As the NBA season approaches, evaluating a team’s potential success often comes down to the availability of star players during the regular season. To address this issue, the league introduced the Player Participation Policy and a new collective bargaining agreement in 2023. These initiatives aim to encourage top players to play more games and ensure that players meet certain requirements to be eligible for major regular-season awards.
The Athletic’s NBA Regular-Season Reliability Tiers ranks 49 star players based on their recent All-NBA and All-Star appearances and average number of games played. The rankings focus solely on availability and do not consider other statistics or accolades.
For the upcoming 2024-25 season, players like Bradley Beal, Ben Simmons, Nikola Vučević, and Mike Conley have not met the criteria to be considered stars based on their recent performance. On the other hand, young talents like Victor Wembanyama are expected to make their first All-Star appearances this season. However, they are not included in the rankings due to the league’s guidelines.
The rankings also identify teams without any star players, such as the Nets, Pistons, Wizards, and Trail Blazers, who will be looking for breakout performances from their young talents. Overall, the Reliability Tiers offer insights into which star players have consistently been available and reliable over the past three seasons, providing a unique perspective on predicting success in the NBA.
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