Back in 2015 Bleacher’s Report made a list of players they believed would be top 20 in 2020. These are the comments from reddit back then, including one who predicted who will be top 20 in 2025.

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/paffrp/in_2015_bleacher_report_predicted_the_top_20/ha4gt1t/

BR’s actual list in 2015 about who’s gonna be top 20 in 2020

Anthony Davis

Andrew Wiggins

DeMarcus Cousins

Kevin Durant

Russell Westbrook

Kyrie Irving

Blake Griffin

Stephen Curry

Paul George

James Harden

Giannis Antetokounmpo

Klay Thompson

Karl-Anthony Towns

Andre Drummond

Bradley Beal

John Wall

DeAndre Jordan

Jahlil Okafor

Dragan Bender

Jaylen Brown

Some dude’s list from 2020 about whom is gonna be top 20 in 2025:

Top 20 in 5 years in no great order:

Luka.

Giannis

Jokic

Tatum

Embiid

Booker

KD

Ingram

KAT

AD

Zion

Ja

Lavine

Trae

SGA

LaMelo

Cade

Brown

Beal

Mobley

Missing: Ayton Edwards Murray Mitchell Bam Collins Fox Halliburton Randle Sabonis Green Bridges Siakim RJ Dame Kryie Kawi Herro Suggs

walterdog12 | BOS

175 | 3 hours ago

God I wanted Dragan Bender so badly purely off his name.

Omgoodtimes

12 | 3 hours ago

Yeah he was huge in the Celtics sub I wanted him for the memes alone

Sti8man7 | Nuggets

10 | 2 hours ago

Hard to think of a nickname for him

Otto_the_Autopilot | NBA

10 | 2 hours ago

I’d call him the Dragon Bender

AltruisticNetwork869

2 | 2 hours ago

Bender “bending” Rodriguez

Far-Organization7368

1 | 17 minutes ago

D-Bend?

WaveOfTheRager | Suns

1 | 37 minutes ago

He was… a player

EersteDivisie

1 | 14 minutes ago

He always looked like shit, even at the second Israeli division (Yeah he was 17 when he played there, but even someone like Ben Saraf looked better there at 16).

He had a good showing at something like a u16 Eurobasket, somewhat fluid movement for a tall guy, and a cool name, and he somehow coasted off of it to being the number 4 draft pick

ihatedougford | Toronto Huskies

141 | 3 hours ago

“Also LeBron still might prove you wrong”

And yet he did

ThatPlayWasAwful | PHI

100 | 3 hours ago

I’m sorry but there’s no fucking way. No way in hell Lebron is still playing at 42, that’s impossible.

It’s a bummer that account got banned

KenTrevor | Lakers

24 | an hour ago

Lebron is 30 37, this fuckery won’t go on for much longer, thank god.

thavillain | Kings

2 | 2 hours ago

Right

j_cruise | Nets

14 | 2 hours ago

Yup. Still top 20 easily

for_fun_88 | Knicks

59 | 3 hours ago

I mean pretty accurate from BR considering. Obviously some have been misses but none were egregiously bad misses and they all make sense. Really shocked they did this well

SUPERSAMMICH6996 | Cavaliers

18 | 2 hours ago

Drummond, Wiggins, Cousins, Griffin, Wall, Jordan, Okafor, and Dragan Bender were all pretty bad misses.

PDXDreaded

7 | an hour ago

If you air ball into the stands you cannot miss with Dragon Bender. That’s a diety level name

Adorable-Onion-1974 | Celtics

1 | an hour ago

Man I’m hungry

SUPERSAMMICH6996 | Cavaliers

1 | 21 minutes ago

My goat was Sindarius Thornwell. I so badly wanted him to be great, based purely off his name. Sounded like a knight of the round-table.

UntilDoncic | Lakers

17 | 2 hours ago

Idk not having LeBron on the list is kinda crazy lol I know that he was getting older but he was literally peak lebron when they were writing this

Also Dragan Bender is crazy lmao

for_fun_88 | Knicks

4 | an hour ago

Yeah but they also must’ve considered that no athlete had ever been top 20 when in their later 30s and didn’t think LeBron would break that trend. A bad miss I guess but not an unreasonable logic behind not including him

Sharp-Selection-3541

15 | 3 hours ago

Just Beal and Ingram, kinda

grudgepacker | Bucks

7 | 3 hours ago

Ingram at 8 is probably the biggest miss tho

Sharp-Selection-3541

2 | 3 hours ago

Definitely

TeamINSTINCT37 | Wizards

4 | an hour ago

Beal at that time made an all-nba team and was averaging 30. Sure we weren’t all that but he was a fine prediction. Wall was the miss there

Sharp-Selection-3541

3 | an hour ago

I know and I’m a Beal fan but it was clearly a miss in predicting that lol that’s what this thread is about. Results vs predictions.

I don’t think he’s an idiot for thinking Beal would’ve still been good. I was just pointing out the ones listed that are very obviously not top 20 rn.

TeamINSTINCT37 | Wizards

1 | 10 minutes ago

The BR one was guessing in 2020 the redditor who was guessing for 2025 screwed it.

SkyrimDovahkiin | CHI

1 | 23 minutes ago

As a Kentucky fan, Wall getting injured broke my heart. His run with Paul Pierce on the Wizards is one of my favorite series’ ever.

