Was Tyreke Evans snubbed from SI’s Top 100 list?

The Indiana Pacers’ new spark plug, Tyreke Evans, is coming off the best season of his career. He was not considered a top 100 player in the league. Why?

The career of first-year Indiana Pacers player Tyreke Evans has been up-and-down. After winning Rookie of the Year with Sacramento in 2009-10, Evans has failed to return to that plain. He has yet to eclipse his 20.1-point and 5.3-rebound averages.

Last year in Memphis, however, Evans took his best shot at it. In 52 games, 32 as a starter, Evans averaged 19.4 points, 5.2 assists, 5.1 rebounds, and 1.1 steals per game on 45.2/39.9/78.5 shooting splits.

The most incredible stat of Tyreke Evans’s season, though, was his on-off differential. Despite the Grizzlies winning just 22 games, Evans had a positive differential  — plus-11, placing him in the 94th percentile in the league. He also had a positive net rating.

Aside from attendance, Evans was the most reliable and productive option Memphis had all season. With Mike Conley hurt, the Grizzlies didn’t have many proven ball-handlers and creators to lean on. Evans stepped up.

This paid off for Evans, as he received a one-year, $12 million deal from the Indiana Pacers. He will be relied on again, leading the bench and becoming the team’s secondary creator alongside Victor Oladipo.

Comparing players in the NBA often becomes a fool’s errand, as discussions are mostly subjective. Stats can either tell the whole story or none of it at all, depending on who you talk to.

Because NBA Twitter doesn’t see enough offseason debate, Sports Illustrated makes sure to stir the pot every September with its Top 100 players list.

This year, we have a slight issue with the rankings. Or, lack thereof.

Indiana was lucky enough to see three Pacers on the list from spots 51-100 — Domantas Sabonis (79), Thaddeus Young (76), and Myles Turner (67). In the list’s top 50 rankings, Oladipo should see himself somewhere in the top 20. Evans, however, remains absent from the list entirely.

Snubs will happen. There are a lot of good players in the NBA. This one, though, stands out. Comparison is the thief of joy, but let’s make some anyway. Here are a few interesting players on the list ahead of Evans: Kelly Olynyk (93), Evan Fournier (92), and Kent Bazemore (91).

There are other players (old Dirk, PJ Tucker, Malcolm Brogdon) that stood out, too.

Really, rankings lists are tough to judge because they are biased towards preferences. The rankers here seem to value a diverse, all-equipped skillset. They seem to really like defense, which really doesn’t explain why Nowitzki is on this list (sorry Dirk).

Players like Tucker and Brogdon are definitely useful to championship-contending teams. Being able to play defense is a useful skill. But is it really more important than shot creation?

Tyreke Evans, at 6-foot-6 and 220 pounds, has the size to school many NBA guards. His improved pull-up shooting also opens up his driving, which opens everything else up. Is he a great defender? No. But he’s also not a turnstile.

Perhaps the list-makers are worried Evans, in a contract year, balled out in hopes of duping a team into paying him a lot of money. He could regress this season (in another contract year, by the way), perhaps in the form of cooled-down three-point shooting. But Evans has proven over the years to have a floor of a 15-point, five-rebound, five-assist, one steal per game player.

That is a useful player in the league, especially one in a reserve role. It’s hard to imagine there being 100 players capable of making that kind of impact. But SI seems to disagree.

Like many preseason rankings, this is simply content. Evans probably doesn’t take this to heart. And if he does, that could fuel something positive for the Pacers.

Rankings aside, Evans will be a huge key to where Indiana ends up this season. If he can replicate what he did last season but in more games, the Indiana Pacers have a chance to surprise the league for the second season in a row. By years end, he will be worthy of a spot in the top 100.