With the NBA All-Star Game coming up this weekend, basketball fans can look forward to plenty of slam dunks and flashy personalities. To get a sense of which players have the most game—both on and off the court—a recent Nielsen and E-Poll N-Score study took a look at the most exciting active NBA players.
“While the NBA All-Star Game is a great way for all participating players to showcase their marketability, it’s notable that the most exciting players on the court will be younger players from secondary market teams, like the Oklahoma City Thunder and Houston Rockets, as well as the Los Angeles Clippers—a team that has emerged out of the Lakers’ shadow. It’s also interesting that these players are in the Western Conference,” says Stephen Master, Nielsen’s Senior Vice President of Sports.
The table below ranks the Top 5 Most Exciting Active Players in the NBA—all of whom were tapped to be on the All-Star roster.
| Player | % Exciting | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| Russell Westbrook (Oklahoma City Thunder) | 33 | 1 |
| Kevin Durant (Oklahoma City Thunder) | 25 | 2 |
| Blake Griffin (Los Angeles Clippers) | 25 | 3 |
| James Harden (Houston Rockets) | 25 | 4 |
| Chris Paul (Los Angeles Clippers) | 24 | 5 |
| Note: Includes active NBA players with a minimum awareness of 10 percent. Read as: 33 percent of respondents think Russell Westbrook is exciting.
Source: Nielsen/E-Poll |
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Using the combined research expertise of Nielsen and E-Poll Market Research, N-Score is an in-depth look at a sports figure’s overall endorsement potential, factoring in the attributes and demographic measures that align brands with endorsers. Each individual N-Score National survey is administered to 1,100 people within that panel via the internet. The sample is representative of the general population based on gender, income, age and education.
For more Nielsen/E-Poll N-Score insights, download Nielsen’s State of the Media: 2012 Year in Sports.