Sports
NBA Player Tiers: Kevin Durant, Steph Curry hang on in Tier 1, but how much longer?
This is the fifth annual NBA Player Tiers project, in which Seth Partnow names the top 125 players in the league after each season and then separates them into five distinct categories of value, each with their sub-categories to further delineate them. These are not meant to be read as firm 1-125 player rankings. Rather, they’re meant to separate solid starters from the very best superstars, and every level in between. This is how NBA front offices assess player value across the league when building their teams.
NBA Player Tiers: ’20 | ’21 | ’22 | ‘23 | ’24 pre-playoffs | ’24: T5 | T4| T3 | T2
The NBA is undergoing a changing of the guard. While Tier 1 has been relatively stable during the five seasons I’ve done this exercise — only nine players have been in Tier 1 at least once, with the six below plus LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard and James Harden — many of the stalwarts are facing the ticking of the clock, while the next wave, such as Jayson Tatum, Anthony Edwards and, of course, Victor Wembanyama, are knocking on the door.
I could have gone several ways with this group, from having only a super select top three or four making up the entirety of the tier to rewarding some of those up-and-comers at the expense of the old warhorses, and I wouldn’t much argue with those who saw it that way.
But for now, here are the cream of the crop.
Tier 1B (4-6)
Remarkably, a 62.6 true shooting percentage on 29.0 usage represents a down year for Kevin Durant, even compared to just the post-Achilles tear section of his career. The poorly constructed and extremely top-heavy Phoenix Suns roster did him few favors, which raises a question that has only factored tangentially into the tiers over the years: How much should player influence on roster decisions and coaching hires be factored in?
It’s a challenge to do so systematically. At least from the outside, who advocated for what move or how much weight an organization gives to a star’s wishes are difficult to determine. But the balance of reporting indicates that Brooklyn/Phoenix era Durant has demanded many things and received most of them, including the hiring and firing of coaches.
It is often said that coaches shouldn’t be GMs because there isn’t enough time in the day to do both jobs well. This holds even more true for players. But how much is it on the players when it happens? It’s a hard one to judge, but it’s something that likely needs to enter the calculus when considering later career superstars such as Durant, LeBron James or one or two others.
All of this is to note that Durant barely maintained his spot in Tier 1 this year and will need a strong performance — including the playoffs — in 2024-25 to be worthy of staying here.
Another former MVP somewhere on the back nine of his career is Stephen Curry. With the Golden State Warriors missing the playoffs, has Curry’s ability to drag indifferent teammates to success waned, or did Golden State find the bottom edge of overall roster ability at which he could do so? Or was it perhaps some combination of both?
Make no mistake, Curry is still a great, great player. But there are subtle signs of decline. His rim-attempt rate was the lowest of his career by a decent margin. His ability to impact the game as a team defender has dropped off considerably — over the last two seasons, he has averaged 1.2 steals per 100 possessions, precisely half of the 2.4/100 he maintained over the first 13 years of his career.
For the first time other than 2019-20, when he appeared in only five games, 2023-24 was the first time the Warriors were superior in terms of net rating with Curry off the floor than on, with Golden State 0.6 points per 100 possessions better when Curry was on the bench, compared to 14.5 per 100 better with Curry on the floor from his first MVP season in 2014-15 through 2022-23. At 35, there is no shame in acknowledging that Curry is not quite the automatic driver of elite offense that he has been for most of his career, but that dip does move him down from 1A to 1B.
For Joel Embiid, it is seemingly always something: Bad health, be it either his health or his teammates’; a ball bouncing four times on the rim and then dropping to eliminate the Sixers from the playoffs; star players falling out with the organization, requiring trades or other reshuffling of the lineup. All of these and more have conspired to keep Embiid from ever reaching the conference finals, which is unfortunate because by several impact metrics, Embiid has been the second-most-effective regular-season player in the league across the last four seasons, behind only Nikola Jokić’s all-time great run.
This past season, you couldn’t have asked for more from Embiid himself, either in the regular season or in the Sixers’ short playoff run. But he still hasn’t truly stamped his authority on a postseason and has never consistently hit the same level of dominance. His playoff shortcomings have probably been overblown, with a career 58.0 percent true shooting on 31.6 percent usage. But ignoring his abbreviated rookie year, he has 61.6 percent true shooting on 35.5 percent usage. The latter is otherworldly, while the former is merely damn good.
