As the new NBA season approaches, it’s time to rank the league’s 30 starting shooting guards for the upcoming 2017-18 campaign.
Traditional positions in the NBA have become a thing of the past. Though point guards are still as important as ever, the shooting guard, small forward and power forward positions have morphed into “wings,” while bigs are now expected to spread the floor, protect the rim and defend the perimeter all at once.
As such, the shooting guard position is as weak as it’s been a long time. The game’s elite wings are capable of oscillating between 2-3 positions, which is key for teams to roll out small-ball lineups designed to emphasize up-tempo play, 3-point shooting and versatility on defense.
However, that’s not to say positions in the NBA are completely dead, and for the sake of classifying players within starting lineups, we can try to identify the 2-guard within each five-man group.
The question is, how does each team’s starting shooting guard stack up to the rest of the NBA? In order to answer that question, it’s time to rank all 30 starting shooting guards for the upcoming 2017-18 NBA season.
Starting lineups are subject to change, especially as teams start to tan — err, “strategically rest” their players. For the purposes of these rankings though, we’re going to make a few executive decisions based on which players will likely spend most of the season — or at least begin the season — in the starting lineup.
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To be clear, these rankings are based on projections for the upcoming season, not past accomplishments or their current standing entering the new season. They are also not projections for fantasy basketball, or based on any one specific stat.
Instead, these rankings take a myriad of factors into account, including expected statistical output, potential team success, opportunity, health, contract, experience, two-way impact, likelihood of keeping their starting job and to a minimal degree, potential playoff success.
With all of this in mind, here are our rankings for the NBA’s top 30 starting shooting guards in 2017-18.