Top 22 Best Small Forwards In The NBA Right Now
15 Jul 2024
Small forwards are one of the most important positions in basketball. They are responsible for a lot of the scoring and playmaking on offense and also have to guard some of the best players on the other team.
There are a lot of great small forwards in the NBA right now, so it was tough to narrow it down to just a few. But here are my picks for the best small forwards in NBA.
Joe Ingles, our second Jazz swingman in a row, had his greatest NBA season at age 33 last year, according to both Box Plus/Minus (BPM) and Win Shares per 48 Minutes (WS/48), finishing 28th in the league overall in the former statistic (+3.4) and 22nd in the latter (0.180).
That statistic among all players, not just small forwards, demonstrates Ingles's importance for the Jazz in 2020–21 on both ends of the court.
Ingles also ranks fourth in three-point accuracy among players who have tried at least 1,000 threes during 2016–17, with a 42.3 percent success rate.
Ingles is more than just a spot-up three-point shooter; according to Synergy Sports, the Australian forward ranked in the NBA's 82nd percentile out of the pick-and-roll last season (with passes included), demonstrating that he also has the ball-handling skills and cunning to get to the basket out of the pick-and-roll and the court vision to create for others.
Ingles continues to be underappreciated even after all these years, possibly even by our own voting committee here. Ingles may not average 20 points per game, but his shooting, playmaking, and defense have made him Utah's standout wing player for the past nearly five years.
TJ Warren's 2020–21 season was cut short to just four games before the Indiana Pacers wing underwent season-ending surgery for a stress fracture on his left foot following a stellar 2019–20 campaign in which he dominated the Orlando bubble through assured good ‘ol fashioned midrange bucket-getting.
It was unpleasant for the player and the team, and it was followed by a great deal of drama centered around Warren's name. After being sidelined due to the injury, Warren was the subject of numerous trade rumors over the six months following.
Although those look to be over now that first-year head coach Nate Bjorkgren was fired, the almost-28-year-past old's eight months have been largely tumultuous.
Warren will likely recover well this season, thanks to being healthy and playing for a Rick Carlisle-led squad, especially if he can carry over some of that Orlando bubble form.
The Pacers need wing scoring and Warren's efficiency from the midrange and beyond the arc point to a comeback season for the former NC State star.
Evan Fournier is a competent scorer, shooter, rebounder, and playmaker but doesn't quite excel in any one area at an outstanding level. He is a jack of all trades and master of none.
Nevertheless, Fournier is a very good offensive player thanks to his ability to score on the inside – his pull-up jumper is particularly efficient – and his significantly improved three-point shooting (40.4 percent over the previous two seasons, up from 37.1 percent across his first seven campaigns).
And he's especially effective as a third or fourth option, which is what the New York Knicks might use this season behind Julius Randle, RJ Barrett, and Kemba Walker.
De'Andre Hunter is a player who has an impact on both ends, but injury issues have prevented him from fully emerging since the Atlanta Hawks selected him with the No. 4 choice in the 2019 lottery.
Hunter, though, has all the makings of a star two-way wing, one who can score from beyond the arc or close to the basket and who can defend several spots on the less glamorous end of the floor. This is why we ranked him so highly.
The Hawks have always been a better club when Hunter has donned the Atlanta uniform, which gives us hope for Hunter's future as early as 2021–2022.
Atlanta improved by 4.7 points per 100 possessions as a rookie while Hunter was playing. That figure was +4.2 points for every 100 possessions as a sophomore. The Hawks were 17.6 points per 100 possessions (this is not a mistake) more successful over the course of five games with Hunter on the floor, which is maybe the most intriguing statistic of all during his first taste of NBA postseason action.
Of course, the criticism there is that Hunter's playoff run in 2020–21 only lasted five games because of yet another injury, this time to his meniscus, which kept him out for most of Atlanta's unlikely journey to the Eastern Conference Finals.
However, given the thrilling flashes Hunter has displayed so far in the NBA, we're certain that Year 3 will be the most spectacular of his career as long as he can stay healthy.
Related:
OG Anunoby, a swingman with the Toronto Raptors who has seen his career progress over the past two seasons, had his finest season as a professional in 2020–21, setting career highs in nearly every category including points, rebounds, assists, steals, and three-point accuracy.
Anunoby has improved to the point that, last season, Synergy Sports put him in the NBA's 75th percentile as an offensive player after he produced 1.061 points per possession (PPP) as a scorer. Initially, Anunoby was an athletic athlete with tremendous length but lacked growth.
That's a significant improvement over where Anunoby, a skilled three-point shooter and a premier multi-positional defender, used to be. Although he still needs to make progress toward becoming a 20-point-per-game scorer or a stronger playmaker, the fact that the former Indiana Hoosier is only 24 years old suggests that he still has a higher ceiling to reach.
And if he keeps getting closer to that mark in 2021–2022, Anunoby's fifth NBA season may very well end up being his greatest as a professional.
With fewer offensive responsibilities than in any other year except one with the Minnesota Timberwolves, Andrew Wiggins had one of his most productive seasons in 2020–21, with the highest true shooting percentage of his career in the NBA (56.8 percent).
Not by chance, Wiggins' best scoring season occurred during the same season that he had the second-lowest usage percentage in the NBA (23.3 percent), confirming the theories of many who thought the Canadian swingman would do better with a lower offensive role.
Due to his reduced offensive responsibility last season, Wiggins was able to attack when he perceived opportunities and select his spots. Synergy Sports' rankings of him in the 79th percentile for isolation scorers and the 65th percentile for off-ball cutters in 2020–21 attest to this.
Wiggins improved his playmaking last season as well; he produced 1.066 PPP on those opportunities while ranking in the 78th percentile as a pick-and-roll ball handler with passes included. That's a far cry from the 0.92 PPP (47th percentile) he produced in Minnesota during his final year using the pick-and-roll with passes included.
Overall, Wiggins appears to have advanced to a higher level among the NBA's elite swingmen since he can now concentrate more of his efforts on the defensive end, where he occasionally has game-changing powers, and select his places on offense as a member of the Golden State Warriors.
