Speaking purely in terms of college performance, are we inclined to make a little too much fuss over freshmen?
It's a natural question in the wake of 2015-16, also known as the Year of the Geezer. The Wooden Award winner was a senior, the guy who hit the incredible, game-winning shot in the national championship game was a junior, the guy who tied the game for the other team before that game-winner was a senior, and the Final Four Most Outstanding Player was still another senior. Ben Simmons, we hardly knew ye.
This reflects a change in my rankings since the latest version of this list, and be assured, I'll be updating (or transforming completely) my picks yet again once we get some actual basketball under our belts.
Of course, past performance is no guarantee of future occurrences, and maybe this will turn out to be an instance in which I'm a general still fighting the previous (analytic) war. That said, I've given the top spot on my list to an old-timer.
Meet the top 25 players for 2016-17: