In selecting this team, we aimed to select the stars we felt had the best chances to define the next 10 years of NBA basketball. There was a strong emphasis on players who best blended youth, established production, long-term projection and winning circumstances. You can make arguments many ways for many players, but given all the unknown factors and splitting of hairs, we felt it best to settle on just one team of five.
By far the hardest player to cut from this list was Nikola Jokic, who at 24 has as strong a case as anyone—we split hairs over his defensive shortcomings and heavier body type as they pertain to longevity.