There have been myriad reasons for the lack of extended playoff success, many of them completely outside Embiid’s control. But it has always been something, and that’s enough to keep him in Tier 1B for now.
Tier 1A (1-3)
For all the complexity the NBA game offers, basketball can be pretty simple. Pair an offensive force with the size, vision and ability to draw extra defenders with a dynamic rim threat (or two!) and surround them with shooters, and that’s a hard formula to stop. While Luka Dončić was good all year, the midseason trades that brought in Daniel Gafford and P.J. Washington helped both Dončić and the Mavericks reach exit velocity and launch into orbit.
It wasn’t just a more favorable context. Dončić made some subtle but telling improvements, becoming a more active off-ball participant — a higher percentage of his made 3s were assisted than any season since his rookie year — while also upping his defensive contributions.
The defense was an unsung part of the Mavs’ run to the NBA Finals. While Dončić was rarely if ever tasked with the primary matchup against the opposition’s top weapons, he made more effective use of his size and game-reading ability, particularly against the Oklahoma City Thunder and Minnesota Timberwolves.
While our lasting memory might be the disappointment of Dallas losing the finals, that is as much an illustration of how even top superstars need a bit of good fortune to reach the pinnacle. Not only did the Celtics significantly out-talent Dallas top to bottom, but Boston was as well-equipped to deal with Dončić on its own defensive end while having the range and volume of on-ball creators to attack him in ways other teams couldn’t on defense.
There is still some room for improvement, as Dončić’s conditioning could probably use an upgrade, while his penchant for engaging with officials — occasionally picking up some silly fouls such as in Game 3 of the finals series — could stand to be scaled back significantly. But using those quibbles to keep him out of Tier 1A would be setting a near impossible standard that few players in NBA history, let alone current day, could match.
Giannis Antetokounmpo is the only player who has resided in Tier 1A in every year-end edition of the Tiers. For the first time, I had some slight doubts putting him here. He has missed time in four of the last five postseasons, including the entirety of the Bucks’ stay this year. During that stretch, Milwaukee has lost its first-round series as a higher seed twice, something definitely held against other players, though, of course, his dominance through the 2021 playoffs has and will continue to buy Antetokounmpo good will on that front.
There is also worry about how robust his impact will be as he approaches 30, which he will reach in early December. Some of it was surely because of Milwaukee’s rather disheveled start to the season from a schematic and coaching standpoint, but Antetokounmpo’s struggle to find synergy with Damian Lillard could reflect a degree of inflexibility or stubbornness that could prove challenging as he begins to age and lose some of his athleticism.
There have been suggestions that the Bucks have been somewhat limited in their ability to be tactically versatile; considering how important adjusting and iterating has become in the postseason, limiting those options is a drawback. Antetokounmpo enters next season on the bubble for dropping out of Tier 1A for the first time.
Having gone through 124 players, we are left with the reigning (and should be four-time consecutive, but why relitigate that particularly noxious debate?) MVP Nikola Jokić at the top of the heap. Even though the Nuggets ultimately fell to Minnesota in seven games in what was the best series of this past postseason, Jokić left some indelible memories. His third quarter in Game 5 against the Wolves defies description, for example.
During his three-in-four MVP run, Jokić has averaged a combined 26.1 points, 12.2 rebounds, 8.7 assists, 1.4 steals and 0.8 blocks per game. Even lowering those thresholds to 25/10/7.5/1/0.5, no other player has hit those heights even once.
And he has done it while scoring efficiently enough to lead the league twice and finish second twice in “TS Add” — a metric created by Basketball-Reference indicating the number of points above (or below) a player scores than he would have had he scored at league average on the same number of attempts.
To repeat one last time, these tiers are not rankings.
But if they were, the Joker would be No. 1.
