In the 2023–24 season, the NBA will begin holding an in-season tournament. For those who are unfamiliar with the format, each of the six groups will have five different teams. The first stage of competition will be Group Play, with the top two teams from each group advancing to the quarterfinals. The two teams with the next-best records after the group winners in each conference (East and West) receive “Wild Card” berths.

The stakes are high from there on out. Each member of the victorious team will receive $500,000.

The Golden State Warriors, Sacramento Kings, Minnesota Timberwolves, Oklahoma City Thunder, and San Antonio Spurs make up Western Conference Group C. Each of these squads include notable individuals. But who exactly are the top performers here? What is it?

Commended Works

Green, Draymond; Sabonis, Domantas; Towns, Karl-Anthony; Williams, Jalen; Giddey, Josh

Wembanyama, Victor.

Maybe veterans like Draymond Green, Domantas Sabonis, and Karl-Anthony Towns deserve more credit than a rookie because of their length of NBA service. They have been on All-NBA teams before, after all. However, both Sabonis and Towns come with defensive doubts and have inconsistent postseason records. Draymond is still a defensive and оffensive genius on the court, but he hasn’t averaged 10 ppg or better since the 2017–18 season.

Not so with the Unicorn of Unicorns, Victor Wembanyama.

Although bigger centers have the ability to punt Wembanyama a bit, there aren’t many of those brutes out there who are the primary оffensive players for their side. Wembanyama essentially hogs the rim, allowing no оffensive players near it. His fast feet and record-breаking eight-foot wingspan allow him to defend the perimeter. Oh, and he can do prototypical elite big man stuff in addition to creating offense and shooting like a guard. Wembanyama possesses the kind of raw skill that could one day make him an All-NBA selection.

Fox, De’Aaron

De’Aaron Fox can be easily imagined in this setting. Fox had a career year, being named to the All-Star team and the All-NBA first team for the first time. It’s not surprising, given that he set new personal bests in assists per game (6.2), rebounds (4.2), field goal percentage (51.2), two-point percentage (58.4), eFG% (55.7%), and FT% (78%). And he did it while stepping up his defensive efforts. The Kings might have advanced in the playoffs instead of the Warriors if not for a thumb ιnjury.

Fox, however, was fantastic in his first postseason game. More of that will be made available.

Thirdly, Anthony Edwards

Also making his first All-Star team last year was Anthony Edwards, who fell short of making All-NBA. That moment is coming up soon, thankfully. Edwards is already a superstar and a monumental challenge to defend in the playoffs. He’s participated in 12 postseason contests. He has ridiculous shooting splits of 46.9/38.0/54.0/83.6 over the course of his career, averaging 28.1 points, 4.5 rebounds, 4 assists, 1.5 steals, and 1.5 blocks. He’s really young to be doing that (just 21)!

Edwards has room to grow in terms of his defensive consistency. When Edwards is on, he can be an All-Defense level performer. That reliability has been on display as he has played for Team USA in their FIBA World Cup preparations.

There are a ton of young, dynamic players who have made All-Star and/or All-NBA teams on the FIBA World Cup squad. However, Edwards stands out as the most impressive and dominant of the bunch. The sky is not the limit in Edwards. For Edwards to reach such heights, he must maintain a high level of consistency on defense and continue to develop as a playmaker. The star player for the Minnesota Timberwolves seems to be headed in the right direction.

Runner-up: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is another player that is going to play in the FIBA World Cup, making his first All-Star team, and making his first All-NBA team all in the same year (2023). SGA will be playing in the World Cup wearing Canadian red instead of American blue, but he always brings the heat no matter what color jersey he wears. In 2022-23, he averaged 31.4 points per game, a career high, while shooting 51% from the field and averaging only 2.5 threes per game. As a result, he was named to the All-NBA First Team. In other words, SGA was a top-five NBA player last year. This was rightfully his fate.

Curry, Stephen 1.

Steph Curry, who just turned 35, has the third-best career effective field goal percentage (61.4) and is third in points per game (29.4) in NBA history. Now, now. What else can be said?