Ranking the NBA's 40 best lead guards, from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to Jaden Ivey

New York Times

a day ago

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Marco Belinelli announced his retirement from basketball at the age of 39. He's been playing in Italy for the last five years, but he had a 13-year NBA career, spanning nine teams as a scorer and outside shooter. He even won a championship with San Antonio in 2014. I'll always remember Belinelli for two things. 1) Summer league legend. He dropped 37 points for the Summer Warriors in his Vegas Summer League debut. 2) The moment he was drafted. You'll know it when you see it. Congrats on a good career and being one of the most decorated players in Italy's history.
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Who are the best lead guards in basketball?
In Friday's edition of The Bounce, we ranked the 40 best big men in the NBA, according to an esteemed panel of … me. So maybe it was just a steamed panel? Actually, I was in a great mood, so I wasn't steamed. I'll be honest. (My weak attempt at wordplay did not work out here, and I'm not quite sure how to seamlessly get out of it. So we're just going to continue to awkwardly transition to the topic at hand.)
Lead guards! You know you love them. You know you revere them. Maybe they don't play the pure style of point guard we're used to seeing, but this era of lead guards is just too dynamic and transcendent to attempt to put them in a box. They're hoopers. They're scorers. They're initiators. They're the engine of just about every team and offense in the league. Ranking them will take a deft touch, or me throwing together some graphs and you deciding how perfect/terrible the list is.
Obviously, this is arbitrary, and we may quibble on the idea of who is a lead guard and who isn't. But I feel pretty confident that anybody left off this list is either 1) not in the top 40 of lead guards or 2) placed correctly on the off-guard/shooting guard list we'll see later this week. Like the big men on Friday, this list is cut up into seven different tiers. Let's get to it!
If you have Dončić ahead of Gilgeous-Alexander, I don't think it's a terrible argument to make. But it feels like SGA's last 12 months (which includes a league MVP award and a championship!) have earned him this honor. Curry is still right there with them, considering how he affects the game and bends the court.
The second tier might be more interesting to me, though. Brunson is mostly a scorer, but he's also arguably the most clutch player in the league. The most clutch player of the postseason, Haliburton, is going to miss 2025-26 with an Achilles tear, but I'm ranking him fifth with the assumption that the 25-year-old will get back to full strength shortly after he returns. Irving gets the high rank despite his own ACL injury because I think he'll bounce back just fine. He's just not ahead of Morant… yet?
Cunningham made a massive leap last season, and I'm waiting to see Young do the same by consistently winning some games. Harden had a good season, but I'm not sure the accolades he took from it are entirely legitimate.
I want to see Fox next to Victor Wembanyama for a full season and see if it elevates his game. Maxey and Garland both need to bounce back from their respective injuries. I don't totally know what to do with Murray, but if he's healthy, then he plays perfectly off Nikola Jokić. Lillard is staying up this high out of respect for what he's been and while holding out hope he can get back near there after his Achilles recovery.
Ball is super popular online and has all the talent in the world. I'm just not sure when he's going to do something with it beyond numbers and highlights. At the same time, he hasn't had a good team around him at all. White could even be higher, and we'll see the Celtics ask more of him.
Murray and Holiday need to be healthy to justify this ranking. And I'm choosing to buy the Harper hype off what I've seen from him in brief moments from Rutgers and summer league. At 37, Conley is near the end of his career, but he's still super solid. And White is kind of underrated. I'm also choosing to believe in Henderson's second half of the season, which I really enjoyed.
Wallace would probably be higher if he weren't on SGA's team. Suggs could make this look foolish if he's healthy and knocking down 3-pointers. Russell has a hive online, but he doesn't seem to have a hive with coaches trusting him completely. And I'm very interested to see what Nembhard does without Haliburton on the court.
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Pacers, Rick Carlisle agree to extension
Contract news. After a surprising run to the NBA Finals, Indiana is locking up its head coach.
Depth chart. James Edwards III breaks down the Knicks' depth chart. Should they start two big men?
Offseason rankings. The Hall of Famer David Aldridge is ranking all 30 offseasons. Part 1 has us scratching our heads at the Warriors.
GM extended. The Raptors are extending general manager Bobby Webster. But this isn't a Masai Ujiri replacement.
📈 Power rankings! The latest WNBA power rankings and the new team is hoopin'. The Valkyries could make history.
Can you actually curb gambling scandals with prop limits?
The NBA acceptance of sports gambling and its investment in such an industry is really starting to pick up some momentum. The problem is it's not the momentum the league wants it to have. While the NBA has generated substantial revenue by embracing sports betting years ago, we've recently seen some alarming developments and tough allegations/investigations that have turned this into a potentially massive issue for the league.
Mike Vorkunov's latest report indicates that the league and players' union are exploring the possibility of limiting sportsbooks' betting on prop bets involving individual players.
'Protecting the integrity of our game is paramount, and we believe reasonable limitations on certain prop bets should be given due consideration,' an NBA spokesperson said. 'Any approach should aim to reduce the risk of performance manipulation while ensuring that fans who wish to place prop bets can continue to do so via legal, regulated markets.'
A spokesperson for the NBPA said the union would be open to creating more limitations around prop betting if it helped diminish the amount of abuse that players receive related to betting.
Players have been vocal about the harassment they endure when their performance does not help the bets made by fans. Furthermore, we've had multiple allegations thrown at players regarding manipulation of performance as large sums of money have been bet about those potential results.
Porter's brother and Brooklyn Nets forward Michael Porter Jr. recently talked on a podcast about how it would be so easy to help out friends by having them bet $10,000 on under bets and then the player would leave with an injury after a couple minutes in the game. That type of stuff is a nightmare for the NBA, as it continues to embrace gambling but protects against players possibly getting involved in such a scenario.
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After the Tim Donaghy scandal in 2007 with the disgraced referee admitting to betting on games he officiated for years, the league has to be especially sensitive to anything questioning the integrity of what's happening on the court. And this integrity issue goes beyond the NBA.
Sports fans and the internet love conspiracies, no matter what. But you can't keep having federal investigations of players, even if it's found that they're innocent. Maybe putting limits on prop bets helps lessen that? I have no idea what the solution could or should be. A symbiotic relationship with the sportsbooks should help with this.
Giannis slaps souvlaki out of teammate
Over the weekend, the internet was alarmed at Giannis Antetokounmpo when he slapped his teammate in the back of the head. The Milwaukee Bucks star is currently with the Greek National Team for the upcoming EuroBasket tournament. As you can see below, Giannis slapped his teammate out of nowhere when they were huddled up as a group.
Giannoulis 'Cobra' Larentzakis is No. 5. He's the player who was slapped, and the internet was quickly wondering why Giannis did this and if he had snapped. We've seen Giannis get very aggressive physically, most recently with the Indiana Pacers. But it's far different when it's a teammate, right?
It is, but maybe not for the reason you're thinking. Thanks to some explanations from the overseas basketball watchers, we got plenty of clarity here. Giannis (30) and Cobra (31) are roughly the same age and grew up playing basketball together in Greece and for Greece. You can see from this angle that several teammates are laughing after this happened. Why?
They apparently are close friends and attended high school together. And this might just be a running thing they do to each other. Here's a video of Giannis and Cobra from back when the Greek Freak was just a skinny, young player. And you can see Larentzakis tagged him a bit after Giannis blocked a shot.
There is no crisis here. Although let's see what happens if they get knocked out of EuroBasket early.
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(Top photo of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jaden Ivey: Alonzo Adams / USA Today Sports)
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