9 Players who have no business being ahead of Cade Cunningham in recent NBA rankings

#58: Coby White 

Did Jerry Reinsdorf write this list himself? Another guy who is older than Cade and had his “breakout” season last year, finishing second in the Most Improved Player award, but he did it with worse stats across the board than Cunningham. 

White is a better high-volume 3-point shooter. Whoopee! He’s worse at everything else, including defense and that is saying something. White was the second option on a bad team and benefitted from having a real scoring threat around him, something Cunningham has never had. 

#56: Derek Lively II 

This might be the most egregious overrating on the list, as Lively, a center, barely averaged more rebounds than Cade Cunningham did last season. 

He’s a one-dimensional player who I wouldn’t even rank above Jalen Duren, much less Cunningham. Lively II is only 20, and he’s a good young player, but he profiles at best as a role player, and benefitted greatly in his 55 games played last season (THIS IS BASED ON 55 CAREER GAMES!) from being on a good team with a perennial MVP candidate running the show. 

I’d say at least half the GMs in the NBA would take Duren over Lively II and Duren isn’t even going to appear on the top-100 list. This is just dumb and not rooted in reality.