Following his midseason move from Toronto to the Portland Trail Blazers, Norman Powell's statistics slightly declined, but it was to be expected given that he had to get used to a new role on a team with a variety of high-usage scoring options.
In 2021–2022, Powell, who rose to prominence as one of the game's top small forwards while playing for the Raptors, should continue to display his exceptional vertical bounce, quickness in transition, and spot-up shooting skills.
Powell developed into a very consistent three-point shooter over the course of his final two and a half seasons with Toronto, connecting on 41.4 percent of his attempts, making the 36.1 three-point percentage he recorded during his brief stint with the Blazers appear more like an anomaly than anything else.
We anticipate Powell's 2021–22 season to be another successful one for the former Raptor. Powell may not have the ideal size for the position (though he more than makes up for that with remarkable length), which is a slight issue for a Portland club with a small backcourt.
The Phoenix Suns have done a fantastic job of assisting Mikal Bridges' development since selecting him on the draft night back in 2018. It doesn't seem like the former Villanova standout is close to being finished improving just yet. Bridges is one of the league's top defensive wing specialists with a borderline elite three-point shooting ability.
Bridges has the conventional height and length for a small forward in the current NBA, as well as the foot quickness, basketball acumen, and shooting touch to defend various positions and make jumpers with his feet set and even after one or two dribbles.
Bridges had such a strong third NBA season that Value Over Replacement Player (VORP) ranked him as the league's No. 21 player in 2020–21, even though he had a BPM and WS/48 ranking of 35 and 33, respectively.
Bridges and Robert Covington, another incredibly important wing defender, were the only players in the NBA last season with at least 70 thefts, 60 blocks, and 130 three-pointers made during the course of the season.
While he probably won't suddenly turn into a player who averages 20 points per game in 2021–22, Bridges is expected to make another leap next season, which will excite Suns supporters but worry their Western Conference rivals.
At least in part, Jerami Grant's decision to leave the Denver Nuggets for the Detroit Pistons was motivated by his desire to drop one positional rung and switch from power forward to small forward full-time.
The swingman posted the best season of his career in 2020–21, performing admirably enough to earn a spot on Team USA for the Tokyo Olympics and finishing second in the Most Improved Player voting—an award he might have won had he not missed a lot of games late in the season and Julius Randle not gone supernova. And that decision paid off for Grant in a big way.
Even so, Grant had a very spectacular season in which he virtually single-handedly set career highs in almost all categories, including points, assists, and three-pointers.
It was to be expected for a player whose usage rate increased from a career 16.1 percent to 28.5 percent in 2020–21 and who was playing small forward full-time for the first time in his career. Grant did, however, only shoot 42.9 percent from the floor overall and had 109 turnovers to just 152 assists.
Grant, a former Syracuse Orangeman who is already so adaptable on both ends of the floor, should become more efficient as a swingman next season with another offseason of swingman development.
Gordon Hayward excels at doing a little bit of everything on the basketball floor, including making shots from beyond the arc. He is a top-tier three-level scorer who is also a strong rebounder and facilitator for his position.
If injuries hadn't limited Hayward to just 44 appearances in 2020–21 and forced him to miss the final two months of the season, he would likely be far higher on this ranking. Hayward likely would have slipped into the Top 10 of this list if we were more positive about his guaranteed availability for the rest of next season; he was that effective in his debut season with the Charlotte Hornets.
In 2020–21, Charlotte was 4.2 points per 100 possessions better with Hayward on the court than without him. Given how well-rounded Hayward's offensive skill is at this point in his career, Synergy Sports graded the Butler University great as a very good scorer in transition, as a spot-up shooter, and off of dribble hand-offs.
After suffering a terrible leg fracture in 2017, injuries will continue to be a problem for Hayward, which is partly why Charlotte hired Kelly Oubre Jr. this offseason as insurance. However, when he is available, Hayward is still one of the NBA's top swingmen.
DeMar DeRozan was one of the top shooting guards in basketball for most of his career. However, the seasoned ball handler, who is now in his early 30s, has spent the last three seasons primarily playing small forward or power forward, which is why we put him among the swingmen for our exercise.
If analytics are to be believed, DeRozan quietly produced one of his best seasons ever in 2020–21; BPM (+3.2) and WS/48 (0.172) actually ranked it as the best season of DeRozan's four-time All-Star and one-time 2nd Team All–NBA career and even VORP ranked him as the 25th most effective player in 2017.
That raises some serious questions.
Perhaps this explains why the Chicago Bulls were so eager to get DeRozan this offseason when it appeared that the 32-year-market old's had shrunk considerably.
Nevertheless, DeRozan's game is actually aging fairly nicely despite his lack of three-point shooting. DeRozan is less dependent on his once-elite athleticism, which is greatly helped by his skill in the midrange and high-post positions.
DeRozan may see a slight decline in production in 2021–22 as a result of playing with a much more talented supporting cast in Chicago than he did during his final few seasons with the San Antonio Spurs, but we remain optimistic that he'll get enough opportunities to post another strong season the following year.
Michael Porter Jr. would probably be towards the top of the list if we were to compile a ranking of non-All-Star players most likely to have significant growth in 2021–22, as the third-year forward has a ton of untapped talent that he's just beginning to access.
Porter Jr.'s skill is similar to a guy lower on our list in that he can easily drop in baskets from all over the floor despite being taller than most other wings at 6-foot-10 with a relatively wide frame, good agility, and ball-handling ability unbecoming of a player of his size.
Porter Jr. still has a lot of room for improvement, though, as the Missouri product frequently entirely shuns any playmaking duty when he has the ball in his hands. Porter Jr. had the second-fewest number of assists among players who played at least 1,900 minutes in 2020–21, slightly behind center Brook Lopez, with 70 total assists.
There's no doubt Porter Jr. needs to work on his vision. Of course, that could partially just be a result of the Denver Nuggets' system, in which reigning MVP Nikola Jokic sets the stage, and the rest of the team is responsible for completing plays.
However, the 23-year-old small forward has a lot of potentials. Given that he already improved from averaging less than 10 points as a rookie to nearly 20 per game as a sophomore, we fully anticipate another step forward from Porter Jr. next season.
