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I agree. Lowry and Horford are both 3 years older than Love, and are more likely to decline this year than is Love, and I don't see either as so clearly better than Love that we can predict who will be better this upcoming season.
I think Middleton is weirdly overrated in general.
Simmons is younger and better overall, but is game is so weird for a PG that it's tough to figure out how truly valuable he is. Vuc is one guy I do think is better, but it's not clear cut.
Siakam is the one guy I'd want over Love in a heartbeat, and that based on his history of rapid improvement, and projected improvement in the future..
Paskal Siakam is an interesting situation, and one that I kind of put on the same level as Jayson Tatum. They have both been in situations where they were third or fourth options most of the season but very successful in that role. In the playoffs, they both had a wide variance from their best games to their clunkers. Now that the stars have left their teams, they could end up bonafide NBA stars in the new role or find their efficiency take a nose dive. Since Tatum was expected to be an All Star type player someday since AAU ball, NBA writers expect him to make the adjustment easily to team leader and kind of forget about Siakam. I think they are both right there to make the jump and it wouldn't surprise me... but they actually have to do it rather than theoretically ease right into "franchise guy".
Simmons, on the other hand, kind of got exposed in the playoffs this year. The NBA was ready to crown him The Next Big Thing after a promising rookie year and having such an exciting young team around him... but never hitting a three pointer at this stage became a clear attack point for The Raptors defense. I absolutely believed the offseason trade rumors coming out of Philly. That glaring weakness has to be answered, or else forget the hype.
I think Khris Middleton deserves the respect he has earned around the NBA. He legitimately made the jump from a 3and D guy to a complimentary scoring option on a good team. His defensive advanced statistics took a little hit as he became a bigger part of the offensive load, but he played timely defense when needed last season. Consider that a valuable lesson to the Kevin Love critics, by the way... sometimes incredibly important offensive contributors don't go all out on defense every play and still make All Star teams.