5 Most Overrated NBA Players of the 2023-24 Season

Most

NBA

fans would likely agree that the 2023-24 season was terrific for the association.

The league, in its 78th season of existence, is in excellent hands for the foreseeable future.

In a year full of twists and turns, we witnessed history as the

L.A. Lakers

became the first team to win the league’s inaugural In-Season Tournament. The NBA set all-time records for total and average regular season attendance, sellouts and percentage of capacity.

Individually, we saw that

Victor Wembanyama

could live up to the hype. He became the sixth player in NBA history to be unanimously voted for Rookie of the Year.

We even saw

Jayson Tatum

break the All-Star Game scoring record by scoring 55 points and winning the game’s MVP when all the stars gathered in Indianapolis.

Sadly, the

Detroit Pistons

also broke the NBA record for a single-season losing streak by suffering 27 defeats in a row.

There were a few other things we discovered this past season:

With everything that transpired in 2023-24, we had certain expectations for the world’s brightest stars. Unfortunately, some of them didn’t deliver for their teams, cities and fanbases.

These players are at a place where there is a lot of talk about their potential, but potential they didn’t live up to. A few were simply given too much credit for their team’s success.

Here are the five most overrated players of the 2023-24 NBA season.

5

Miles Bridges

Explosive and athletic wing a franchise expects too much from

Miles Bridges

entered the league as the 12th pick of the 2018 NBA Draft by the

Los Angeles Clippers

. On draft night, he was traded to the

Charlotte Hornets

for

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander

, who was drafted just before him.

You could say he was overrated at this point. He was highly decorated even before taking his talents into the NBA.

After gradual improvement after his rookie campaign, the team tried Bridges as a starter. By season three, the Hornets found value in playing him off the bench.

In his fourth season, Bridges showed the league what he could do when given the ball and ability to play. That season, he was one of the most improved players in the league and scored more than 20 points per game.

After missing the 2022-23 season due to personal legal issues and suspension from the league, Bridges returned to play in the 2023-24 season.

If you look at his stats, Bridges had his most productive year in terms of scoring. He appeared to be a solid rebounder and shot decently from the field. However, he isn’t an excellent defender, and his play didn’t lead the Hornets to wins. On offense, his hero-ball style didn’t make anything any better.

Bridges didn’t even lead his team in win shares, and the Hornets finished as one of the worst teams in the league at 21-61.

You could say that Bridges is the victim of a bad situation because the Hornets have been a poor team for some time. However, he is overrated because the Hornets believe that he is a player who can get the team on the path to a winning season.

They doubled down on this sentiment by re-signing him this summer to a three-year, $75 million commitment.

4

Jonathan Kuminga

Top-notch athlete but otherwise inconsistent

Jonathan Kuminga

is a 6-foot-8 forward drafted by the

Golden State Warriors

as the seventh pick of the 2021 NBA Draft.

The beauty of being drafted to a team with championship aspirations is that you are usually given room to learn and gradually grow as a player. Kuminga showed promise right off the bat.

Coming off the bench in his rookie campaign, he gave the Warriors 9.3 points and 3.3 rebounds per contest in just under 17 minutes a night. There was a thought that he would significantly improve in his second season; that didn’t happen.

However, going into last season, there was beginning to be a buzz around Kuminga, who started off the regular season showing improvement as a player. With Andrew Wiggins’ decline,

Klay Thompson

‘s inconsistency and

Draymond Green

‘s continual distractions and suspensions, the Warriors were looking for another source of offensive firepower to play alongside

Stephen Curry

.

In January, Kuminga scored 25 points against the Atlanta Hawks on a perfect 11-for-11 shooting from the field and put the league on notice that there may possibly be a rising star in Golden State. Was the praise too much too soon?

In March, Kuminga elevated his game as the Warriors made a push for playoff contention by scoring more than 19 points per game, but he ended the season as up and down as his play had been for most of the campaign.

He doesn’t have much of a defensive presence and has yet to prove himself as a guy who can fill the big shoes laid out for him as the next crop of Warriors talent. However, the sky is the limit for him, and there is still time for Kuminga to improve his overall game and live up to the early expectations. It just didn’t fully come to fruition last year.

3

Andrew Wiggins

Wing defender who took a step backward

Andrew Wiggins

was the

Cleveland Cavaliers

‘ first overall pick in the 2014 NBA Draft. However, he was traded to the Timberwolves for NBA All-Star

Kevin Love

.

After five and a half seasons with the Wolves, Wiggins was traded to the Warriors.