Brandon Ingram appears to have been the most negatively impacted by the lack of a true offseason last year. After demonstrating a clear upward trajectory over his first four seasons, Ingram suffered a severe slump in 2020–21, scoring the same number of points per game as he had the year before while also averaging fewer rebounds and seeing a slight decline in his true shooting percentage, from 58.7 percent to 58.4 percent.
Fortunately for the New Orleans Pelicans, even if Ingram reaches his developmental plateau (unlikely given that he is still only 24 years old), he has already established himself as one of the league's top 10 small forwards, capable of scoring at a high level while distributing and rebounding effectively enough for his position.
With his feet set or off the bounce, Ingram has even developed into a consistent three-point shooter, making 38.6 percent of his tries over the previous two seasons on an average of over six per game.
Ingram is undoubtedly on the verge of becoming one of the league's top 3-men, but you'd still like to see him have a stronger defensive effect given his size and length, as well as a greater free throw rate (he shoots 86+ percent from the line when he does get there).
That a player as skilled as Jaylen Brown, who continues to defy expectations and make significant improvements every single year and is coming off his first All-Star performance, can place eighth on the list is a testament to the amazing depth among the NBA's elite swingmen.
But the players who finished ahead of him were so incredibly talented and effective.
Without a doubt, Brown's career's best season was 2020–21. After never scoring more than 20.3 points per game on average previously, he started scoring nearly 25. He had a career-high three-point shooting percentage of 39.7%. In terms of BPM and VORP, he completely destroyed prior career records. He accomplished all of this while continuing to be one of basketball's most important wing defenders.
Brown was rated by Synergy Sports as a "very good" overall scorer who ranked in the 69th percentile of scorers in the NBA. Synergy Sports also rated Brown as an "excellent" spot-up shooter and pick-and-roll ball handler, demonstrating how well-rounded of a scorer he has become after entering the NBA very raw in that regard.
Brown has the potential to make our rating appear way too conservative if he makes yet another leap in 2021–2022, as he has in previous seasons. He will still be one of the finest swingmen in the world, even if he stays the same as he did throughout the previous campaign.
Khris Middleton's ability to be a No. 2 option for a championship-level team had been questioned for years, but the Milwaukee Bucks' remarkable championship win in 2020–21 put an end to those doubts.
In the postseason, Middleton was outstanding, tallying a 23.6/7.6/5.1 stat line in addition to 1.5 steals and 2.6 three-pointers.
Throughout the whole postseason, Middleton was able to consistently step up for the Bucks in crucial situations, frequently rising to the occasion and making crucial baskets late in games when Milwaukee needed them most.
Middleton has developed one of the cleanest midrange jumpers in sports, even off the dribble, and he is even more potent when shooting with his feet planted from beyond the arc.
Overall, Middleton fills a critical modern archetype with his game, which is based on silky jumpers that set up attacks to the rim along with elite perimeter defense. Without him, it's difficult to imagine the Bucks becoming the competitors they have been for the past few seasons.
Jimmy Butler's outside jump shooting has all but abandoned him since joining the Miami Heat. Butler has only made 24.4 percent of his outside jumpers in each of the last two seasons. Any player with at least 200 three-point attempts during that time period had the poorest percentage.
That's what makes the rest of Butler's game so astounding because even without much of a perimeter jump shot to speak of last season, the five-time All-Star and four-time All-NBAer was still considered among the league's greatest players.
Butler finished sixth among all players in VORP last season despite sitting out 20 games. Given that VORP is a cumulative number, Butler's achievement is all the more remarkable.
Only Stephen Curry, the league MVP Jokic, and Giannis Antetokounmpo were ahead of Butler in BPM.
The Heat swingman also finished third overall in WS/48.
Accordingly, even if Butler's performance in last year's playoffs was by no means outstanding, the notion that Butler was a poor choice for the 3rd Team All-NBA in 2020–21 is just ridiculous based on the facts.
Butler's popularity in analytics is primarily due to two factors, despite the fact that he cannot shoot threes. First off, he was highly accurate when he was at the foul line (his 56.5 percent free throw rate was seventh best among all players). In 2020–21, Butler made a perfect 86.3 percent of his free throws.
Butler's defensive effect is another factor in his impressive stats, as he ranked third in the NBA in steal percentage and led the league in daily steals (2.1).
Overall, Butler may not be the ideal player—his lack of an outside jump shot reflects that—and he may not always be dependable in last-second situations, but he is unquestionably one of the league's most influential players, consistently putting up enormous productivity on both ends of the floor.
Paul George, who assisted the Los Angeles Clippers in their first-ever appearance in the Western Conference Finals while Kawhi Leonard was sidelined with an injury, was one of the players who did the most to turn the narratives surrounding them from negative to positive last season.
George had a monster playoff for the Clippers, scoring 26.9 points, 9.6 rebounds, and 5.4 assists while shooting 84.4 percent from the line on more than eight attempts per game.
George only outranked Butler on our list as a fellow small forward, earned All-NBA accolades and made the third team.
Speaking of Butler, the Heat swingman and the Clippers' small forward rank among the best two-way players in basketball. However, for the purposes of this exercise, we chose to focus on George because we anticipate a huge 2021–22 season from him, with Leonard expected to miss most, if not all, of the season.
Butler and George both perform at a high level on both sides of the floor, so picking one over the other is truly a matter of hair, but George was the first player to enter our rankings' Top 5 spots.
Jayson Tatum, an Olympic gold medalist who will be an All-Star in 2020–21, has only shown signs of progress since joining the NBA in 2017–18, and he now shows no signs of slowing down. Aside from memes, he is still only 23 years old. Thus, he is probably still developing.
Tatum needs to improve on his ability to draw fouls because his free-throw percentage (25.8 percent, 94th in the NBA last season, one position behind Marc Gasol) is so low compared to some of the other top scorers in the league.
Tatum is a good overall basket-getter, so it's not an exaggeration to say that if he learns how to go to the line more frequently, where he's a lifetime 84.0 percent foul shooter, he might increase his scoring average to the low 30s.
