Meanwhile, Caleb Wilson could be anything! He could even be a Jayson Tatum level player!

You can argue about Harper, at least we have seen him. Wilson just played in the preseason.

If maximum potential is the barometer than how is Harper one as a smaller less athletic Flagg?

lol wtf cooper flagg fits that description more than anyone drafted in the last 3 years

This is inaccurate phrasing, they put harper and wilson above flagg because those dudes have a higher chance of attaining that mvp peak than flagg. Not that they will be better than that. They put so many hedges into every bit of their rankings and kept emphasizing that it was all very subjective, it was clear that they were not drawing any tangible lines between the players at the top. After 30 minutes of discussion, Ben just told Cody to pick someone because they still didn’t have an answer for the top spot.

But of course, stripped of all this context, redditors will pounce on the chance to tear apart these rankings and act shocked that someone would dare definitively place harper and wilson over flagg, as if that’s what actually happened here and it wasn’t a very tentative thing.

Isn’t Cooper’s comp also Tatum?

absolutely not true

Cooper has a maximum ceiling higher than that.

Yeah I don’t get it, cooper was great as a rookie on a team with no other ball handling options

Imagine if Flagg got drafted by the spurs and Harper had to lead the mavs

Leaving the Wilson part out for now, probably because Cooper is mainly an on ball scorer as an archetype, while Harper is a really strong defensive player while having proven value off ball. Thinking Basketball tends to weigh on ball creation as equal with like 3 other skillsets that they’ve segmented (you can find their methodology/skillset breakdown on their top 40 careers all time article). Just on vibes, they probably think the scalable parts of Harper’s game has more value than Cooper’s, enough to make up and surpass the gap between their unscalable/on-ball parts.

They really weigh the idea of “can this player hep in the playoffs” very heavily in most of their rankings. Flagg missed the playoffs, Harper excelled all the way to the finals

It’s not about whose better right now its based on potential.

Don’t get me wrong I still don’t agree with that take either but that is the criteria

Dylan Harper looked like the best player on the court for the Spurs for significant parts of a finals run. As a rookie.

The analytics have more data to go with when you make deeper runs and play more, and the playoff games could weigh more than regular season performances so could be a combination of those things

Yeah. This is f’n whack.

I consider Flagg the better prospect but Dylan has shown that he can dominate the fucking Finals.

He’s alredy proven at the grandest stage at age 19.

Have you seen Harper playing this past playoffs? He was the 2nd best player (occasionally even first when Wemby was missing vs Portland) on a Spurs team that went to the Finals yo. Tf did Flagg do?

https://www.instagram.com/p/DZNO9w3AQA0/?psln=MXN6MzdrNHhiY3gzNg== Harper scored more points than rookie Robinson and Duncan did bruh

Harper has played wayyy more meaningful basketball atp than flagg. Its perfectly reasonable to view flagg as a unproven prospect as of now compared to harper who has continued to improve and show his strengths against the best playoff defenses in the league.

Disagree

[deleted]

Flagg is a 1st option. Harper was a bench player last year lol

Un-Thinking Basketball hunting controversy again.

Most overrated channel.

But Caleb jump high and dunk hard.

He might just be higher on Wilson than others?  I think that’s fine considering the top four in that draft were all considered the same tier… should be just books his opinion for five years until there’s stats to back it up? Thats an insecure way to approach it.

A redraft means with the info they have currently idk Harper was just like the best offensive player for a team in a finals series that’s probably helping him a lot here. The Wilson at two is silly though. Flagg shouldn’t be 3rd that’s stupid

I’d still have Flagg above Harper, but at least with Harper you can argue that his playoff performances and eye test could maybe put him above Flagg, not that I’d agree.

But Wilson hasn’t even played an NBA game yet, what recency bias is there to go off lmao

Harper and Caleb Wilson aren’t remotely the same example. We saw Harper ball out in the finals as a rookie… Caleb Wilson hasn’t played a single game.

I rated him prior to the draft but it was strictly because i am a biased rutgers fan

The way they explain it makes no sense if what others are saying. They said Caleb was relatively raw in terms of basketball experience and thus had more potential but I can tell you that is false. I’m from the Atlanta area and have heard of Caleb forever.

