Power Rankings: Where Immanuel Quickley lands among NBA’s Top 30 point guards
Tier 5: Fringe Stars (cont)
20. Cade Cunningham, Detroit Pistons
We continue this tier of players who have a lof of the trappings of All-Stars but are a step outside of that group, at least for now. If Immanuel Quickley is an extremely efficient player in a small role, thus far in his career Cade Cunningham has been an inefficient player in a large role. The Detroit Pistons bet big on Cunningham, handing him a maximum rookie extension, hoping that his combination of size and playmaking continue to be special, and that his shot-making takes a major step forward.
Can he be the best player on a winning team? Does he need to slot into a role further down the pecking order? Those are important questions for the Pistons to answer, and for now, his size and growth potential put him just above Quickley in the rankings.
19. Jalen Suggs, Orlando Magic
Similarly to Cason Wallace, Jalen Suggs finds himself in a prime spot in these rankings in part because his defensive impact is profound. On the one hand, centers have the greatest impact on a team's defense. On the other, Suggs' defense compared to the other at the point guard position is profound, and he was possibly the best guard defender in the league last year, right there with Alex Caruso and Jrue Holliday.
Why Suggs checks in this high is that he also took a major step forward on offense last year. He shot 39.7 percent from deep on a robust 5.1 attempts per game and fit well into his role alongside ball-dominant forwards. This ranking is bold, but represents the impact Suggs has on winning. If he were trying to run his own team he would plummet down the list, but his ability to thrive alongside other stars is a feature, not a bug.
18. Fred VanVleet, Houston Rockets
Fred VanVleet had an enormous impact on the Houston Rockets when he joined them in free agency last season. He is not an All-Star and has taken a step back from his peak a few years back, but he can score, shoot, pass and defend as a title-winning player, whose impact on and off the court helped the young Rockets take a step forward.
17. Jamal Murray, Denver Nuggets
It's extremely difficult to know where to slot Jamal Murray. At his best, he belongs in the top 10 of this list, a truly elite shot creator and championship-winning star. On the other, he has never made an All-Star Game, is chronically injured, and his stretch of games from the Nuggets' upset loss in the playoffs to his play for Team Canada in the Paris Olympics was truly abysmal.
Perhaps the culprit was an injury and not a decline in his level of play, but that doesn't necessarily make everything better; the fact that Murray is continually injured knocks him down this list as well. His ceiling is as high as anyone on this list outside of Tier 1, but he is currently building a basement over the past few months.