NBA Finals Stocked with Players from Value Add Basketball Game All-Time Great Teams

Great NBA players did not always have great college careers. Among the players suited up for the NBA Finals, 2-time Bucks MVP Giannis Anteokounmpo, as well as a couple of guys on the bench – his big brother Thanasis Anteokounmpo and the Suns Dario Saric – did not play college.

However, this year's NBA Finals includes some of the highest rated college players in the history of the Value Add Basketball ratings, as well as eight players who also played on one of the all-time great basketball teams included in the popular Value Add Basketball Game. (50,800 visitors have now pulled up the game, which includes these free player cards.)

I happened to just return from Wyoming, whose 1943 team is the earliest in the game due to Kenny Sailor leading the Cowboys to the National Title after inventing the jump shot.

At the bottom of this blog we show the college rating of each NBA Finals player, including five players who ranked as one of the top three players in all of college basketball when they played.

Two of those elite Value Add Basketball 1st Team All-Americans do not have cards in the game:

The Suns' reserve Jevon Carter was the top ranked player in the 2012 season with West Virginia, which is represented in the game by Jerry West's 1959 team and Kevin Jones' 2010 team.

The Suns' Jae Crowder was ranked as the second best player in the country behind Anthony Davis in 2012 when he beat out Jones as Big East Player of the Year while playing for Marquette, across the street from the Buck's home court where he drilled 6 of 7 three-pointers Sunday night for the visitors. Marquette is represented in the game by Al McGuire's National Championship team of 1977, and Dwyane Wade's 2003 Final Four team.

The first three player cards below from the Value Add Basketball Game also finished in the top three - Chris Paul ranked as the third best player of the 4,000+ players in 2005 when he played for Wake Forest, Mikal Bridges ranked as the 2nd best player when on the 2018 Villanova National Champs, and Frank Kaminsky ranked as the third best player in the country in 2015, when we shocked many readers by declaring the Wisconsin Badger the 1st team All-American more than a month before he shocked the undefeated Kentucky team in the Final Four. 

Mamadi Diakite's was rated higher in the 2020 season, but we show his 2019 card below when he was part of the national championship team at the University of Virginia.
(Note: thanks to this great blog for showing how to insert these photos side-by-side in blogger)

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If we seeded the eight teams of these NBA Finals Players based on the ratings at www.kenpom.com, we would end up with this tournament bracket:

While the eight players shown above were great players on great teams included in the game, many Suns' players and some Bucks' players were also great college players. The following is a table indicating the highest ranked college players now at least suited up for the NBA Finals for either the Suns or Bucks.

We consider any player that finishes in the top 41 players out of 4,000 college players an elite player, since they rate in the top 1 percent of all college players. I suspect this is the first time an NBA Finals has had 15 players who were in the top 1 percent of college players.

Rnk	Best college season	NBA	Game	College	Year
1	Jevon Carter #2	Suns		West Virginia	2018
2	Mikal Bridges #25	Suns	Yes	Villanova	2018
2	Jae Crowder	Suns		Marquette	2012
3	Frank Kaminsky 44	Suns	Yes	Wisconsin	2015
3	Chris Paul	Suns	Yes	Wake Forest	2004
8	Jalen Smith #25	Suns	Yes	Maryland	2020
9	Sam Merrill #5	Bucks	Yes	Utah St.	2020
11	Deandre Ayton #13	Suns		Arizona	2018
13	Ty-Shon Alexander #5	Suns	Yes	Creighton	2020
18	Cameron Payne 1	Suns		Murray St.	2015
19	Bobby Portis 10	Bucks		Arkansas	2015
20	Langston Galloway	Suns		St. Joseph's	2014
23	Cameron Johnson #13	Suns		North Carolina	2019
34	Justin Jackson 44	Bucks		North Carolina	2017
41	Elijah Bryant #3	Bucks		Brigham Young	2018
44	PJ Tucker	Bucks		Texas	2006
47	Jordan Nwora #33	Bucks	Yes	Louisville	2020
49	Devin Booker 1	Suns		Kentucky	2015
63	E'Twaun Moore	Suns		Purdue	2011
73	Jeff Teague	Bucks		Wake Forest	2009
75	Pat Connaughton 24	Bucks		Notre Dame	2015
77	Mamadi Diakite #25	Bucks	Yes	Virginia	2020
101	Brook Lopez	Bucks		Stanford	2008
186	Khris Middleton	Bucks		Texas A&M	2011
190	Torrey Craig	Suns		South Carolina Upstate	2012
214	Bryn Forbes 5	Bucks		Michigan St.	2016
311	Jrue Holiday	Bucks		UCLA	2009
711	Abdel Nader 2	Suns		Iowa St.	2016
	Giannis Antetokounmpo	Bucks		No College
	Thanasis Antetokounmpo	Bucks		No College
	Dario Šarić	Suns		No College