Caleb has been playing basketball since elementary school. He was playing on elite AAU squads in middle school, and he was already posterizing people in 9th grade when he was on varsity. Even Ant gave him a shoutout back then when he was still in high school like around 9/10th grade.

I would give the list more credence if Caleb indeed was raw in the sense he started basketball at like 16-17 like Pascal Siakam or Hakeem Olajuwon and had this unnatural ceiling trajectory, but that isn’t even true. It seems like they just made up stuff to rank Caleb second or literally confused Caleb for Yaxel Lendeborg.

This one of the famous Ben Taylor alt accounts?

Thinking basketball was putting out high quality X’s and O’s content before anyone else. People who do their own thinking and research will often come to conclusions that break from consensus. Doesn’t mean they are correct, but they are neither trolls nor morons.

No he didn’t? Kon and Harper had better rookie seasons

edit: getting downvoted doesn’t mean i’m wrong. https://www.nbarapm.com/, https://databallr.com/wowy, https://dunksandthrees.com/epm?age_lt=23

I don’t think Flagg ever reaches Bron level, but look at their rookie numbers. The numbers are very similar and Flagg’s are actually slightly better.

Cooper was legit the best 18 year old since Bron and his numbers backed that up. I don’t most people are actually saying he’s going to be Bron 2.0 that would be crazy he doesn’t have that ceiling or playmaking, most people have said Tatum/Pippen type. Which his shot probably holds him back on a redraft if I’m being honest Wilson has already shown a crazy improvement on his shot.

I mean, rookie Flagg averaged more points, rebounds, and blocks on significantly better efficiency in 6 fewer minutes per game than rookie LeBron.

I think the fact Cooper played second fiddle to AD for half of the season people were paying attention to the Mavs makes people not appreciate how incredible of a rookie season he had.

Bro averaged a decently efficient 22-7-4 while being the only guy that would start on a playoff team that played minutes last year. He did that while playing with Naji Marshall as his second option AND without an NBA quality point guard (and no a 5’11 point guard that cannot score and a 6’2 guard that cannot shoot are not NBA quality point guards).

I don’t know if there’s another team not named SAC or BKN that had a worse number 2. Maybe Memphis?

Rookie Flagg might’ve been the closest we’ve seen to rookie Lebron so idk, obv they’re not the same and I don’t expect Flagg to be the next bron

Dawg. The dude is objectively number one in this list. It’s disrespectful that someone who hasn’t played in the league is in front of him and it’s disrespectful that a guy who’s excelling in a lesser role is ahead of him.

Similar to the Kon vs Cooper rookie of the year race, it doesn’t make any sense lol

you don’t even believe wilson is better right now or better as a prospect

I mean he’s easily #1

If you put LeBron third on a greatest OAT list it’s shitting on him

Yeah but that was like 3 months ago!

Yes it is objectively wrong to think Wilson goes above Cooper in a redraft. Don’t forget the fact that Cooper RIGHT NOW is 5 months younger than Wilson. So really even comparing Cooper right now to Caleb right now isn’t fair to Cooper

By that logic Lively goes above Wemby in a redraft because he was anchoring a Finals defense while Wemby couldn’t even carry his team to the play-in

Says the person who has no idea what thinking basketball even talks about….

Thinking basketball understands basketball at a very deep level. They don’t go off vibes or recency bias

What stats? Dude literally hasn’t played an NBA game yet, he has no meaningful stats for a redraft.

The totally valid, sophisticated approach of re ranking a drafted player before they play an NBA game

What stats you clueless mfer?

I don’t personally agree but Thinking Basketball is not known for trolling or hot takes

I know that historically they don’t do that but I don’t think that means they are incapable of doing that.

I’d guess this isn’t “who will be the best player for the 2026-27 season” but probably who they think will be best in several years.

That’s exactly what it is and I still think it’s gotta be a clickbait take because Flagg has basically always looked better than Caleb Wilson.

It would be one thing if Flagg came out and threw up mostly a dud for his first year but that was not the case. He has already shown us he has star potential in his first full NBA season.

