ESPN NBA rank: 5 youngsters who can improve their rankings this season

#4 Nikola Jokic

Indiana Pacers v Denver Nuggets

Jokic is one of the hardest players to accurately rank, but ESPN has taken a pretty bold step in naming him among the top 3 centers in the league

No center in the history of the game has been the kind of true point guard that Jokic has routinely been for the Nuggets. He damn near averaged a triple-double for an entire month of the regular season, and he is about as skilled an offensive player as a big man at his size can get. Jokic is a true unicorn who a lot of people were sleeping up until the fag end of the 2017-18 season.

However, he's a putrid defender who is simply too slow to not be exploited during the playoffs, if the Nuggets manage to make it to that stage this year. Guarding the likes of Russell Westbrook and LeBron James on switches is not ideal for a center who, with all due respect, plays at a plodding pace at best.

For him to justify his ranking, he needs to lead the Nuggets to the playoffs as the default best offensive player on his squad. That might be difficult given the presence of high-usage guards like Jamal Murray and Isaiah Thomas, but the Nuggets have arguably gotten better over the offseason and have a real chance of doing so - especially given the contrast they present to the rather dysfunctional Blazers, Grizzlies and the Timberwolves.