NBA top 100 players: How to evaluate Kawhi Leonard, other question marks who will decide fates of contenders

There are as many arguments as there are players CBS Sports’ NBA Top 100 Listwhether Giannis Antetokounmpo, Stephen Curry or Kevin Durant are at the top, to how many places LeBron James should have dropped, to where mysteries like James Harden and Russell Westbrook belong.

But among the most interesting – and impactful in terms of contenders – is that of three would-be star players who haven’t played a significant game in almost 18 months: Kawhi Leonard, Jamal Murray and Ben Simmons.

While all players’ rankings are skewed by their absence, making assessing their likely effectiveness in the 2022-23 season even more difficult, each will be an important cog in their team’s championship hopes.

Leonard comes in at No. 8, a spot he’ll need to surpass this season if the Clippers are to fight for a title that many NBA watchers — including those in Vegas, who put them at around +700 — believe is within reach.

Murray and Simmons come lower on our list, at No. 35 and No. 42, respectively, and each is capable of bettering or underperforming our best estimate here. Simmons in particular could be swinging wildly in the pantheon of NBA stars by the end of the season, but both players will be key to their team meeting championship expectations.

All three of these players and their places in the NBA pecking order excel for different reasons. Kawhi’s lure is what was – from all-time big stuff as he seemed poised to beat LeBron to become the only man in NBA history to win a Finals MVP with three different teams.

For Murray, the train is what could be. And for Simmons, it’s the vision of what may never be again.

Greatness is an ephemeral thing, and in its absence it warps our memories of what a player was or what that player can reclaim. That is certainly the case in these three cases.

Murray seemed poised to help Denver become a permanent threat in the Western Conference, but his injury woes and those of his Top 100 teammate Michael Porter Jr. (No. 64) have made the Nuggets more of a vehicle for one One Man MVP Show made as a contender.

The last time Murray played in the postseason, the Nuggets reached the conference finals. Last season, without him, they only managed a meager win in their opening round series with eventual champions Golden State Warriors.

If Murray makes it, skip players like Jrue Holiday (No. 25), Harden (No. 21) and even an aging Chris Paul (No. 18) – and add firepower behind Nikola Jokic (No. 4) – that can change quickly.

Simmons is the most bizarre of the bunch, for every reason we know. He may be ranked 42nd here, but he’s a former Rookie of the Year, All-Star, All-NBA, and All-Defense Ultra. As in, he’s good.

Well, something like that.

We know he can’t shoot and that his exit from Philly was uglier than Kim and Kanye’s ongoing divorce. He has not played for physical and/or psychological reasons since his self-inflicted humiliation in the playoffs more than a year ago.

In a year? He could be at the bottom of our list, or even off it altogether, along with guys like Westbrook who just barely made it. Or it could be much, much higher. If things go that way — the top 20 where a player of their talents belong — the Nets could be the most dysfunctional team in the league and his most talented.

Then there is Kawhi. He’s the number one question mark on this list (and the NBA). He’s number 8 now, but at 31, he’s considerably younger than the premiere nights of Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant, 34, and LeBron, the 37-year-old ageless wonder.

A healthy Kawhi, well-calibrated with the stress management that defines his approach to a long season, could easily find a top-five player on next year’s list. And when that happens — when the hedge that most of us here at CBS Sports have made about knowing what Kawhi was but not what he will be turns out to be overly conservative — the Clippers will be among the best teams belong to the league.

The list we at CBS Sports have compiled of the top 100 players in the game comes after many weeks of thought and conversation with people from across the league, and the inevitable debate and disagreement is part of the finish.

I think Durant is too high and Ja Morant is too low and that young players like Anthony Edwards and Evan Mobley will make a leap well beyond what most NBA fans see right now. But all of that and more, right or wrong, is based on what we think we know, on what we actually saw — or on what history tells us we will see.

But it’s different with Leonard, Murray and Simmons. Their placement on this list, and the questions it brings about their upcoming seasons, is shaped as much by their absences as by what we think we know about them.

So we head into the unknown with three potentially great players trying to show that their futures are as bright as their pasts.