Ben loathes the internet, he would never say disingenuous shit to generate interactions lmao

This is just what he thinks, I was in the middle of the previous pod earlier today. Sounds like a pretty big jump to put him above Flagg so I’m curious what he said.

Thinking Basketball literally thinks too much and arrives at idiotic conclusions all the time. Their assessment of Harden in top peaks for example was pure nonsense.

Yes, I agree with you.

I don’t think they were saying he’s better now. Just that “he might end up better” which I guess is possible. But he’s nowhere near Flagg as of now.

Agree with your overall point but we can be honest here and say those 40-50 point games were manufactured at the end of the season involving games that were meaningless. We saw that context

I think it’s unlikely Wilson ends up being better than Flagg, I’m just saying that it’s a possibility. The point of my post is that it’s pretty crazy to have Wilson over Flagg in a re-draft.

Clickbait? It’s literally a podcast episode on Spotify not even a YouTube video. There’s no clickbait in the title of the episode either.

The majority of people complaining haven’t even listened to the episode or don’t even listen to his podcast regularly.

He had a great playoffs and a good regular season, but he was helped a lot by being at most the 2nd focus of a defense since Wemby would always be the 1st. Flagg had 20 games of AD and basically role players outside of that.

There were times where he didn’t look like number one as well. I think DH is fantastic, but he’s getting overrated at this point, and I don’t think he’s capable of the kind of output that Flagg is while maintaining his efficiency.

Agree Harper had to fight his way to key minutes on a team destined to playoff excellence in his first year, in some aspects outperforming the starting max contract guard against the defending champions.

Flagg is great but his stats aren’t coming from a team that expects to even be in the play in

It’s actually just engagement bait because there’s still no sane person putting Flagg at #3.

Not purely analytical, most is film study

pUReLy anaLItIcaL

Yeah people have let the narrative get a bit out of control. Harper was incredible as a rookie in the finals. He also put up 18/6/3 with 0.4 bloks and 0.2 steals on 48/28/77 shooting.

Harper was brilliant compared to the average rookie but people are acting like he was prime Kobe or something.

Yeah, I’m not sure how there’s an argument for Dylan and I love Dylan

also imagine what harper would look like on that mavs team.

No shit because being in higher leverage situations improves players proportionally. Harper is a significantly better player than he wouldve been just for the fact of being in those situations at this early a point in his career.

It still doesnt change the fact that he did that experience, even if its “unfair”. Harper vs Flagg, who are you trusting with the ball in a finals game right now?

That’s ridiculous. He played on a loaded team with a player you and everyone else here has already crowned as the greatest player to walk on this planet.

Brother Wemby exists as one of the most dominant players the league has seen since Shaq stfu lmao

Bruh, he averaged 14/4/5 in playoffs. Relax.

At least become starter before jumping ahead of first option guy.

WTF are you babbling about? One guy had Wemby and Castle and a great organization. The other fired its entire basketball operations, coach and their star guard didn’t even play the whole year. Harper in similar circumstances is waiting for the lottery too. Absolutely insane to suggest otherwise.

Oh stop. We can objectively say that if Cooper Flagg had the talent around him that Harper had, he would perform. We know this because of how shitty the team around Cooper was and we saw how well he performed.

Harper is a great prospect and will be a phenomenal player, but when you’re job is shining next to incredible players like Castle, Wemby Vassell and (when healthy) Fox, it’s a bit easier to pull off than when you’re next to Naji Marshall, Daniel Gafford, Max Christie and PJ Washington.

What is the world is this statement. One has the third best player in the world on his team taking the offensive and defensive attention and the other was playing with bums dropping 40 while being younger than harper. There is no world where right now Harper is better than flagg

Why would I hate on Harper because I’m a Knicks fan?

We won bro.

PS. Idgaf about who his father played with, he’s his own man.

God these guys are allergic to nuance. You are absolutely right. If you contrarian schmucks ever get a Time Machine to go back in time to the 2023 draft, try proposing to the spurs that they trade the number one pick for Evan Mobley.

