The Best of the NBA’s Next Generation Rankings

Getty Images/Ringer illustration The 25 best players in the NBA age 25 and under The NBA is changing. There hasn't been one big-bang moment, like Michael Jordan's summer of 1992—wherein a 29-year-old Mike banked his first back-to-back title and then grasped the reins of the Dream Team—but the tectonic plates are shifting, ever so noticeably. Just look at these playoffs: The faces of the four franchises squaring off in the 2024 conference finals are all 26 or younger, and they're all ringless, while the lions of the game—LeBron James, Steph Curry, Kevin Durant—were gone before the second round. So while it's hard to say the LeBron era is over as he eyes yet another max payday this offseason, something is definitely up. But which of these precocious superstars-in-waiting has all the tools to supplant James as the guy of the next era? For that, we present an offshoot of NBA, Ranked's Top 100: the Best of the Next Generation Rankings. As we do for our year-round player rankings, we asked a panel of Ringer NBA staffers to rank the 25 best players 25 years old or younger (sorry, Jayson Tatum—the jokes about your youthfulness are both unfunny and no longer applicable). But for...