Tatum also needs to attack the basket more frequently because, last season, only 19.7% of his shot attempts came from inside three feet of the rim, which was by far the lowest percentage of his career. Butler tried 32.7 percent of his field goals from the same distance for the purpose of comparison.
Tatum has the ball-handling skills, strength, and athleticism necessary to be a successful basket-attacker; all that is needed is for him to do it more frequently the following season and rely less on challenging midrange jumpers, an area of the court where elite players shouldn't be spending so much time but where the former Duke standout does excel.
Tatum is ranked so highly in our exercise because we completely anticipate that he will continue to progress in 2021–2022. Even at the young age of 23, he has already developed significantly as a player, and we anticipate that trend to continue in the upcoming season.
LeBron James, who ranks third among our top 5 small forwards NBA for 2021–22, may be our most contentious rating on this list.
We must first explain why we chose the four-time league MVP as a small forward when he has primarily played point guard since joining the Los Angeles Lakers. James has always been a wing, and that hasn't changed since he moved to Los Angeles, so that was the basis behind it.
He assists teammates, scores points, pulls down rebounds, and most crucially for our purposes, he frequently guards the smaller power forwards or wings of the opposition.
These factors led us to accompany James at the 3.
Let's now discuss his third-place finish overall, behind the two players immediately below.
James is still one of the finest players in the world, and if he had stayed healthy last season, he very well could have won his sixth MVP.
The issue is that James, who is over 37 years old, has had difficulty keeping fit over the past few seasons. Given the insane mileage on his body, this situation might not alter in 2021–2022.
Furthermore, despite James' outstanding raw averages, the advanced analytics reveal that his 2020–21 season was among his least successful ones overall. The third-least significant season of James' career, according to BPM, was last year. It was ranked as having the second-least impact by VORP. It was also the second-least impactful, according to WS/48.
James is a superb player, as evidenced by the fact that he continued to rank among the NBA's Top 23 players in each of those categories last season, including in the Top 5 in BPM.
But the probably greatest player of all time is beginning to show a few minute signs of deterioration.
We still rank James as one of the best basketball players because he will probably be able to fend off Father Time for a few more seasons, if not longer, like Tom Brady.
However, we still believe that these following two players will have a stronger season than him, health permitting, even if his 2021–22 is identical to the previous season.
We considered Luka Doncic to be a small forward despite the fact that he spends more time on the court guarding wings than opposing point guards (and he probably makes a stronger case for that distinction than James does).
We won't fight with you if you insist that Doncic is a point guard and that we are mistaken. Regardless, we chose the 6-foot-7 ball-handler (prototypical small forward size, by the way) to serve as the swingman for our experiment.
In any case, Doncic is ranked No. 2 in our list of the top small forwards in the NBA for the next season, and it's easy to understand why. In just three NBA seasons, the Slovenian has established himself as a superstar, receiving first-team All-NBA honors in each of the last two campaigns and placing sixth in the MVP voting in 2020–21.
And if he keeps developing as quickly as he has since joining the Dallas Mavericks, an MVP award may be in his future, possibly as early as next season.
Doncic is currently the early favorite to win the prestigious prize in 2021–2022, according to certain online betting odds. With a complete offseason to strengthen and improve his body, which is currently his main weakness, he may very well make that prediction come true next season.
Dallas will likely need to grow as a team in order to do that, but given Doncic's talent and ability to inspire his teammates, it wouldn't be at all surprising to see the Mavericks advance to a Top 4 seed in the West in 2021–22.
In 2020–21, Doncic came in fourth in VORP, eighth in BPM and ninth in PER. The majority of the cutting-edge measures indicate that the 22-year-old is possibly the best small forward in the NBA right now.
Although it will be interesting to see if that can happen as early as next season, as you can obviously tell from our ranking for Doncic, we believe it is very conceivable.
What more needs to be said about Kevin Durant that hasn't already been covered extensively?
He almost always scores perfectly. Durant had the third-highest true shooting percentage (66.6%) among players who attempted more than 150 three-pointers and 300 field goals last season, behind only Ingles and Bridges, two other players already covered on this list who don't approach Durant's level of volume scoring.
In his first campaign back following a horrific Achilles injury, Synergy Sports rated him as an "excellent" scorer, placing him in the 91st percentile thanks to his 1.143 PPP on scoring opportunities. With at least 800 scoring possessions, that was the eighth-best mark in the league for players in 2020–21.
And everyone witnessed what he was capable of during the playoffs when Durant frequently appeared to be the best player in the world. Even without Kyrie Irving and James Harden playing like a shell of his former self, the former league MVP nearly led the Brooklyn Nets to the Eastern Conference Finals with his absurd 34.3/9.3/4.4 stat line postseason.
The Bucks had to advance very late in Game 7 thanks to Durant's toe being on the three-point line, and they ultimately won. Who knows how Durant would have performed against teams like Atlanta and Phoenix?
Durant even followed that up with an Olympic performance to remember, leading Team USA to a gold medal despite the team lacking a number of notable players and despite the Americans receiving the majority of shots from several highly skilled, seasoned international rivals.
Overall, we anticipate more of the same from Durant in 2021–22. If he can stay healthy and miss fewer games than he did last year (he will still receive a good amount of load management in the regular season, there's no doubt about that; the question is just how many games he has to miss), we may be looking at an MVP front-runner for the following season.
Regardless, Durant has demonstrated over the last year that he is still the same Kevin Durant, even after suffering an Achilles injury. For this reason, he is projected to be the greatest small forward in 2021–22.
Top 22 Best Small Forwards In The NBA
22. Bojan Bogdanovic, Utah
After putting up a 20.2/4.1/2.1 stat line and shooting 41.4 percent from three in his first season with the Utah Jazz, Bojan Bogdanovic's stats dipped a touch in 2020–21 as he recorded numbers that were more in line with his career norms. Bogdanovic, to his fair, was still rated as a "very good" offensive player by Synergy Sports last season, finishing in the 71st percentile as a scorer. However, 17.0 points per game and 39.0 percent three-point shooting on a team with as much scoring potential as the Jazz is nothing to laugh at. Utah would likely prefer Bogdanovic to revert to his form from the 2019–20 season when he helped the Jazz improve by +8.0 points per 100 possessions when he was on the court. Last season, that figure dropped to a fairly alarming -0.9 points per 100 possessions, which might be the reason why Bogdanovic's name surfaced in trade rumors throughout the summer. The 32-year-old will be one of the 60 highest-paid players in 2021–2022 and has two years and more than $38 million left on his contract.21. Joe Ingles, Utah
Joe Ingles, our second Jazz swingman in a row, had his greatest NBA season at age 33 last year, according to both Box Plus/Minus (BPM) and Win Shares per 48 Minutes (WS/48), finishing 28th in the league overall in the former statistic (+3.4) and 22nd in the latter (0.180).
