With the 2024-25 NBA season about to start, evaluating how well a team will perform likely comes down to how many stars they have and how often those stars play. Everyone wants to talk about the playoffs and how close a team is to the championship, but you have to respect the regular season to even have a chance at the playoffs.
Two items were introduced in the 2023 offseason to address star-level regular-season availability.
The first was the Player Participation Policy, which determines what a “star” player is. According to the league, a star is any player named to an All-NBA team or an All-Star Game in the past three seasons. This policy was made specifically to encourage the league’s best players to play as often as possible, especially in nationally televised games, to discourage shutdowns, player resting and poor communication regarding player availability status.
The second was the new collective bargaining agreement that was finalized in June 2023. In the “Games Played Requirement for Certain League Honors,” the NBA determined players must play in at least 65 regular-season games, for at least 20 minutes, to be available for major regular-season awards: Most Valuable Player, Defensive Player of the Year, Most Improved Player, All-NBA Teams and All-Defensive Teams.
Taking the league’s criteria into consideration, I’d like to introduce The Athletic’s NBA Regular-Season Reliability Tiers. These rankings observe the 49 players who meet the league’s requirements of a “star” and combine the All-NBA and All-Star appearances of those players in the last three years, weighing heavily towards the more recent appearances and the number of games these players have averaged.
The methodology of this project was intended to be as objective as possible. I did not go into these rankings looking to editorialize what the formula concluded.
We established a point system for all of the All-Star and All-NBA players from the last three seasons. For making the All-NBA First Team, a player got four points for 2022, five points for 2023 and six points for 2024. For making the All-NBA Second Team, a player got three points for 2022, four points for 2023 and five points for 2024. For making the All-NBA Third Team, a player got two points for 2022, three points for 2023 and four points for 2024. If a player did not make an All-NBA team but was named an All-Star, then the All-Star got one point in 2022, two points in 2023 and three points for 2024. That last point is important because almost every All-NBA player makes an All-Star team, but those players only get credited for the All-NBA appearance. These award points establish the value.
After the “award points” are compiled, we took the average games of the All-Star and All-NBA players from the last three seasons. For players drafted in 2023, we just averaged their two NBA seasons. The final score of the rankings is the product of the “award points” and the three-year average.
This project rewards availability. How many times have you heard the term “… if healthy?” Some players are expected to miss games, and others have a better track record of being on the floor. In general, the league implementing the Player Participation Policy in 2023 coincided with more games played by stars.
In the 2021-22 season, these 49 All-Stars averaged 61.1 games played.
In 2022-23, these 49 All-Stars averaged 62.7 games played.
Last season in 2023-24, these 49 All-Stars averaged 65.4 games played. That 65 games is significant, as it is the award cut-off.
It is important to note: these rankings do not consider anything else besides the All-NBA selections, All-Star selections and regular-season games played. It’s not about points scored. It’s not about salary. This doesn’t consider PER or any other one-size-fits-all advanced statistic that is meant to capture and analyze 300 rotation players. It’s not about what a player did five or 10 years ago. I don’t even have an award vote or participate in All-Star voting, so I don’t have a bias on that front; even if I did, these are not my opinions on who should have been an All-Star or on the First Team.
Making an All-Defensive Team or All-Rookie team is great. But the league does not consider those players stars as part of the Player Participation Policy if they weren’t All-NBA or All-Star selections. This is not a list of role players or reserves, even if they have a Sixth Man of the Year trophy. Even being named the Most Valuable Player, All-Star Game MVP or Conference Finals or Finals MVP, does not lead to any extra credit here. The NBA does not outline MVP winners in any portion of the season, only All-NBA or All-Star selections.
A discussion now on players who would have qualified for these tiers a year ago but do not now going into the 2024-25 NBA season. There are four players who were All-NBA or All-Star selections in 2021 that went three and out in All-NBA or All-Star selections over the last three seasons: Bradley Beal, Ben Simmons, Nikola Vučević and Mike Conley. None are expected to regain All-Star status in 2025.
Beal was an All-NBA Third Team selection in 2021 while averaging a career-high 31.3 points per game. But Beal hasn’t played more than 55 games in each of the last three seasons, his scoring dropped to an eight-year low 18.2 points per game in his first season with the Suns, and he has been a part of one playoff game win since 2018. Not a playoff series, merely a playoff game.
Simmons made his third All-Star Game in 2021. But he missed the entire 2021-22 season, a year that started with a holdout from the Philadelphia 76ers, included a trade to the Brooklyn Nets, and ended with back surgery. He has since played only 57 games for the Nets while averaging only 6.7 points per game.
Vučević made his second career All-Star Game in 2021, and then was traded to the Bulls later that March. In his three full seasons with the Bulls, Vučević has only missed 15 games. But Vučević has not been the 20-point scorer or above-average 3-point shooter in Chicago that he was when he was an All-Star with the Orlando Magic.
It took until Conley’s 14th NBA season to make his lone All-Star appearance in 2021, and he was playing for a Utah Jazz team that was leading the Western Conference. Conley has stayed healthy while moving on from Utah to Minnesota in 2023, but his scoring, rebounding, and steals have declined as he has gotten older over the last three seasons.