SometimesIComplain | UTA

2 | 2 hours ago

Lavine

UntilDoncic | Lakers

1 | 2 hours ago

Bleacher Report didn’t mention Ingram

Sharp-Selection-3541

1 | 2 hours ago

Oh I’m dumb and thought dude listed the bleacher report list

UntilDoncic | Lakers

1 | 2 hours ago

Nah OP phrased it kinda weird

OrganicLingonberry78

2 | 3 hours ago

Ingram is a bad miss

UntilDoncic | Lakers

1 | 2 hours ago

They’re talking about the BR list though not this one

mattw08

0 | 2 hours ago

It wasn’t inaccurate at the time. There will always be misses on these but it wasn’t a bad miss. He was 22 - MIP and had a good season.

SUPERSAMMICH6996 | Cavaliers

-1 | 2 hours ago

Well yeah no shit nothing is really going to be a bad miss at the time. That’s not the point.

jonscotts | Nets

44 | 3 hours ago

Makes Brunson’s rise look even wilder in comparison.

Vegetable-Baker6362 |

31 | 2 hours ago

Other than SGA being too low and Ingram/Zion/Lavine being too high, I honestly don’t see any egregious flaws in the comment prediction for ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆.

Reminder that this was posted just after Ant’s rookie season and before Haliburton and Wemby ever played an NBA game. Honestly, Cade being that high before his NBA debut makes me believe they were a Pistons fan (account is now deleted so can’t confirm).

SUPERSAMMICH6996 | Cavaliers

6 | 2 hours ago

Honestly probably the worst take was just not having some players (namely Wemby, Brunson, and Mitchell) in the top 20. However players like Zion, Trae, Ingram, and Ja shouldn’t be on the list.

These are always going to be hard to do but I wish more people were willing to take risks on them. It almost always just seems to be ‘list of established and young players’. No ever just goes for it.

USCBubbles | Knicks

1 | 12 minutes ago

It would be seriously impressive if he predicted Wemby would be top 20 in 2025 in 2020 when he wasn’t drafted until 2023

alo623 | Mavericks

1 | 7 minutes ago

It’s pretty hard to make an argument that these are retrospectively bad takes, when there are maybe a few hundred people in the US in 2021 to even know the name Victor Wembanyama. Same with Brunson, who averaged 13/4/4 coming off the bench in his 3rd year with the Mavs as a 2nd rounder back then.

It’ll be similar to putting Ajay Mitchell on a top 20 list for 2031. Possible? Yeah, but I doubt anyone has so much faith as to take him over someone in their current prime or has a higher ceiling from draft pedigree on paper.

russfan0987 | Magic

1 | 26 minutes ago

Cade was considered the near perfect modern PG prospect, might not have necessarily been a Pistons fan

AceMcStace | Trail Blazers

15 | 2 hours ago

Absolutely no love for Dame lol damn

SeismicRipFart | Trail Blazers

-2 | 2 hours ago

Wood for the fire

Seregor_

6 | 2 hours ago

No Steph is a bad miss.

rogozh1n

4 | 2 hours ago

I never would have predicted how long his peak has lasted.

bbj123

2 | an hour ago

You never predicted the game of a generational player whose skill is least reliant on athleticism wouldn’t age well?

EfficientReach5571 | Knicks

4 | 2 hours ago

Dude didn’t even put Brunson in “missing” (and rightly so, I guess) … what a plot twist

imdrzoidberg | Lakers

3 | an hour ago

AD did look like the best player in the world during that 2020 run.

Saturdaze-Sundaes | Knicks Julius Randle

4 | an hour ago

That user posted a dang good list all things considered

SimpleCandle5158 | Pistons

4 | an hour ago

Did you just get the remind me from that thread?

naive-dragon [OP] | PHI

4 | 35 minutes ago

Lmao yes you caught me 😅 I always love threads like this to look back at how everyone else thought about shit back in the day, and wanted to share

thingsonthenet

3 | 2 hours ago

Zion is a bust

CuffedPantsAndRants | 76ers

0 | 2 hours ago

But I saw him do a massive dunk looking slim this offseason!

Purple-List1577 | Timberwolves

3 | 2 hours ago

Kawhi off an finals mvp can’t get love

ThaRealSunGod | Lakers

1 | 3 hours ago

Ja 🗿

Lavine 😭

Beal 💀

Booker at 6 🫵😂

rogozh1n

5 | 2 hours ago

I love Team USA Booker. I want him off the Suns and to get a fresh start somewhere.

ThaRealSunGod | Lakers

2 | an hour ago

I agree, not sure why people downvoted bc I was just laughing at how poorly some of these turned out.

But I would really like booker to get a better time to shine. KD should’ve helped with that but with Beal it just screwed everything up. Not to mention Ayton not being able to be the 1B for the suns.

Kinda a shame how much talent they’ve had with no results to show outside the miracle 2021 run

Kuntsaw | Suns

1 | 21 minutes ago

That does say no great order so probably just listing Booker.

Aggravating-Donut-46

1 | an hour ago

Is Scottie Barns top 20? If not where?

ResolutionOwn4933

1 | 13 minutes ago

Great reporting

Educational-Pay-1321

1 | 7 minutes ago

“no way Lebron would still be playing” https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/paffrp/comment/ha4melk/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button