That statistic among all players, not just small forwards, demonstrates Ingles's importance for the Jazz in 2020–21 on both ends of the court.
Ingles also ranks fourth in three-point accuracy among players who have tried at least 1,000 threes during 2016–17, with a 42.3 percent success rate.
Ingles is more than just a spot-up three-point shooter; according to Synergy Sports, the Australian forward ranked in the NBA's 82nd percentile out of the pick-and-roll last season (with passes included), demonstrating that he also has the ball-handling skills and cunning to get to the basket out of the pick-and-roll and the court vision to create for others.
Ingles continues to be underappreciated even after all these years, possibly even by our own voting committee here. Ingles may not average 20 points per game, but his shooting, playmaking, and defense have made him Utah's standout wing player for the past nearly five years.
20. TJ Warren, Indiana
TJ Warren's 2020–21 season was cut short to just four games before the Indiana Pacers wing underwent season-ending surgery for a stress fracture on his left foot following a stellar 2019–20 campaign in which he dominated the Orlando bubble through assured good ‘ol fashioned midrange bucket-getting.
It was unpleasant for the player and the team, and it was followed by a great deal of drama centered around Warren's name. After being sidelined due to the injury, Warren was the subject of numerous trade rumors over the six months following.
Although those look to be over now that first-year head coach Nate Bjorkgren was fired, the almost-28-year-past old's eight months have been largely tumultuous.
Warren will likely recover well this season, thanks to being healthy and playing for a Rick Carlisle-led squad, especially if he can carry over some of that Orlando bubble form.
The Pacers need wing scoring and Warren's efficiency from the midrange and beyond the arc point to a comeback season for the former NC State star.
19. Evan Fournier, New York
Evan Fournier is a competent scorer, shooter, rebounder, and playmaker but doesn't quite excel in any one area at an outstanding level. He is a jack of all trades and master of none.
Nevertheless, Fournier is a very good offensive player thanks to his ability to score on the inside – his pull-up jumper is particularly efficient – and his significantly improved three-point shooting (40.4 percent over the previous two seasons, up from 37.1 percent across his first seven campaigns).
And he's especially effective as a third or fourth option, which is what the New York Knicks might use this season behind Julius Randle, RJ Barrett, and Kemba Walker.
18. De'Andre Hunter, Atlanta
De'Andre Hunter is a player who has an impact on both ends, but injury issues have prevented him from fully emerging since the Atlanta Hawks selected him with the No. 4 choice in the 2019 lottery.
Hunter, though, has all the makings of a star two-way wing, one who can score from beyond the arc or close to the basket and who can defend several spots on the less glamorous end of the floor. This is why we ranked him so highly.
The Hawks have always been a better club when Hunter has donned the Atlanta uniform, which gives us hope for Hunter's future as early as 2021–2022.
Atlanta improved by 4.7 points per 100 possessions as a rookie while Hunter was playing. That figure was +4.2 points for every 100 possessions as a sophomore. The Hawks were 17.6 points per 100 possessions (this is not a mistake) more successful over the course of five games with Hunter on the floor, which is maybe the most intriguing statistic of all during his first taste of NBA postseason action.
Of course, the criticism there is that Hunter's playoff run in 2020–21 only lasted five games because of yet another injury, this time to his meniscus, which kept him out for most of Atlanta's unlikely journey to the Eastern Conference Finals.
However, given the thrilling flashes Hunter has displayed so far in the NBA, we're certain that Year 3 will be the most spectacular of his career as long as he can stay healthy.
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17. OG Anunoby, Toronto
OG Anunoby, a swingman with the Toronto Raptors who has seen his career progress over the past two seasons, had his finest season as a professional in 2020–21, setting career highs in nearly every category including points, rebounds, assists, steals, and three-point accuracy.
Anunoby has improved to the point that, last season, Synergy Sports put him in the NBA's 75th percentile as an offensive player after he produced 1.061 points per possession (PPP) as a scorer. Initially, Anunoby was an athletic athlete with tremendous length but lacked growth.
That's a significant improvement over where Anunoby, a skilled three-point shooter and a premier multi-positional defender, used to be. Although he still needs to make progress toward becoming a 20-point-per-game scorer or a stronger playmaker, the fact that the former Indiana Hoosier is only 24 years old suggests that he still has a higher ceiling to reach.
And if he keeps getting closer to that mark in 2021–2022, Anunoby's fifth NBA season may very well end up being his greatest as a professional.
16. Andrew Wiggins, Golden State
With fewer offensive responsibilities than in any other year except one with the Minnesota Timberwolves, Andrew Wiggins had one of his most productive seasons in 2020–21, with the highest true shooting percentage of his career in the NBA (56.8 percent).
Not by chance, Wiggins' best scoring season occurred during the same season that he had the second-lowest usage percentage in the NBA (23.3 percent), confirming the theories of many who thought the Canadian swingman would do better with a lower offensive role.
Due to his reduced offensive responsibility last season, Wiggins was able to attack when he perceived opportunities and select his spots. Synergy Sports' rankings of him in the 79th percentile for isolation scorers and the 65th percentile for off-ball cutters in 2020–21 attest to this.
Wiggins improved his playmaking last season as well; he produced 1.066 PPP on those opportunities while ranking in the 78th percentile as a pick-and-roll ball handler with passes included. That's a far cry from the 0.92 PPP (47th percentile) he produced in Minnesota during his final year using the pick-and-roll with passes included.
Overall, Wiggins appears to have advanced to a higher level among the NBA's elite swingmen since he can now concentrate more of his efforts on the defensive end, where he occasionally has game-changing powers, and select his places on offense as a member of the Golden State Warriors.
