The Kentucky Wildcats have seen plenty of players make their way through Lexington before becoming superstars in the NBA. Whether it was John Wall, Karl Anthony-Towns, or plenty of others, the league has been riddled with NBA stars since John Calipari arrived at UK back in 2009. However, now we can say that two have really stood out from the others.
CBS Sports recently took the time to rank their top-25 players of the 21st century, and two former Cats got the nod, being included in the rankings. Who
are they? Well, we can all likely guess: Anthony Davis checked in at No. 19, while Shai Gilgeous-Alexander snuck in at No. 24 overall.
“Whenever Davis has been healthy, he has been one of the best players in the league, equally dominant on both ends and impossibly skilled for a man of his size. Peak Davis was 2016-18 in New Orleans before he forced his way out, when he was a 28 and 11 guy and probably the best defender on the planet,” writes Brad Botkin of CBS. “He had some huge years with the Lakers, too, highlighted by the 2020 championship run in which he turned into Kevin Durant inside the bubble, making an absurd 55% of his mid-range jumpers beyond 16 feet. That was one of the craziest outlier shooting performances in history, but it happened, and it largely led the Lakers to their only championship in the LeBron era.”
Davis clocks in ahead of some all-time names, including Damian Lillard, Tracy McGrady (who should have been a Cat), and Allen Iverson.
For SGA this past season has put him squarely into this conversation. With a scoring title, an MVP, and a Finals MVP (not to mention an NBA Title), the star guard has cemented himself in a tier of players that have rarely landed those qualifications.
“The man with the longest last name in NBA history also had some of the longest odds to superstardom of anyone on this list,” writes Colin Ward-Henninger. “Drafted 11th overall in 2018, Gilgeous-Alexander showed promise as a rookie with the Clippers, who reluctantly included him in a trade to the Thunder in order to land Paul George and Kawhi Leonard in the same summer — but you can’t find a single person outside of the Gilgeous-Alexander household who expected him to blossom into an MVP, the league’s leading scorer and an NBA champion before his 27th birthday. His positional size and unique basketball cadence make him virtually unguardable, and he’s an anomaly in the modern game as a guard who does most of his scoring damage inside the 3-point line.”
The Cats have plenty of superstars in the league. Now we can say we have arguably two of the top players in this century so far.
