect to those not on the list. The snubs each received a decent write up unlike ESPN’s ranking which simply tossed out their list, an RPM number and dedicated barely a paragraph to each player.