NBA Player Tiers: ’20 | ’21 | ’22 | ‘23 | ’24 pre-playoffs | ’24: T5 | T4| T3 | T2
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(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic: Photos: Sean Gardner, Noah Graham / NBAE, Jesse D. Garrabrant / NBAE via Getty Images)
Sports
Florida AG launches civil rights investigation into MLB’s warning to Christian pitchers over Pride Night caps
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The attorneys general from Missouri and Florida have reacted strongly to the controversy stirred when Major League Baseball warned three San Francisco Giants players about inscribing a Bible verse on their Pride Night caps, and that reaction includes MLB being served with a subpoena that signals the launch of an official investigation.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier launched his investigation on Friday by serving MLB with a subpoena to investigate whether it is violating the civil rights of players based on their religious beliefs.
The general purpose and scope of Florida’s investigation “extend(s) to possible civil rights and deceptive and unfair trade practices violations in matters of employment concerning the business practices, policies, and procedures of Major League Baseball,” per the subpoena obtained by Fox News Digital.
In a letter from Uthmeier to MLB Commissioner Robert Manfred, the AG warns that “a pattern or practice of selectively enforcing its rules to benefit favored secular beliefs over disfavored religious beliefs would not only potentially violate Florida civil rights law, but it would also violate the League’s own policies.
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL FACES BACKLASH FOR ITS STANCE ON CHRISTIANS WRITING BIBLE VERSES ON PRIDE CAPS
“And a practice of claiming not to discriminate based on religion while discriminating based on religion could further amount to an unfair or deceptive trade practice in violation of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.”
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier speaks at a news conference in Orlando on July 15, 2025, where he said U.S. Masters Swimming should not allow transgender athletes to compete against women swimmers or face legal action. Advocates Cassidy Carlisle and Lainey Armistead also attended. (Rich Pope/Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service)
Uthmeier is particularly troubled by the fact MLB said its warning had nothing to do with the players’ religious beliefs but rather was strictly because of a violation of the league’s uniform code.
It should be noted MLB said in a follow-up statement to its initial warning to the players that it was merely enforcing its uniform codes and the warning had nothing to do with Giants pitchers Landen Roupp, JT Brubaker and Ryan Walker writing a Bible verse on the team’s Pride Night Cap most of the other players wore.
MLB ACCUSED OF ‘DOUBLE STANDARD’ AFTER CALLING OUT PLAYERS’ BIBLE MESSAGES DESPITE BACKING BLM IN 2020
Uthmeier noted that doesn’t ring true and presented in his letter a handful of examples where MLB has been absolutely fine with players adding to their uniform.
“In 2019, for example, a Cincinnati Reds player wrote on his cap in tribute to a nearby mass shooting,” Uthmeier wrote to Manfred. “And in 2020, MLB evidently added new, sweeping exceptions to its uniform rules by allowing players to ‘support social justice and diversity and inclusion.’ These policy changes included permitting players to add Black Lives Matter patches to their sleeves.
“MLB therefore appears to applaud — even change its rules for — the ideological beliefs it prefers, but targets players who express religious views the League doesn’t like.”
Commissioner of Major League Baseball Robert D. Manfred Jr. speaks at the 2024 MLB Draft presented by Nike at Cowtown Coliseum in Fort Worth, Texas, on July 14, 2024. (Daniel Shirey/MLB Photos via Getty Images)
The Florida subpoena, issued under the Florida Civil Rights Act, demands action from MLB on July 23, 2026, at 9 a.m.. At that time, MLB must deliver to the AG’s office documents including:
- All documents concerning how MLB characterized or classified the June 2026 cap writing, including, for example, whether MLB treated it as religious expression, political messaging, protest, or a violation unrelated to its content.
- All documents concerning what prompted MLB’s review of and warning regarding the June 2026 cap writing, including any complaint, media inquiry, internal escalation, or third-party communication received before the warning issued, and the timing of each relative to the warning.
- All documents concerning the actual June 2026 warnings issued by the MLB to any club.
- All documents, including drafts and internal deliberations, concerning MLB’s decision to issue and publicly announce the June 2026 warnings, and any analysis of whether doing so adhered to the Code or with MLB’s treatment of comparable non-religious expression.