15. Norman Powell, Portland
Following his midseason move from Toronto to the Portland Trail Blazers, Norman Powell's statistics slightly declined, but it was to be expected given that he had to get used to a new role on a team with a variety of high-usage scoring options.
In 2021–2022, Powell, who rose to prominence as one of the game's top small forwards while playing for the Raptors, should continue to display his exceptional vertical bounce, quickness in transition, and spot-up shooting skills.
Powell developed into a very consistent three-point shooter over the course of his final two and a half seasons with Toronto, connecting on 41.4 percent of his attempts, making the 36.1 three-point percentage he recorded during his brief stint with the Blazers appear more like an anomaly than anything else.
We anticipate Powell's 2021–22 season to be another successful one for the former Raptor. Powell may not have the ideal size for the position (though he more than makes up for that with remarkable length), which is a slight issue for a Portland club with a small backcourt.
14. Mikal Bridges, Phoenix
The Phoenix Suns have done a fantastic job of assisting Mikal Bridges' development since selecting him on the draft night back in 2018. It doesn't seem like the former Villanova standout is close to being finished improving just yet. Bridges is one of the league's top defensive wing specialists with a borderline elite three-point shooting ability.
Bridges has the conventional height and length for a small forward in the current NBA, as well as the foot quickness, basketball acumen, and shooting touch to defend various positions and make jumpers with his feet set and even after one or two dribbles.
Bridges had such a strong third NBA season that Value Over Replacement Player (VORP) ranked him as the league's No. 21 player in 2020–21, even though he had a BPM and WS/48 ranking of 35 and 33, respectively.
Bridges and Robert Covington, another incredibly important wing defender, were the only players in the NBA last season with at least 70 thefts, 60 blocks, and 130 three-pointers made during the course of the season.
While he probably won't suddenly turn into a player who averages 20 points per game in 2021–22, Bridges is expected to make another leap next season, which will excite Suns supporters but worry their Western Conference rivals.
13. Jerami Grant, Detroit
At least in part, Jerami Grant's decision to leave the Denver Nuggets for the Detroit Pistons was motivated by his desire to drop one positional rung and switch from power forward to small forward full-time.
The swingman posted the best season of his career in 2020–21, performing admirably enough to earn a spot on Team USA for the Tokyo Olympics and finishing second in the Most Improved Player voting—an award he might have won had he not missed a lot of games late in the season and Julius Randle not gone supernova. And that decision paid off for Grant in a big way.
Even so, Grant had a very spectacular season in which he virtually single-handedly set career highs in almost all categories, including points, assists, and three-pointers.
It was to be expected for a player whose usage rate increased from a career 16.1 percent to 28.5 percent in 2020–21 and who was playing small forward full-time for the first time in his career. Grant did, however, only shoot 42.9 percent from the floor overall and had 109 turnovers to just 152 assists.
Grant, a former Syracuse Orangeman who is already so adaptable on both ends of the floor, should become more efficient as a swingman next season with another offseason of swingman development.
12. Gordon Hayward, Charlotte
Gordon Hayward excels at doing a little bit of everything on the basketball floor, including making shots from beyond the arc. He is a top-tier three-level scorer who is also a strong rebounder and facilitator for his position.
If injuries hadn't limited Hayward to just 44 appearances in 2020–21 and forced him to miss the final two months of the season, he would likely be far higher on this ranking. Hayward likely would have slipped into the Top 10 of this list if we were more positive about his guaranteed availability for the rest of next season; he was that effective in his debut season with the Charlotte Hornets.
In 2020–21, Charlotte was 4.2 points per 100 possessions better with Hayward on the court than without him. Given how well-rounded Hayward's offensive skill is at this point in his career, Synergy Sports graded the Butler University great as a very good scorer in transition, as a spot-up shooter, and off of dribble hand-offs.
After suffering a terrible leg fracture in 2017, injuries will continue to be a problem for Hayward, which is partly why Charlotte hired Kelly Oubre Jr. this offseason as insurance. However, when he is available, Hayward is still one of the NBA's top swingmen.
11. DeMar DeRozan, Chicago
DeMar DeRozan was one of the top shooting guards in basketball for most of his career. However, the seasoned ball handler, who is now in his early 30s, has spent the last three seasons primarily playing small forward or power forward, which is why we put him among the swingmen for our exercise.
If analytics are to be believed, DeRozan quietly produced one of his best seasons ever in 2020–21; BPM (+3.2) and WS/48 (0.172) actually ranked it as the best season of DeRozan's four-time All-Star and one-time 2nd Team All–NBA career and even VORP ranked him as the 25th most effective player in 2017.
That raises some serious questions.
Perhaps this explains why the Chicago Bulls were so eager to get DeRozan this offseason when it appeared that the 32-year-market old's had shrunk considerably.
Nevertheless, DeRozan's game is actually aging fairly nicely despite his lack of three-point shooting. DeRozan is less dependent on his once-elite athleticism, which is greatly helped by his skill in the midrange and high-post positions.
DeRozan may see a slight decline in production in 2021–22 as a result of playing with a much more talented supporting cast in Chicago than he did during his final few seasons with the San Antonio Spurs, but we remain optimistic that he'll get enough opportunities to post another strong season the following year.
10. Michael Porter Jr., Denver
Michael Porter Jr. would probably be towards the top of the list if we were to compile a ranking of non-All-Star players most likely to have significant growth in 2021–22, as the third-year forward has a ton of untapped talent that he's just beginning to access.
Porter Jr.'s skill is similar to a guy lower on our list in that he can easily drop in baskets from all over the floor despite being taller than most other wings at 6-foot-10 with a relatively wide frame, good agility, and ball-handling ability unbecoming of a player of his size.
Porter Jr. still has a lot of room for improvement, though, as the Missouri product frequently entirely shuns any playmaking duty when he has the ball in his hands. Porter Jr. had the second-fewest number of assists among players who played at least 1,900 minutes in 2020–21, slightly behind center Brook Lopez, with 70 total assists.
