Is LeBron James still top 10?

[dk1115]

My opinion is he ranks somewhere in the 6-10 range, but what is your opinion on this? If the season ended today, is he still in your top 10?

[timO]

11-15 father time has arrived, he thinks hes curry chuking 3s, 2/13 vs Kings.

[Karate Diop]

Still Top 10 for sure... Probably around 6-8 so far...

[TheBobster]

His game is starting to erode noticeably, he's taken his game out onto the perimeter offensively a lot more and is not he same playmaker he was a couple of seasons ago. And while he can still have great games, he's nowhere near as efficient as he used to be.

I would say outside the top 10, but still an All-Star. It remains to be seen how durable he is for the rest of the year - the best "ability" is "availability" and he's gotten to that point in his career where he struggles to stay healthy.

[tbhawksfan1]

My vote clearly reflects my anti Lebron bias. Never liked the guy despite his great talent. Happy to watch him fade into old and declining

[SA37]

Easily top-10, arguably top-5.

Off the top of my head:

1. Jokic
2. Durant
3. Giannis
4. Kawhi
5. Curry
6. LeBron
7. Doncic
8. Embiid
9. Harden
10. Davis

[Lockdown504090]

Ppl ahead of him in no order
Curry
Giannis
Jokić
Kd
Luka
Kawhi
I don’t see a reasonable argument for anyone else. , and even kawhi and Luka re kinda iffy.

[cupcakesnake]

I feel reasonbly confident Lebron can still "turn it on", and if the Lakers get to the playoffs with him healthy, we'd see that start wondering if he's still the best player in the NBA.

But I officially no longer believe in Lebron's health. He's been a pretty consistent injury risk since he came to LA. We're counting down to his 37th birthday, and these days minor injuries have him missing weeks as a precaution. This regular season "marathon" version of Lebron jacks a ton of 3 (career-high 42% of his shots are 3s), he's only hitting 33% of them. Career-low free throw rate, career-low % of his offense at the rim and in the paint overall. He plays some smart defense but also devotes quite a bit of that smarts to "how to rest".

Maybe he's still top 10 but that would be on reputation and benefit of the doubt. No number paints him as being anywhere near the top 10. He's missed half his team's games so far. I don't think the right question is: "Is Lebron still top 10?" Because right now he's not. The only question I'd give him is "will he be considered top 10 by the end of the season"? I'm a healthy doubter.

[DroseReturnChi]

no hes a jumpshooter top 20.

[Johnny Bball]

Nobody see him ball watching on defence?

[Dutchball97]

I'm someone who can look past players taking their foot off the pedal a bit in the regular season if their level doesn't drop too dramatically and if they still turn it up in the play-offs. Examples of this are Curry and KD in 2017 because they were still clowning everyone even without maximum effort, Kawhi in 2019 due to load management surrounding his injury history and LeBron just about every year since moving back to Cleveland. That said, LeBron last year performed like a top 10 player throughout the season but his play-off showing didn't really suggest he still had that extra gear like he had as recently as 2018 or even 2020. It has been a small sample size so far this season and due to LeBron dealing with injuries and the Lakers having chemistry issues I don't want to be too harsh on him but so far it seems like the 2021 play-offs weren't an exception of "good, maybe even great but not amazing play" but more so the new normal for LeBron.

Even though there are enough potential candidates to move past LeBron and push him out of the top 10 I can't say more than 10 players have really proven themselves to be at that level. Curry, KD, Jokic and Giannis are pretty much at the top for everyone so far this season and all of them are proven play-off performers as well so I'm confident in taking them over current LeBron. Kawhi would be another guy I'd add to that group but with his injury history and current significant rehab it is to be seen how he returns. Embiid seems to be about to make that jump judging by last season but he's also somehow injured again. AD hasn't been impressing enough in the absense of LeBron to surpass him imo. Butler has been a top 5 player this season but such a small sample size isn't nearly enough to definitely surpass LeBron. PG13 is kind of in the same boat as LeBron. Luka and Dame have struggled to start the season. Harden also didn't have the best start but he has more than turned it around and is much more proven in the play-offs than Luka and Dame. CP3 has once again been extremely solid so far this season but he's also not getting any younger.

If everyone is healthy I think I'd have LeBron at #8 in my very momentary rankings behind (in no particular order) Curry, KD, Harden, Giannis, Jokic, Embiid and Kawhi but he'd move up to #6 ahead of Kawhi and Embiid with health taken into account. While I think LeBron has taken a step back, he hasn't nosedived enough to be surpassed by anyone other than legit MVP level players yet.