San Francisco Giants pitcher Landen Roupp wrote “Genesis 9:12-16” on his Pride-Night themed hat. (Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)
Uthmeier is thus joining Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway, who recently wrote a letter to Manfred asking the commissioner to confirm that no player who has chosen to refrain from “wearing Pride Month paraphernalia or included Bible verses on Pride Month hats” will not be disciplined in any way.
Hanaway’s letter states that if Manfred fails to answer by June 25 or does not confirm that no discipline will be levied, she too will open an investigation of MLB.
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The two attorneys general have authority over their individual states. But it affects four MLB teams.
Florida is home to two MLB teams — the Tampa Bay Rays and Miami Marlins — while Missouri is home to the St. Louis Cardinals and Kansas City Royals.
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Sports
Commentary: Why MLB’s Pride Night cap condemnation isn’t the anti-Christian crackdown conservatives claim
Amid the first days of grief after Alex Vesia and his wife lost their newborn daughter last fall, Vesia noticed something as he watched the World Series on television. He paused the broadcast, then checked the video, then texted another player to make sure.
51.
Dodgers teammates wore his number on their caps. So did players from the Toronto Blue Jays.
“It was awesome,” Vesia said. “It was a very heartwarming moment.”
Moving.
Touching.
And, under baseball’s rules, illegal.
Who knew, really, until this week? Three pitchers from the San Francisco Giants wrote the name of a Bible verse on their Pride Night caps and, amid an uproar, Major League Baseball said it had warned the players that “writing of any kind, with any message” on any playing apparel is not permitted. The issue, the league said in a statement, was not what they wrote on their caps but simply that they wrote on them at all.
Said MLB in the statement: “We have given the same warning numerous times in the past to players for messages such as ‘Dad’, ‘Happy Mother’s Day, I Love Mom’ and names of family members.”
To its credit, the league did not enforce the rule when Vesia’s number started appearing on caps in the World Series. But, if you’re going to draw a line on enforcement, where should you draw it?
In San Francisco, the actions of the Giants’ pitchers were widely condemned.
“They were in for a rude awakening with the response, and it wasn’t just from the gay community,” Giants broadcaster and former pitcher Mike Krukow told KNBR, the team’s flagship radio station. “It was from the Northern California community that supports the gay community.”
In response to media inquiries, and as first reported by Outsports, MLB confirmed it had warned the three players. I asked the league whether warnings had been issued in two other instances in which players had written on their caps, including Clayton Kershaw last year writing the same Bible verse on his Pride Night cap that the Giants’ pitchers wrote this year. MLB declined to comment.
“I got chastised by the league when I put Charlie [Kirk]’s name on my hat last year, because a man was murdered in cold blood,” Dodgers pitcher Blake Treinen told me, “and now these gentlemen who are relievers in San Francisco are getting chastised by the league for putting a Bible verse on their hat. It’s crazy to me.”
Treinen said league officials had told him the rule is strictly enforced.
“I straight up asked Clayton last year, ‘Did they call you when you put that on your hat?’” Treinen said. “He said, ‘No.’”
The Pride caps feature team logos decorated in the colors of the rainbow, a symbol long associated with the gay community. In the Bible verse cited by the pitchers (Genesis 9:12-16), the rainbow represents “the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures.”
That the league would warn players against writing a Bible verse on their caps ignited a wave of conservative outrage, from Vice President JD Vance to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley fired off a letter to MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, alleging apparent discrimination “against baseball players who profess their Christian faith” and threatening the league’s antitrust exemption. Assistant U.S. Atty. Gen. Harmeet Dhillon said on national television that players might be able to file a claim for employment discrimination.
That is complete nonsense. This is what you want: When employees raise an issue to their employer, the employer listens and addresses their concerns.
In 2023, the year after five Tampa Bay Rays players declined to wear rainbow logos for Pride Night, Manfred said the league would no longer compel players to do so.
“We have told teams, in terms of actual uniforms, hats, bases that we don’t think putting logos on them is a good idea just because of the desire to protect players: not putting them in a position of doing something that may make them uncomfortable because of their personal views,” Manfred said then.
Teammates congratulate Freddie Freeman after his walk-off home run gave the Dodgers a 1-0 win on June 5, when the Dodgers held their annual Pride Night. Blake Treinen, the winning pitcher that night, elected to wear his regular Dodgers cap instead of the Pride version.