There's no doubt Porter Jr. needs to work on his vision. Of course, that could partially just be a result of the Denver Nuggets' system, in which reigning MVP Nikola Jokic sets the stage, and the rest of the team is responsible for completing plays.
However, the 23-year-old small forward has a lot of potentials. Given that he already improved from averaging less than 10 points as a rookie to nearly 20 per game as a sophomore, we fully anticipate another step forward from Porter Jr. next season.
9. Brandon Ingram, New Orleans
Brandon Ingram appears to have been the most negatively impacted by the lack of a true offseason last year. After demonstrating a clear upward trajectory over his first four seasons, Ingram suffered a severe slump in 2020–21, scoring the same number of points per game as he had the year before while also averaging fewer rebounds and seeing a slight decline in his true shooting percentage, from 58.7 percent to 58.4 percent.
Fortunately for the New Orleans Pelicans, even if Ingram reaches his developmental plateau (unlikely given that he is still only 24 years old), he has already established himself as one of the league's top 10 small forwards, capable of scoring at a high level while distributing and rebounding effectively enough for his position.
With his feet set or off the bounce, Ingram has even developed into a consistent three-point shooter, making 38.6 percent of his tries over the previous two seasons on an average of over six per game.
Ingram is undoubtedly on the verge of becoming one of the league's top 3-men, but you'd still like to see him have a stronger defensive effect given his size and length, as well as a greater free throw rate (he shoots 86+ percent from the line when he does get there).
8. Jaylen Brown, Boston
That a player as skilled as Jaylen Brown, who continues to defy expectations and make significant improvements every single year and is coming off his first All-Star performance, can place eighth on the list is a testament to the amazing depth among the NBA's elite swingmen.
But the players who finished ahead of him were so incredibly talented and effective.
Without a doubt, Brown's career's best season was 2020–21. After never scoring more than 20.3 points per game on average previously, he started scoring nearly 25. He had a career-high three-point shooting percentage of 39.7%. In terms of BPM and VORP, he completely destroyed prior career records. He accomplished all of this while continuing to be one of basketball's most important wing defenders.
Brown was rated by Synergy Sports as a "very good" overall scorer who ranked in the 69th percentile of scorers in the NBA. Synergy Sports also rated Brown as an "excellent" spot-up shooter and pick-and-roll ball handler, demonstrating how well-rounded of a scorer he has become after entering the NBA very raw in that regard.
Brown has the potential to make our rating appear way too conservative if he makes yet another leap in 2021–2022, as he has in previous seasons. He will still be one of the finest swingmen in the world, even if he stays the same as he did throughout the previous campaign.
7. Khris Middleton, Milwaukee
Khris Middleton's ability to be a No. 2 option for a championship-level team had been questioned for years, but the Milwaukee Bucks' remarkable championship win in 2020–21 put an end to those doubts.
In the postseason, Middleton was outstanding, tallying a 23.6/7.6/5.1 stat line in addition to 1.5 steals and 2.6 three-pointers.
Throughout the whole postseason, Middleton was able to consistently step up for the Bucks in crucial situations, frequently rising to the occasion and making crucial baskets late in games when Milwaukee needed them most.
Middleton has developed one of the cleanest midrange jumpers in sports, even off the dribble, and he is even more potent when shooting with his feet planted from beyond the arc.
Overall, Middleton fills a critical modern archetype with his game, which is based on silky jumpers that set up attacks to the rim along with elite perimeter defense. Without him, it's difficult to imagine the Bucks becoming the competitors they have been for the past few seasons.
6. Jimmy Butler, Miami
Jimmy Butler's outside jump shooting has all but abandoned him since joining the Miami Heat. Butler has only made 24.4 percent of his outside jumpers in each of the last two seasons. Any player with at least 200 three-point attempts during that time period had the poorest percentage.
That's what makes the rest of Butler's game so astounding because even without much of a perimeter jump shot to speak of last season, the five-time All-Star and four-time All-NBAer was still considered among the league's greatest players.
Butler finished sixth among all players in VORP last season despite sitting out 20 games. Given that VORP is a cumulative number, Butler's achievement is all the more remarkable.
Only Stephen Curry, the league MVP Jokic, and Giannis Antetokounmpo were ahead of Butler in BPM.
The Heat swingman also finished third overall in WS/48.
Accordingly, even if Butler's performance in last year's playoffs was by no means outstanding, the notion that Butler was a poor choice for the 3rd Team All-NBA in 2020–21 is just ridiculous based on the facts.
Butler's popularity in analytics is primarily due to two factors, despite the fact that he cannot shoot threes. First off, he was highly accurate when he was at the foul line (his 56.5 percent free throw rate was seventh best among all players). In 2020–21, Butler made a perfect 86.3 percent of his free throws.
Butler's defensive effect is another factor in his impressive stats, as he ranked third in the NBA in steal percentage and led the league in daily steals (2.1).
Overall, Butler may not be the ideal player—his lack of an outside jump shot reflects that—and he may not always be dependable in last-second situations, but he is unquestionably one of the league's most influential players, consistently putting up enormous productivity on both ends of the floor.
5. Paul George, LA Clippers
Paul George, who assisted the Los Angeles Clippers in their first-ever appearance in the Western Conference Finals while Kawhi Leonard was sidelined with an injury, was one of the players who did the most to turn the narratives surrounding them from negative to positive last season.
George had a monster playoff for the Clippers, scoring 26.9 points, 9.6 rebounds, and 5.4 assists while shooting 84.4 percent from the line on more than eight attempts per game.
George only outranked Butler on our list as a fellow small forward, earned All-NBA accolades and made the third team.
Speaking of Butler, the Heat swingman and the Clippers' small forward rank among the best two-way players in basketball. However, for the purposes of this exercise, we chose to focus on George because we anticipate a huge 2021–22 season from him, with Leonard expected to miss most, if not all, of the season.
Butler and George both perform at a high level on both sides of the floor, so picking one over the other is truly a matter of hair, but George was the first player to enter our rankings' Top 5 spots.
4. Jayson Tatum, Boston
Jayson Tatum, an Olympic gold medalist who will be an All-Star in 2020–21, has only shown signs of progress since joining the NBA in 2017–18, and he now shows no signs of slowing down. Aside from memes, he is still only 23 years old. Thus, he is probably still developing.
