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roy don't play anymore

roy don't play he retired

whoa der....... D-wade is first then kobe then lebron, hen Rose,the Kevin Love and most underrated big man i nt the league is Lamarcus Aldridge,then mont a ellis

what about monta ellis

The talking heads on tv seem to have confused everyone. Lemme drop some real knowledge. Rankings are as the players currently exist, not considering future potential past this season.

1. Dwight Howard - Arguably best defender EVER, and interior defense is ALWAYS underrated by casual fans. Also excellent on offense and rebounding.
2. Lebron James - Best offensive player in the game: very efficient offense on high usage and makes everyone around him better, also a top 2 perimeter defender and the most versatile player in the game.
3. Dwayne Wade - Shoots a high percentage on high usage, excellent passer and excellent defender.
4. Chris Paul - Nobody in the history of the league has been as good a passer as CP3 while making as few turnovers, also can take over games with his shooting/shot creation and an excellent defender.
5. Kevin Durant - Second best offensive player in the game but sometimes lacks vision and still makes too many mistakes on defense.
6. Pau Gasol - Very efficient scorer who gets robbed of opportunities so Kobe can take more contested 20 foot Js, also way underrated on defense.
7. Derrick Rose - Didn't deserve MVP last season but has shown impressively consistent improvement at just about everything.
8. Kevin Love - At 23 has already shown himself to be one of the best rebounders of all time while also being a top tier offensive player. If only he was better on defense...
9. Dirk Nowitzki - Nearly unstoppable highly efficient offense, decent defense.
10. Steve Nash - Nobody (not even cp3) makes his teammates better on offense than Steve Nash; consistently in top 5 of adjusted +/- numbers. Too bad his defense sucks.



Not making the list:

Kobe Bryant - He's using a ridiculous 40% of his team's possession this year despite scoring 10-20 points less per hundred possessions than either Gasol or Bynum, effectively robbing points from his team. Overrated defender. Also hurts his team in the clutch, despite what people think: http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/24200/the-truth-about-kobe-bryant-in-crunch-time

Carmelo Anthony - Another player who forces shots and is not an efficient shooter, taking shots away from more efficient scorers on his teams. Just look at how much better Denver's offense was last season after trading him. Also an absolutely terrible defender, which is a big mark against him. Not a top 30 player.

How are you ganna have gasol or nash on ur list and not kobe or carmelo anthony. Pau is soft as h, and nash is no longer god, he's just getting old and have a few years left. kobe is the best player rite now as I type.

PPG is meaningless because the offense could run plays for other players to replace those points; what matters is how many shot attempts it takes to get those points. If a good player takes a ton of tough shots but misses most of them he is hurting his team a lot more than a terrible offensive player who knows his place and doesn't shoot, as long as there are other decent offensive players on his team.

There are other good offensive players on Kobe's team. Kobe's offensive efficiency is about the league average. If you spend any time watching him it is easy to see why: he takes a lot of long contested jumpers 2 point jumpers which he only makes at around ~40% which lowers his averages. Other players on Kobe's team could be taking these shots instead.

Because scoring is the best part of Kobe's game, there can be no justification for putting him in the same category as more efficient offensive players who score a similar amount of points per game with similar or worse teams. Kobe looks awesome when he plays and does some amazing things, but if you look at the actual results of his play it is obvious he is extremely overrated.

Nash is playing about as well as he ever has. There is a lot of precedent for really smart PGs having very good seasons into their later 30s (see: Stockton, John). He has a gigantic effect for every offense he plays for, which is very apparent from adjusted plus/minus (see: www.basketballvalue.com).

For Melo and Pau, read what I wrote earlier.

Just silly, cause we both know that Pau wouldn't have the same efficiency rate if he had as high of usage rate as Kobe.

Also Kobe actually shares the record for most first team all defense selections, with some guys named Garnett, Payton, and Jordan.

P.S. I almost stopped when you said Howard might be the greatest defender ever/ Paul is the greatest passer. 2nd one is more argueable than the 1st.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/g/gasolpa01.html

Pau still had excellent efficiency when he was with memphis, where he was responsible for about 20% more of the offense (the usage number under the advanced heading) and was the focus of every defense he faced (Memphis was a worse team than current Lakers). The simple fact is he isn't involved with the offense at all on many plays because Kobe is always trying to be the hero, and just having the possibility to be involved on more plays ("first option") would allow him to increase usage with only a very minimal efficiency hit. Pau's efficiency could drop a long way and still be better than Kobe's.

All defense teams mean almost nothing, they go by reputation and there is a long history of slightly above average defenders who are great on offense getting in ahead of excellent defenders who are less well known. Also, Kobe used to be a far better defender when he was younger, quicker, and didn't spend all is energy on offense. I have watched 3 lakers games this season and I have seen about 7 plays total where Kobe didn't get back on defense without a good excuse and let his man get an easy transition dunk. This didn't use to happen to him.

Besides the above paragraph, with how important inside scoring and help defense is in the NBA (and pretty much all basketball for that matter), Cs/PFs will always have a far bigger defensive impact than an SG will. So even if Kobe was better at defense relative to his postion than Pau (which I strongly disagree with), Pau could still easily be a better defender as measured by the impact he has on team defense as a whole.

As far as how great a defender Howard is, defense is harder to measure with stats. But in the few good defensive metrics out there (rebounding, shot blocking, defensive win shares) he has dominated over the last 5 years, and I would argue the NBA has been as strong or stronger than it ever has been over this time period.

His opponent counterpart stats are also awesome, as opposing centers shot just 45% against him last season. This doesn't even take into account his excellent help defense: http://www.82games.com/1011/10ORL18.HTM

Also the Magic have consistently been among the NBA's best defensive teams over this time period despite a roster that is otherwise at best average defensively.

But the biggest thing to me is just watching him play: There has never been anyone in the NBA with his size and athleticism combination, and he takes advantage of it with excellent fundamentals and instinct.

Just wanna add my statement about Paul was purely factual: I didn't say he was the best passer ever, just that among players with otherwise comparable passing statistics he has easily the fewest turnovers of the bunch.

Basketball reference has a feature where you can find seasons by players according to criteria. If you search for seasons by players with more than 45% assist percent (they assist at least 45% of teammates' baskets while they are on the court) and under 15% turnover percent (they commit a turnover on under 15% of possessions they use) with at least 500 minutes played, Chris Pau'ls last 4 seasons are the only seasons that show up.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/psl_finder.cgi?request=1&match=single&type=totals&per_minute_base=36&lg_id=NBA&is_playoffs=N&year_min=&year_max=&franch_id=&season_start=1&season_end=-1&age_min=0&age_max=99&height_min=0&height_max=99&birth_country_is=Y&birth_country=&is_active=&is_hof=&is_as=&as_comp=gt&as_val=0&pos_is_g=Y&pos_is_gf=Y&pos_is_f=Y&pos_is_fg=Y&pos_is_fc=Y&pos_is_c=Y&pos_is_cf=Y&qual=&c1stat=ast_pct&c1comp=gt&c1val=45&c2stat=tov_pct&c2comp=lt&c2val=15&c3stat=mp&c3comp=gt&c3val=500&c4stat=&c4comp=gt&c4val=&c5stat=&c5comp=gt&c6mult=1.0&c6stat=&order_by=ws