I wouldn’t go with unprotected cells.
RMM’s protected panasonics seem to have nice high quality protection.
Evva vs. Keeppower NCR18650B Protection PCB Visual Comparison
Quality Seiko protection IC & 3 good MOSFETs. Same as keeppower except keeppower only has 2 of those MOSFETs.
Seen a couple teardowns of clear wrapped panasonics or other cells with protection added by mystery companies. There is no quality chip like seiko. Instead they tend to use a chip by a Taiwanese company, fortune semiconductor, chip marked DW01.