ESPN ranks Royce White as worst NBA player

Mar 17, 2012; Louisville, KY, USA; Iowa State Cyclones forward Royce White (30) pressures Kentucky Wildcats forward Anthony Davis (23) during the second half in the third round of the 2012 NCAA men

It’s been a rough offseason for former Iowa State men’s basketball player Royce White, who was shipped out to the Philadelphia 76ers after the Houston Rockets bailed on their first-round pick after one year and then was accused of domestic violence against his ex-girlfriend which he denies.

Now, ESPN has ranked him as the worst NBA player in the league.

Beginning today, ESPN along with the TrueHoop Network are ranking every NBA player from 500th to first on Twitter. This is how they’re judging the list:

"This year, we asked our ESPN Forecast panel to predict the overall level of play for each player for the upcoming NBA season. This includes both the quality and the quantity of his expected contributions, combined in one overall rating."

The first name right off the press is Royce White, which is 210 spots below his ranking from a year ago. They even added the cruel punishment of putting White’s Twitter handle (@Highway_30) right in the box, and have done so with every player that has Twitter.

Thanks to ESPN using Twitter with the dreaded effort of giving out the hashtag “#NBArank” to “get [people] involved in the discussion,” White’s decided to respond back on Twitter. As expected, his account is flooded with both hateful jabs and some amount of remorse.

Not only is the whole Twitter thing dumb, and should give White more of a reason to delete his account altogether, but seriously…White’s the worst player? Kwame Brown is at 450. Luke Walton is 428. Lamar Odom IS STILL ON THE LIST at 462!

Let’s get it together, ESPN. There are certainly issues with White, but there’s a reason why he’s signed and a number of these other players on the list are still free agents.