Wiggins proved to be a great pickup.

He was among the team leaders in scoring, and his defensive presence was welcomed as he helped shut down the other team’s threats on the wing. In the 2021-22 season, Wiggins became an All-Star, and his value to the Warriors was evident around the league.

The world could see that he was a great all-around talent and a huge part of Golden State’s success that year.

After that season, the Warriors signed Wiggins to a four-year, $109 million contract extension as he had just played a big part in their championship win. Unfortunately, the 29-year-old missed most of the 2022-23 season for personal reasons. It was reported that Wiggins was out because his father was dealing with a serious medical situation.

When he returned to the team before the end of the season, he didn’t show any rust.

In 2023-24, Wiggins played in 71 games for the Warriors. However, there was a considerable decline in his play.

When the Warriors were looking for an offensive spark alongside Curry to help get the team back to its winning ways, Wiggins was nowhere to be found. When they were searching for an excellent wing defender to help shut down the best perimeter players on opposing squads, Wiggins did not show up as their go-to guy.

Wiggins, who had always been a plus for the Warriors, was a minus for the team last season and, instead of an asset, became a liability on both ends.

2

Jimmy Butler

A well-rounded player who transforms in the postseason – if available

Jimmy Butler

is a versatile wing player at 6-foot-7 and 230 pounds. He came to the

Miami Heat

in a four-team trade before the 2019-20 season and has proved to be an excellent player for the South Beach team.

Butler shocked the sports world in the 2022-23 season by leading the Heat to the NBA Finals while averaging 26.9 points a game throughout the playoffs. He did this without

Tyler Herro

, who was injured.

Bam Adebayo

was only a shell of himself that postseason.

So, when Miami entered the 2023-24 season, it was believed the team would build on its progress. What Butler had done in the past was basketball-heroic, but he has proved he needs to be on a team with depth if he is going to get it done in the postseason.

The Heat may have been underdogs, but many believed Miami was a team for whom seeding didn’t matter in the playoffs. As long as Playoff Jimmy showed up, fans and media felt the team could surprise anyone.

However, Butler finished the season sidelined by an MCL injury in the Play-In Tournament.

Then, after making it to the playoffs, Boston sent the Heat home in five games. What was most disappointing was Butler’s comments after the Heat season.

According to reports, Butler was videoed as saying, “If I was playing, Boston would be at home, New York d*** sure would be at home… C’mon, man.”

His competitive nature is what’s missing in today’s game. He is an excellent player, but he is at a point in his career where talk is cheap, and we have heard a lot of it in the past 13 seasons.

1

Rudy Gobert

Defensive player of the year, yet at times a defensive liability

Rudy Gobert

, “The Stifle Tower,” is an 11-year veteran, three-time All-Star, four-time All-NBA player, seven-time All-Defensive Team member and a four-time Defensive Player of the Year.

The 7-foot-1 center was traded to the Timberwolves just before the 2022-23 season for five players and five draft picks. The team looked to stack two bigs, Gobert and

Karl-Anthony Towns

, in the lane to create a defensive problem for other teams.

However, after the season, many wondered if the trade was a bust, as the Wolves exited in the first round of the 2022-23 postseason.

To start the 2023-24 season, the Wolves decided to try the Gobert-Towns experiment for another season. This time, we began to see what the T-Wolves were after all along.

Minnesota finished the season 56-26, third in the Western Conference and just one game behind the Nuggets and Thunder. Gobert was voted the Defensive Player of the Year for the fourth time in his career. The only other players to achieve that were Ben Wallace and Dikembe Mutombo.

He was a tremendous interior defensive presence and rim protector as the Wolves’ last line of defense.

According to a poll by the Athletic, 142 players were surveyed about their peers in the league. When asked about the most overrated players in the game today, 13.6 percent of the 81 who answered voted for Gobert, which was good enough for No. 1 on the list.

Many players believed he didn’t even deserve the DPOY honors for a fourth time, voting players like his teammate

Jaden McDaniels

as those who should receive the honor.

Many also believed that his teammates,

Naz Reid

and

Mike Conley

Jr., are underrated for their part in the team’s overall success. It’s hard to argue that’s the case when a player earns the Defensive Player of the Year award but, at times, has to sit due to being a liability on defense on the perimeter of the court.

Other players in consideration for the honor, such as Wembanyama and Adebayo, can protect the rim and perimeter. Not that someone has to be the best all-around player on every part of the floor, but his inabilities shouldn’t cause him to be sidelined from being on the bench during critical moments of the game.

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