This project will feature 26 NBA teams. The four teams without a single player deemed a star by the league’s Player Participation Policy are the Nets, Pistons, Wizards and Trail Blazers. Brooklyn has Simmons on the roster as the only player who has ever been an All-Star or a top-five draft pick. The Pistons haven’t had a player who had ever been an All-Star on their roster since waiving Blake Griffin in 2021, and are counting on former top-overall pick Cade Cunningham to break through. Washington hasn’t rostered a player who was an All-Star since trading Beal. Now the Wizards have rookie Alexandre Sarr, the second pick in the 2024 NBA Draft. Portland’s last All-Star was Damian Lillard, who was traded to make room for 2023 No. 3 pick Scoot Henderson.
Victor Wembanyama, the 2024 Rookie of the Year and the runner-up for Defensive Player of the Year, is the safest bet to make his first All-Star Game this season. But this project has no exceptions, so he is not included as part of the 49 players who have been All-Stars or All-NBA selections over the past three seasons, as outlined by the Player Participation Policy. Wembanyama’s common rival Chet Holmgren, the Rookie of the Year runner-up after redshirting in his post-draft year because of foot surgery, also is not under consideration since he was not an All-Star with the Oklahoma City Thunder.
This list won’t feature playoff risers if those players have not been All-NBA or All-Star selections over the past three seasons. As good as Derrick White has been for the 2024 champion Boston Celtics, he hasn’t been an All-Star, so he is not under consideration here. Same goes for Kristaps Porziņģis, a player who is very good but hasn’t been an All-Star since tearing his ACL in 2018. The same goes for 2023 NBA champions Jamal Murray and Aaron Gordon of the Denver Nuggets. Murray is a playoff riser and the closest player that MVP Nikola Jokić has had to a co-star, while Gordon is a physical and versatile presence on both ends of the floor. But neither has been an All-Star.
The reliability tiers do not determine who the best player in the NBA is, just the stars – as determined by the NBA – you should expect to show up throughout an 82-game season. Each day we will introduce a new tier. This is Tier 5.
LaMelo Ball
On one hand, Ball has the talent of a star as a 6-foot-7 point guard who is capable of being one of the league’s leading pick-and-roll creators. But Ball has only played in 58 games the last two seasons, and the Hornets were only 20-38 in those games. The Hornets were a Play-In Tournament team in Ball’s All-Star season. Now is a good time for Ball to show that he can stay on the court and contribute to winning basketball as his team’s only All-Star caliber player.
Khris Middleton
Middleton has had a tough stretch since being named an All-Star in 2022. He was held to just two playoff games that spring because of a sprained knee. Wrist surgery and knee issues limited Middleton to 33 games the following season. In 2024, he had ankle injuries that cost him a few weeks and led to offseason surgeries. Middleton is still an effective player capable of doing more on the ball than most wings, but his availability has been an issue for years.
Zach LaVine
LaVine saw the floor just 25 games last season due to season-ending foot surgery. The Bulls were a playoff team when LaVine made his last All-Star appearance, but they were eliminated in the Play-In the last two years, including 2022-23 when LaVine played his most games (77) in eight years. This upcoming season will be an opportunity for LaVine to show that he is healthy and capable of returning to All-Star status.
Draymond Green
Green has made a career out of being a 6-foot-6 versatile big man. But even in 2022, Golden State’s last championship season, Green played just 46 games because of back issues. The following year, Green was suspended indefinitely for unsportsmanlike conduct after striking Phoenix Suns center Jusuf Nurkić in the face. Green’s repeated behavior led to more suspensions last season. While Green is an impactful player, that impact is too often felt in extended absences.
Andrew Wiggins
Wiggins made his lone All-Star appearance in 2022. Unfortunately, he has not approached the same level of play or availability since, most notably because of personal reasons; Wiggins’ father Mitchell passed away recently. Golden State could use a bounce-back season from Wiggins after he hit career lows in scoring, assists, steals and minutes last season.
Darius Garland
Garland is one of the rare star point guards who has had to cede the team lead in touches to another guard. While Garland has complemented Donovan Mitchell well enough, the bigger concern with Garland has been his ability to stay on the floor. Garland missed a career-worst 25 games last season, mostly because of a serious jaw injury.
James Harden
Harden has missed the last two All-Star games despite playing at a high level. He led the NBA in assists per game in 2023 but missed 24 games that same season, mostly because of a right foot injury. Last year, Harden missed the start of the season after he requested the Philadelphia 76ers trade him to the LA Clippers, a move that wasn’t acquiesced to until after the preseason ended. Harden, 35, has one of the heaviest workloads in the league when he plays, but the mileage makes his efficiency and durability a concern at this point of his career.
Zion Williamson
Williamson, with his combination of size and driving ability, is one of the most dynamic players in the league. Unfortunately, no star is likely to miss more time than Williamson, who has failed to finish any of the last three seasons healthy and has not played in a single postseason game in five seasons with the Pelicans. Williamson missed the entire 2021-22 season due to foot surgery, while hamstring injuries to both legs ended his last two seasons prematurely.
Jarrett Allen
Like Garland, his Cavs teammate, Allen made his lone All-Star appearance in 2022 and has been working alongside a similar player for multiple seasons. In Allen’s case, he has been in the lineup with Evan Mobley, who has yet to make an All-Star appearance. Allen has been about as productive as he was in his All-Star year, but he has missed the finish of Cleveland’s season two of the last three years. Allen’s 2022 season was cut short by a fractured finger and he also missed Cleveland’s final eight playoff games last season due to a rib injury.
(Illustration by Dan Goldfarb: The Athletic; photos by Loren Elliott, Tim Warner and Sean Gardner / Getty Images)
