We arrive at perhaps the most loaded position the NBA has to offer: small forward.
Prior to this week, we already discussed the Top 22 point guards and Top 22 shooting guards in the Association. Now, it’s time to talk about the wings.
Top-tier modern NBA wings are expected to be experts in every field, including scoring, rebounding, creating and defending, and those that struggle in any one of those facets are quickly surpassed by the wings who can do it all.
For this exercise, we had each of our writers and editors put together their own lists of top small forwards and aggregated out the averages to rank the players.
For the record, some of the players we ranked below could have easily been considered point guards, shooting guards or even power forwards, which goes to show just how versatile modern wings are, but, as we’ll discuss below, we had specific reasons for choosing each player on this list as a small forward.
Oh, and one last thing: We didn’t rank Kawhi Leonard for this exercise due to the uncertainty regarding his return from injury. With some expecting him to miss all of 2021-22, it became too difficult to project him for our rankings.
Now, with all that said, let’s jump in.
Just missed the cut: Harrison Barnes, Joe Harris, Jae Crowder, Kyle Anderson, Lu Dort