(Katelyn Mulcahy / Getty Images)
Manfred said the Pride Night celebrations could go on, however a team wished to stage them — or not, in the case of the Texas Rangers, the only one of the 30 MLB teams that declines to hold a Pride Night. And the league still sells Pride gear on its website for all teams, including the Rangers.
In the cases of the Giants and Dodgers, MLB grandfathered each team’s long-running use of a rainbow logo on the cap, with this accommodation to players: If you don’t feel comfortable wearing the Pride cap, just wear your regular cap.
That is what Treinen and outfielder Alex Call did when the Dodgers celebrated Pride Night. That is also what a fourth Giants pitcher did.
“My job is to abide by the rules,” Treinen said. “Ultimately, the only rule we have is to wear our team-issued uniform. So that’s what I chose to do.”
To Treinen, the decision over whether to wear a Pride cap is not about passing judgment on anyone else but about what he sees as the push “to force something on people that you know that is controversial to their faith — and, in fact, straight up against their faith.”
He expressed his support for the Giants pitchers.
“Kudos to those men over there who are standing strong in their faith,” he said. “It’s a sad thing to corner someone and try to make them feel bad about their convictions.”
I respect Treinen for explaining his viewpoint. To me, wearing a Pride cap for one night does not diminish your faith at all. It might sharpen your convictions. More important, it signals a welcome to everyone in the community that buys the tickets and broadcast subscriptions that help pay your salary.
“I think a few people made it about themselves and not about the community,” San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie told the Bay Area Reporter.
We always proclaim the life lessons of sports. One of them: Sometimes you have to put the team’s interests ahead of your own.
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After its massive 1-0 win over South Korea on Thursday night, Mexico has won Group A and officially clinched a spot in the knockout round.
El Tri will play its Round of 32 game in Mexico City, and will face the third-place finisher in either Group C/E/F/H/I.
This is the fourth time that Mexico has topped the group stage of a World Cup, with the other three coming in 1986, 1994 and 2002.
With the win, Mexico remains unbeaten in World Cup group games at home, going a combined 6-2-0 (W-D-L), with two wins and a draw in 1970 and 1986, and now two wins in 2026.
Before the tournament began, Mexico was listed at +6500 to win the World Cup. Now, after winning its first two games of the tournament, Mexico has surged up the oddsboard to +5000.
Can Mexico build off its first two matches and make a deep run in this tournament? Let’s check out the updated odds for El Tri as of June 19.
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Team Mexico — Stage of Elimination
Last 32: +125 (bet $10 to win $22.50 total)
Last 16: +135 (bet $10 to win $23.50 total)
Quarterfinals: +600 (bet $10 to win $70 total)
Semifinals: +1600 (bet $10 to win $170 total)
Runner-up: +3000 (bet $10 to win $310 total)
Outright winner: +5000 (bet $10 to win $510 total)
Mexico is currently +5000 to win the 2026 FIFA World Cup after winning Group A (Getty Images).
Mexico’s Past World Cup Results:
1930: Group stage
1934: Did not qualify
1938: Withdrew
1950: Group stage
1954: Group stage
1958: Group stage
1962: Group stage
1966: Group stage
1970: Quarterfinals
1974: Did not qualify
1978: Group stage
1982: Did not qualify
1986: Quarterfinals
1990: Banned
1994: Round of 16
1998: Round of 16
2002: Round of 16
2006: Round of 16
2010: Round of 16
2014: Round of 16
2018: Round of 16
2022: Group stage
2026: TBD
What to know: Mexico has made a habit of being in the running, but never really being in the running. Make sense? Consider this: El Tri made it out of the group stage in seven consecutive World Cups (1994-2018), but never made it past the Round of 16 in any of those years. In 2022, Mexico failed to make it out of the group stage, and it will look to get back to its winning ways in 2026 after a great start to the tournament. With its win Thursday night, Mexico has now advanced to the knockout stage in eight of the last nine World Cups. It is important to note, however, that Mexico has never made it past the quarterfinals at a FIFA men’s World Cup.
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