Deni Avdija is a top 30 player in the NBA, at least according to ESPN's player rankings for the 2026-27 season, and he got there slotted above Kyrie Irving and below LeBron James. That is the highest placement of his career, and it landed less than a month before the season tips.
The line in the writeup that stuck with me: few observers saw Avdija's rapid ascension coming. Including, if we are being honest around here, me.
Where did Deni Avdija land in ESPN's NBA player rankings?
Inside the top 30, sandwiched between two names that have defined the last fifteen years of guard and wing play in this league. You can quibble with the neighbors. You cannot quibble with the direction. A player who arrived in the league as a defense-first, shot-questionable forward is now being ranked as a primary piece, not a complementary one.
Avdija came into the NBA as a ninth overall pick in 2020, the kind of draft slot that gets you a long runway and not much patience after it. Washington gave him the runway. Portland got the version that figured it out. That is how these things usually go, and it is why I have never loved judging a young forward before year five.
Why Avdija's rise surprised everyone
Because the skill that changed is the one nobody projects well. Feel and force are easy to see in a nineteen year old. Reliable shooting and on-ball creation are the two things that either arrive quietly in someone's mid twenties or never arrive at all. When they do arrive, the rankings lurch, because the evaluation had been priced to the old player for four straight years.
checked the almanac: omri casspi was the first israeli player taken in the first round of an nba draft, sacramento, 2009. seventeen years later there is an israeli player in a top 30 conversation with lebron james one line above him. that is a short amount of time for that much distance.
Who else moved in ESPN's NBA player rankings?
Avdija is the headline, but this year's list is full of sharp elbows. The rest of the movers tell you what the league is actually re-evaluating right now.
| Player | Team | The move |
|---|---|---|
| Deni Avdija | Trail Blazers | Career-high placement, inside the top 30 |
| Evan Mobley | Cavaliers | Down 13 spots, to No. 26 |
| Walker Kessler | Lakers | Up 25 spots, and questioned publicly by an ESPN insider |
| Austin Reaves | Lakers | Up 23 spots |
| Jalen Johnson | Hawks | Up 22 spots on the top 50 |
Read that column and you see the theme. Shooting and shot creation move you up. A shooting decline moves you down, which is the short version of Mobley's slide to No. 26 and the reason Cleveland's whole season has a very specific ask attached to it. There is also a real debate brewing over Dylan Harper sitting two spots behind Kon Knueppel after a Finals run, which is exactly the kind of argument these lists exist to start.
The Lakers doubling up as the biggest risers is its own story. Walker Kessler jumped 25 spots after the franchise put $130 million and draft capital behind him, and at least one ESPN voice said out loud that the leap outran the evidence. Reaves went up 23 and the organization gets to point at that as vindication for paying him.
What comes next for Avdija and the Blazers
The hard part. Being ranked as a top 30 player and playing like one across 82 games are different jobs, and the second one is graded every night by defenses that now have a full offseason of film on the new version of him. Avdija gets the coverage a No. 1 option gets. Nobody is losing him in a rotation anymore.
Elsewhere the calendar is already doing its usual work. Word out of Dallas is that Dereck Lively II has not been cleared for camp as he works back from right foot surgery, with his status for the start of the season still unsettled. Here is hoping the foot cooperates.
What I am watching: whether Avdija's jump holds up when the first month of tape comes in, and whether Mobley answers the shooting question that cost him 13 spots. Rankings are an opinion in September. November has a way of picking sides.