“Feels weird to me that you’re valuing a guy who’s literally never done anything over a guy who’s proven himself to be a good pro. Playing the game matters! Staying healthy matters! Real weird of you to get so attached to this wembanyama character who’s NEVER done a thing over a guy who’s PROVEN he can put up 16/9/3 with 1.5 blocks a game 🤔”

Ben thinks Caleb is going to be better than Flagg in 10 years. It might be a moronic opinion. I certainly disagree. But argue with the point being made instead of some straw man

Well, yeah bc playing the games matters. Staying healthy matters.

Wemby is a generational talent compared to those other three - it’s not far fetched. We’re talking about non-generational talent guys who has only played in preseason. It’s asinine no matter how you look at it. Players like Kon and Flagg were put on bad teams and put in work. Kon was even pivotal of the Hornets making the play-in after how long? Flagg with multiple 40+ games even when JKid had him as PG. Caleb Wilson hasn’t even been the best rookie out of this draft in preseason yet he’s better than both those guys? Same for DP

as opposed to 4 months and zero regular season games ago?

You put it perfectly. They also use a lot of assumptions. They’ll assume these 2nd/3rd option types like Harper would put up Flagg numbers if they had the green light on the Mavs, but for some reason they never assume Flagg’s “contribution to winning” and advanced stats would look a lot better if he played next to Wemby.

Ironically he has highlighted in the past Hakeem’s best offensive qualities and how much of a monster David Robinson is. He’s even given great views on how Iverson’s analytical flaws don’t paint how he impacted a game completely. I think he’s good at analyzing the past but he really tries to outsmart everyone else when talking bout the future. He made arguments that Cade should be an off ball player for some reason

Hakeem and Robinson have insane analytics, far better than Pippen. And Ben is an analytics nerd that watches as much NBA basketball as anyone that covers the game. He wasn’t around in the 90s but has been making content for like 20 years.

Frankly you don’t sound like you know what the fuck you’re talking about regarding any of what you brought up.

That’s literally not how analytics work and you just made up like random arguments to dismiss analytics. Thinking Basketball isn’t even using analytics here, as they are just using vibes. Because if they were actually using analytics, someone like Boozer would be higher than Wilson. That alone should tell you they just went with vibes.

If these dudes were around in the early 90s making content they’d have Scottie Pippen above Hakeem and David Robinson.

You are just making stuff up to try to argue against why analytics is dumb when there’s literally 0 analytics people in the entire world that would ever have put Scottie Pippen above Hakeem and David Robinson.

In fact, even when analytics wasn’t even advanced like the way it was today, Hakeem/Robinson were dominating the analytical stats in the early 90s over Pippen. Robinson literally swept those analytical awards they had in the 90s, which I always found to be funny because it actually overrated Robinson.

I think the problem is that there’s like a lot of missing data in terms of how stats/advanced stats scale with usage, because basketball is very binary in that you either have or don’t have the ball.

It’s very hard to extrapolate if a 2nd or 3rd option could be a super star on another team, because unlike something like pitching where maybe you can track ERA versus pitches thrown a season; but it’s not like you’re going to get a clean sample size of a guy from 5% -> 30% usage; which is what you’d need to actually make some of these claims.

I mean Harper was their best offensive option for stretches in the playoffs. I agree with you but he’s not a good example of someone who couldn’t scale up into being a good 1st option lol.

They literally love those 2 guys.

Also they literally put Peterson and AJ above Kon because they think Kon can be a monster 2nd or 3rd option but never a 1st option.

analytic guys seem to hate jaylen brown lol

I don’t really care how much more basketball he’s watched, that doesn’t suddenly mean I have to agree with his takes. He has a history of over-rating 2nd/3rd option types on good teams and holding it against guys on bad teams, and a lot of that is because being on a good team usually means your analytics are going to look better.

I just brought up how he used to underrated Cade in favor of Moblet even when it was clear as day to anyone who watched both that Cade would be/was/is better. Surely his eye test could have told him that.

He’s also consumed enough basketball media to know that interesting or unconventional picks garner engagement more than a standard “Cooper Flagg is the best draft pick.” He is still in media, even if it’s more analytical than Stephen A

lol this. i usually don’t agree with most of his takes but i will never presume to know more about basketball than this psycho.

He’s good at analyzing the past and things that are currently happening. His future predictions seem like he’s trying to go against common intuition sometimes

Watching more film doesn’t mean he can’t be biased.

