Thinking Basketball podcast. My name is Ben. Welcome to the 25 best players under 25 annual draft

that has never, ever, ever caused any commotion or controversy or strong feelings.

And Cody asked me, Cody said, do you want to do this episode again this year?

Because are you done ranking things?

And I said, I'm probably done ranking things.

But if we just do a draft and have a lot of conversation and fun times, then I can let this through my filter.

And here we are, my friend, back again for what the fourth time. I lost track. The fifth time,

every year it gets wilder and wilder. I think the best part about this year is the level of

fast and loose we're playing with it this year. We never talked about any of the parameters. Like we set up the age and we're like, all right, we're going to set it at this date. Now is it. There have been no rules. There been no talks about injuries. There been no talks about anything. So I think this is a lot of just let's talk about some of these guys that we're really excited about. And of course we have to have some kind of ranking about it because then why would a podcast exist?

They can't exist without rankings. Just to be clear, because this would be a curveball for me, we're talking about how the players are playing right now in this season, right? We're not projecting out for the rest of their career. Well, okay, so I guess it's like you take it, you take in a little bit

from what you've seen in the past. You take in what you're seeing this year. And then I think we're

also projecting like if this was a playoff series, right? Like we're kind of imagining. This year.

Yes. Within the year, though. I'm saying we're not talking about age 27 Derek Queen or something like that.

That is correct.

Okay.

All right.

Just want to make sure.

We're on the same page.

Is that a good player?

Derek Queen?

Is that somebody I should have?

I think they call them the DQ.

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