[art_tatum]

Yes barely and it's based on respect.
Raw stats still good
25/5/6 but
47%fg 33%3fg .111 WS/48 2.2 bpm (neg dbpm) .4 vorp (AD is 15th LeBron is like 50th)

Top 5? No
KD Curry Giannis Joker Luka/embiid
In the mix with Morant AD Trae butler harden etc

[LesGrossman]

Absolutely zero effort on D, only chasing highlights on O - selfish hero ball. He shot the lakers right out of the game vs. the mighty Kings with his 3 pt chucking. I can think of plenty players who are more useful than him. The real question is, where does he rank on nhis own team? He still acts like he does it all on his own (see his cringe victory dance after barely beating the pacers in overtime) and never gets any blame of losses ("injured"...yeah right) but it sure feels like AD, Russ an even Melo are contributing more.

[Statlanta]

The injuries destroy the sample size. At the start of the season it was reasonable. Now coming off an in-season injury it doesn't sound right especially when the team isn't a playoff team.

6 playoff seeds, 2 conferences, 12 star players.

[Castle Black]

His biggest drop off has been defensively. He takes plays off regularly and gets caught ball-watching a lot. And he switches on everything in the PnR.

Offensively he still has flashes and can turn it on in spurts. But he’s much more of a jump-shooter now and relies on the refs to give him calls when he drives.

Definitely still top-10 though due to his ability to turn it on at times.

[GSWFan1994]

It depends on his availability, and of other top players as well.

But right now no... I'd say top 11-15 and that's being gentle.

The season is long and yet to conclude, so there's still time to improve.

[nate33]

Ppl ahead of him in no order
Curry
Giannis
Jokić
Kd
Luka
Kawhi
I don’t see a reasonable argument for anyone else. , and even kawhi and Luka re kinda iffy.

Top 5 players in the league right now are:
Curry
Giannis
Jokic
Durant
Butler

Those guys are indisputably better than Lebron.

I'd say the following players are also better than Lebron:
Luka
Davis

If Embiid and Kawhi were healthy, they'd be ahead of Lebron, but then, is it fair to apply that argument and not apply it to Lebron?

After that, there's a real falloff. There are a lot of first option scorers who can make a case that they've passed Lebron, guys like Paul George, Jayson Tatum, Demar DeRozan, KAT, Trae Young, Ja Morant, Devin Booker, Donovan Mitchell, but none of them have made the case convincingly. There's a couple of defensive anchors who can make the case that their impact rivals Lebron, guys like Gobert, Bam and Draymond. Maybe the stat geeks could make that argument, but defense is always undervalued in top 10 consideration.

So I'd say Lebron is still in the 8-10 range, depending on how one counts Embiid and Kawhi.

[jc23]

to be in the top 5 you are consistently great and available thoughout the season and playoffs. old dudes have more off nights and time off for rest or injury.

[SharpyShuffle]

I give him the benefit of the doubt not only because he's LeBron, but because the Lakers added a player who is basically a worse version of him, and totally inflexible to boot, so LeBron has to be the one to adapt.

I think Giannis, Jokic, KD etc would also all suffer if their team paid $45m to a guy who plays their exact role but worse. Imagine Giannis if instead of Middleton spacing the floor he had Ben Simmons or someone clogging the paint, and Giannis had to be the one shooting 3s because you know Ben sure as he'll can't.

LeBron is very clearly not in his comfort zone, having to jack threes because none of the other stars in the Lakers can space the floor at all

I know LeGM gets a lot of stick for the WB trade, but if you were to design a team to maximise he strengths of LeBron the player, it would look nothing like the current Lakers. Put LeBron on the Suns in place of CP3 and people would be saying he's still the best player in the league

[hauntedcomputer]

His biggest drop off has been defensively. He takes plays off regularly and gets caught ball-watching a lot. And he switches on everything in the PnR.

Offensively he still has flashes and can turn it on in spurts. But he’s much more of a jump-shooter now and relies on the refs to give him calls when he drives.

Definitely still top-10 though due to his ability to turn it on at times.

he's been taking entire seasons off on defense for years now. He'll put in the occasional highlight effort just to keep ESPN fooled,. More shocking to me is AD's absolute decline, like he aged 10 years since the trophy and has zero interest in mixing it up. Lebron thought THIS GUY was going to carry him?