He can watch all that and come to the wrong conclusions.

Most reasonable take in the thread

Idc if he’s watched more than me. He’s still wrong.

That doesn’t mean anything because guys like Bill Simmons have watched more basketball than even Thinking Basketball and nobody would ever consider him some savant with a plethora of knowledge on the game these days. Just watching basketball all the time doesn’t make you an expert nor does it make you infallible from saying silly things. We shouldn’t blindly agree with the statements being made. The crazy thing is nobody would’ve even blinked if Harper was number 2 on the list behind Cooper Flagg. It’s the fact that Flagg is 3 that has people side eyeing this list because we saw him have an incredible rookie year and project him to get even better.

you can watch 100 brain surgeries but it won’t mean you’ll be an expert in brain surgery by the end

That just tells me you weren’t paying attention. Mobley was good to start, but so was Cade. It’s only casuals who thought Cade was mid/fine snd then had a huge breakout.

No, he improved for sure, but you guys just started paying attention to him in 2025, which is why it seems like he burst onto the scene.

No, he expects him ro be a 2-3 times all star

Caleb Wilson has yet to play for Bulls, what kind of an argument is this? At least wait for them to suck.

The same people that glaze Thinking Basketball also hate Nate Duncan. I actually prefer Nate Duncan because when he’s wrong he at least admits it.

The point is that Cade ended up the much better player. I dont feel like having to you explain to why beating someone in a playoff series does not, in fact, make you a better player.

Mobley is like the third or fourth best guy on his team.

I’m a Bulls fan from Chicago and this doesn’t even make sense to me. How do you become the 3rd pick of the last three drafts when you just went fourth (pretty much considered unanimous 4th, all 3 other guys were fully expected to get picked ahead of him) in the last draft and none of those has played a real game yet?

I don’t know what games you’re watching or why you have a beef against Harper, but he was CLEARLY our second best offensive player in the finals. In fact, one of his biggest issues is that he isn’t aggressive enough considering how good his paint play is. There were a few times in the finals where you can see Mitch literally yell at Harper to stop passing it out and go at his man… and Harper usually scores. Even Harper in one of his final interviews says that Pop keeps telling him to be less passive.

The whole “the Knicks let him score buckets thing” is ridiculous. Teams don’t let other teams score buckets. “We just let him score because we don’t think he’s good” is just asinine thinking. When we say things like “the Y team let X player get his this game” we almost take it to mean that X player is really good and Y team knows he’ll get buckets so they focus on shutting down other players.

Your just making stuff up. Yeah. I’m sure the Knicks coaching staff though Harper, the #2 pick in the draft in the nba finals was trash lmao

You’re not a spurs fan. Harper is our next generation player, son of 5x champion Ron Harper and does crazy things on court like cutting through guards in ways most of his team mates can’t. No I don’t think he’s better than Wemby but saying he’s overrated, or as a spurs fan trying to say Flagg is better? He fills a role others can’t

And Flagg would start on all teams.

True, but Coop would start on all teams. I don’t feel comfortable taking anything away from either of them but there’s a reason Cooper went at 1

Flagg would start on any team

By the end of the year he did start winning. It’s his rookie season. It’s not very common for a rookie to be THE GUY on the team.

It’s pretty impressive to be the guy on an nba team regardless of if they are good or bad

Average hornets fan opinion after the ROTY discourse last year.

“Why isn’t Lamelo #1?”

One had a record breaking rookie season with being th nr1 on each opponents scouting report and defendes locking in on him. The other was maaaybe nr.3 on the scouting report.

Part of an early redraft is to see

How much you value potential vs what you’ve seen though.

Are you really taking VJ over any of the guys above him if given the same decision?

Cooper at 4 fits the Spurs a bit too well.

They 100% would

It’s a no brainer.

Wanting people to actually engage with the full context of what he says and the arguments he makes is entirely different from someone taking a several hour podcast and publishing it as a text list without any of the arguments he made for people to talk about without context.

