Rank these 23 and under players in terms of who you want as your franchise cornerstone: Booker, Trae, Ja, Tatum, Simmons, Ingram

Luka

Zion

Simmons

Tatum

Trae

Ja

Booker

Ingram

Luka first for obvious reasons. Zion is second for me if he stays healthy which is an important caveat, once he gets his feet under him and stays healthy for an extended period of time he’ll be good defensively and put up ridiculous offensive numbers. I’m a lot higher on Simmons than the average fan, as I think he could excel with a proper team built to his strengths instead of having guys like Embiid, Horford, and Harris all at once.

Trae is a ridiculous offensive talent, but his complete lack of defense led me to put Tatum over him. It’s also easier to build around a forward like Tatum who can score and defend rather than Trae IMO, and we obviously saw what Tatum could do vs Kawhi.

The last 3 are quite a ways below the rest, but I like Ja the best here. He’s great with the ball and as a floor general, and does some crazy things with the ball. don’t really care for Booker or Ingram too much compared to these other guys

/r/nba Thread