It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when, but at some point in the last few months, a lot of us from The Athletic Detroit started realizing something about the state of pro sports in this city: It’s just not very exciting right now.



The Tigers and Red Wings are decidedly in rebuild mode, with their recent drafts providing as much excitement as anything else in town. The Pistons are actually in playoff shape, but they also don’t feel like any major threat to win a series. And the one team that does seem to have the ingredients for postseason success … also happens to be the Detroit Lions.



So it’s not exactly Title Town here right now. Not yet.



Sometime in May, though, we decided to dig in on that “not yet” part. I think it was Chris Burke’s idea, at first, to compile a list of the top 25 athletes under age 25 from Detroit’s pro organizations. Each of our pro sports beat writers made nominations, then...