nate33 wrote:stilldropin20 wrote:Wiz99 wrote:1. LeBron James
2. Kevin Durant
3. James Harden
4. Giannis Antetokounmpo
5. Kawhi Leonard
6. Stephen Curry
7. Anthony Davis
8. Russell Westbrook
9. Kyrie Irving
10. Boogie Cousins
11. Draymond Green
12. Klay Thompson
13. Kristaps Porzingis
14. Ben Simmons
15. Blake Griffin
16. Joel Embiid
17. Paul George
18. Marc Gasol
19. Nikola Jokic
20. Chris Paul
typical list with westbrook and harden too high. as always. both way over rated.
steph and kawhi too low. lebron too high.
klay too high
paul, blake, too high-neither top 20. cousins too high but might finally be at least worthy of regular season praise.
Good post. I agree with almost all of it, except Harden. That guy is legit. He's the best first-option offensive player in the league. He is almost unguardable. He can single-handily make an offense great. The guy is averaging 31.5 points on a TS% of .627 while also dishing out 10 assists. And his team ranks second in offensive rating behind only Golden State.
I'd definitely put Beal, Lowry or Lillard at 20th ahead of Chris Paul. Also, while Simmons and Embiid are exciting young players, let's not overstate how good they are right now. Sure, they're two of the top prospects going forward, but if I need to win a game tomorrow, I don't take Simmons over Nikola Jokic or Marc Gasol just yet. If Philly really had two of the top 16 players in the league right now, they'd have more than 8 wins.
only complaint on harden is the usage. If that's your offense, and he has abad series? You are going home. which is exactly what happened last year.
It takes a lessor ego and smarter coach as we see in GS to get guys with harden level talent to be less...do less...with legacies and bigly money on the line...to do less...pass more...move more off ball. and spread the love around.
So although I agree with you on talent. and the same goes for lebron obviously. The smarter play is to get your superstars off ball more and elevate the play of your role players. It actually makes the team better, open more lanes, and keeps the defense guessing more. which is why GSW are so good.
As for Simmons...wow. For the old timers, we've seen this kind of player only once before. magic Johnson. And Simmons isn't as good as magic. The kids can get a good feel for how dominant magic was while always passing the ball and looking for others.
Simmons has the potential to be the best player in the game by the end of this year imo. year 2 or 3 from now at the latest.
like i said, its a full rebuild.