Tatum needs to improve on his ability to draw fouls because his free-throw percentage (25.8 percent, 94th in the NBA last season, one position behind Marc Gasol) is so low compared to some of the other top scorers in the league.
Tatum is a good overall basket-getter, so it's not an exaggeration to say that if he learns how to go to the line more frequently, where he's a lifetime 84.0 percent foul shooter, he might increase his scoring average to the low 30s.
Tatum also needs to attack the basket more frequently because, last season, only 19.7% of his shot attempts came from inside three feet of the rim, which was by far the lowest percentage of his career. Butler tried 32.7 percent of his field goals from the same distance for the purpose of comparison.
Tatum has the ball-handling skills, strength, and athleticism necessary to be a successful basket-attacker; all that is needed is for him to do it more frequently the following season and rely less on challenging midrange jumpers, an area of the court where elite players shouldn't be spending so much time but where the former Duke standout does excel.
Tatum is ranked so highly in our exercise because we completely anticipate that he will continue to progress in 2021–2022. Even at the young age of 23, he has already developed significantly as a player, and we anticipate that trend to continue in the upcoming season.
3. LeBron James, LA Lakers
LeBron James, who ranks third among our top 5 small forwards NBA for 2021–22, may be our most contentious rating on this list.
We must first explain why we chose the four-time league MVP as a small forward when he has primarily played point guard since joining the Los Angeles Lakers. James has always been a wing, and that hasn't changed since he moved to Los Angeles, so that was the basis behind it.
He assists teammates, scores points, pulls down rebounds, and most crucially for our purposes, he frequently guards the smaller power forwards or wings of the opposition.
These factors led us to accompany James at the 3.
Let's now discuss his third-place finish overall, behind the two players immediately below.
James is still one of the finest players in the world, and if he had stayed healthy last season, he very well could have won his sixth MVP.
The issue is that James, who is over 37 years old, has had difficulty keeping fit over the past few seasons. Given the insane mileage on his body, this situation might not alter in 2021–2022.
Furthermore, despite James' outstanding raw averages, the advanced analytics reveal that his 2020–21 season was among his least successful ones overall. The third-least significant season of James' career, according to BPM, was last year. It was ranked as having the second-least impact by VORP. It was also the second-least impactful, according to WS/48.
James is a superb player, as evidenced by the fact that he continued to rank among the NBA's Top 23 players in each of those categories last season, including in the Top 5 in BPM.
But the probably greatest player of all time is beginning to show a few minute signs of deterioration.
We still rank James as one of the best basketball players because he will probably be able to fend off Father Time for a few more seasons, if not longer, like Tom Brady.
However, we still believe that these following two players will have a stronger season than him, health permitting, even if his 2021–22 is identical to the previous season.
2. Luka Doncic, Dallas
We considered Luka Doncic to be a small forward despite the fact that he spends more time on the court guarding wings than opposing point guards (and he probably makes a stronger case for that distinction than James does).
We won't fight with you if you insist that Doncic is a point guard and that we are mistaken. Regardless, we chose the 6-foot-7 ball-handler (prototypical small forward size, by the way) to serve as the swingman for our experiment.
In any case, Doncic is ranked No. 2 in our list of the top small forwards in the NBA for the next season, and it's easy to understand why. In just three NBA seasons, the Slovenian has established himself as a superstar, receiving first-team All-NBA honors in each of the last two campaigns and placing sixth in the MVP voting in 2020–21.
And if he keeps developing as quickly as he has since joining the Dallas Mavericks, an MVP award may be in his future, possibly as early as next season.
Doncic is currently the early favorite to win the prestigious prize in 2021–2022, according to certain online betting odds. With a complete offseason to strengthen and improve his body, which is currently his main weakness, he may very well make that prediction come true next season.
Dallas will likely need to grow as a team in order to do that, but given Doncic's talent and ability to inspire his teammates, it wouldn't be at all surprising to see the Mavericks advance to a Top 4 seed in the West in 2021–22.
In 2020–21, Doncic came in fourth in VORP, eighth in BPM and ninth in PER. The majority of the cutting-edge measures indicate that the 22-year-old is possibly the best small forward in the NBA right now.
Although it will be interesting to see if that can happen as early as next season, as you can obviously tell from our ranking for Doncic, we believe it is very conceivable.
1. Kevin Durant, Brooklyn
What more needs to be said about Kevin Durant that hasn't already been covered extensively?
He almost always scores perfectly. Durant had the third-highest true shooting percentage (66.6%) among players who attempted more than 150 three-pointers and 300 field goals last season, behind only Ingles and Bridges, two other players already covered on this list who don't approach Durant's level of volume scoring.
In his first campaign back following a horrific Achilles injury, Synergy Sports rated him as an "excellent" scorer, placing him in the 91st percentile thanks to his 1.143 PPP on scoring opportunities. With at least 800 scoring possessions, that was the eighth-best mark in the league for players in 2020–21.
And everyone witnessed what he was capable of during the playoffs when Durant frequently appeared to be the best player in the world. Even without Kyrie Irving and James Harden playing like a shell of his former self, the former league MVP nearly led the Brooklyn Nets to the Eastern Conference Finals with his absurd 34.3/9.3/4.4 stat line postseason.
The Bucks had to advance very late in Game 7 thanks to Durant's toe being on the three-point line, and they ultimately won. Who knows how Durant would have performed against teams like Atlanta and Phoenix?
Durant even followed that up with an Olympic performance to remember, leading Team USA to a gold medal despite the team lacking a number of notable players and despite the Americans receiving the majority of shots from several highly skilled, seasoned international rivals.
Overall, we anticipate more of the same from Durant in 2021–22. If he can stay healthy and miss fewer games than he did last year (he will still receive a good amount of load management in the regular season, there's no doubt about that; the question is just how many games he has to miss), we may be looking at an MVP front-runner for the following season.
Regardless, Durant has demonstrated over the last year that he is still the same Kevin Durant, even after suffering an Achilles injury. For this reason, he is projected to be the greatest small forward in 2021–22.