???

this is like saying Jokic shouldn’t play in the NBA just because he doesn’t like doing media things or the celebrity circus. Just because you don’t like certain parts of your hustle doesn’t mean you should abandon it altogether, wtf lol

I get that. Went through it with rookie Cade. Flagg is fucking GOOD and anyone who can’t see that is insane.

There was a sizable push for Chet being ROTY for the first half of the 2023-24 season precisely because the Spurs were ass while the Thunder were the 1 seed

What evidence shows that Edwards is more than Pippen? He’s insanely overrated.

Y’all always say Pippen, he’s looking more like a Durant with more defense now lmao

I really question the validity of Thinking Basketball if what you are saying is true. Wilson has played organized basketball for a long time. He’s been playing since elementary school lol. I’m from the Atlanta area, so we’ve heard of Caleb since end of middle school when he was already really good. He was already posterizing people in 9th grade when Ant gave him a shoutout. Caleb even has this story where he tells everyone where he was “benched” in middle school and it motivated him (similar to MJ), but what gets lost was he was “benched” on an elite AAU squad playing at nationals, which shows you how good he was at an early age. This isn’t Joel Embiid or Hakeem Olajuwon where they didn’t play growing up.

Is he thinking Wilson is Yaxel Lendeborg or someone like that and confused the two? Yaxel actually fits as he hasn’t played organized basketball a long time (since high school due to bad grades and lack of motivation) but he’s also old so I wouldn’t put him second either.

If it’s not rage baiting then they are morons and no one should ever listen to their analysis again.

Key to being elite at the highest level. Get drafted by team that makes the finals. Swap Harper for Flagg, do the Spurs get worse or better?

You are right! Harper totally led his team to the finals. Wait until he gets some good players on his team!

One is the 1st option while the other is 3rd/4th

Luke Kornet >>> Joel Embiid. Hey, he’s proven he can contribute in the Finals!

That’s at least and argument to be made, even if it is shaky.

But Wilson? nah

He gotta at least earn starting spot in his team, lmao

You mean the pressure that got alleviated cause they got an ROTY the season before and the freak atlhete who is projected to be the best player of his era and also won the ROTY? Do you think they’d guard an unproven player than Wemby and Castle? Sure, Harper might be better than Castle in the next few seasons but saying he’s playing at the highest level is just glazing at this point. If he truly was the best, then they should’ve been the projected #1 pick by every single team

This makes literrly no sense lol. If you take wemby out of that team and make Harper their best player and his robbin is someone of kyries level they arent making the second round. He had a great performance but that’s because he doesnt have to lead the team.

Flagg would never lose 4-1 in the finals. Unfortunately Harper have proven he does not have what it takes the the lights shine the brightest.

Is there a league better then the NBA? You do realize he plays against the same players and teams in the regular season right?

Idk man as someone that doesn’t watch college sports I didn’t see anything special in Flagg but Caleb Wilson looks like one of them ones, I just can’t keep my eyes of his play

I don’t think he’d be comped to Tatum anymore. Seeing him in his final games in his rookie season, plus him being taller and the first preseason game (doesn’t mean much but still), I think he’d be quite a rare combination of Lebron (driving) and Durant (scoring middy/3s). His shot is not quite there yet on 3s, but I think he cleared middies in his arsenal. He did seem comfortable shooting in the first preseason game. I’d like to see how he plays in a few hours

I said one of the best. And in terms of Flagg being first place, I’m talking about this list (players from the last three drafts).

He said the gap between him and the second pick in his draft. Try tot not to be obsessive and so triggered.

Because he wants to make money and just doing those purely basketball breakdowns are great but they need to fill in more content drops weekly.

You mix quality with opinion pieces and other content. To be able to get more sponsored posts and ad revenue.

Nate Duncan and Danny Leroux are the only ones I’ve found.

I work in a stats heavy background so their analysis, even when I disagree with it is always inteeesting, even if sometimes they can be a bit dry

If it helps, i feel most spurs fans know cooper is better than Dylan

I wish Ben would cohost with somebody more knowledgeable than Cody.

I don’t think that’s fair. He doesn’t lay out the thesis in simple English but it’s still there. He grabs ten minutes of plays the highlight the points he wants to make and expects you to fill in the blanks. It’s lazier than his old content but still way above the usual shit.