10 Most Overrated Players in the NBA

One of the worst insults that a professional athlete can receive is "overrated." What that usually means is that the player is getting a lot of undeserved praise.

NBA fans tend to throw that word around a whole lot. Here is my list of the most overrated players in the league.

Now, this list is not in order and represents my opinion. I am sure many of you will have different ones.

Russell Westbrook

Let's get the obvious guy over with here. Westbrook is a great athlete and has an amazing future ahead of him, but he is not what most people would want in a point guard.

He loves to score and that mentality seems to surface the most when it is clutch time. He wants to prove that he is an elite player, but there is a problem—he is not an elite player.

His refusal to pass to Kevin Durant for stretches at a time has made him one of the least popular players in the league, and yet he still is viewed by many as a top point guard.

I personally have nothing against him, but he only hurts his team when he does not pass the ball to a top-three player in Durant.

Averaging 24 points a game is great, but he needs to get his assist total up in order to get off this list.

Lamar Odom

Another obvious player here. Odom was considered a steal for the Mavericks this season and many thought he would help lead them to one of the top seeds in the league.

To put it lightly, that hasn't exactly worked out well. He has averaged six points a game on an awful 35 percent shooting. This is also considering that he is averaging over 20 minutes a game for the season.

Every single one of his numbers dropped and he is now listed as inactive for the Mavericks— and it's expected to stay that way for the rest of the season.

It will be very interesting to see what is the next team that will take an interest in him and whether he will come back to form. Until then, he is the very definition of overrated.

Dwight Howard

This might seem like a ridiculously huge stretch, but hear me out.

Dwight Howard is the best center in the league, but too often the media paints it in a such a way as to make it seem like no one else is on his level or catching up.

In the same sense, many think that Howard is the undoubted favorite to win Defensive Player of the Year with no real competition there, either. Both of the statements are wrong.

For the past few years multiple centers have come out and showed that they are ready to move up and be elite level while challenging Howard for the top spot.

Some names on the list include: DeMarcus Cousins, Greg Monroe, Al Jefferson and even Andrew Bynum (more on him later). Bottom line is that while Dwight is the best, the gap is closing.

On the defensive side, names like LeBron James, Josh Smith, and Serge Ibaka stick out as well. Some would argue one of those three should win the DPOY over Dwight.

However, the main reason he is on this list is because of his lack of improvement. The gap between him and the others does not need to close, but he has shown little to no progress over the last few years.

His numbers have stayed almost exactly the same since 2008. His has improved a tiny bit here and there, but nothing which he did not undo the next year.

Dwight works hard, but he has not even tried to expand his game. On offense, despite adding about two moves, he is still a dunking machine and nothing more.

Other centers have shown the ability to expand and improve their game already while Dwight is still relying on his ridiculous athletic abilities.

Until he sees improvement, the gap between him and other centers will continue to close rapidly, and it is very possible that Dwight will not finish next season as the No. 1 center in the NBA.

Joe Johnson

Joe Johnson is a solid player who can take over games with his well-rounded play. With that said, he signed a contract in 2010 that will earn him $119 million over the next six years.

This year alone he is set to make $18 million. That is more money than both LeBron James and Kevin Durant.

Simply put, Johnson is not on their level, but makes more money. Next.

Monta Ellis

Monta Ellis is an interesting player. To me, he is one of the best scorers in the NBA and also one of the fastest players in the league.

The problem is that he is only 6'3''. That is very small for a shooting guard. He does not have the body of Dwyane Wade (6'4'') to get away with being shorter and also like Wade has had some injury bugs in his career.

He is a willing passer, but not to the point where he could play point guard very well. If he was just about three inches taller, he could be one of the top players in the NBA.

Ellis's gamestyle revolves around his speed and driving ability and that has been very straining on his small frame.

He is overrated in the sense that a lot of teams often pursue him in hopes that he will score in loads for them.

After they get him, the see that he spends a lot of his time just dribbling out the shot clock or sitting on the bench in a suit. He has not found a place where he can truly fit to the point where games are won.

Maybe at some point he will, but until then he is nothing more than a shooting guard trapped in a point guard's body.

Andrew Bynum

Bynum is a great center, all the while one of the more immature players in the league. The biggest problem I have with him is his media coverage.

Yes, the man has put up one great season and has not dealt with his usual injury problems, but the hype about him needs to die down a little bit.

Before there can be talk of him being better than Dwight Howard, he first needs to put in two consecutive seasons showing good health and consistent production.

I think he will be a great player, but I am by no means ready to crown him the best big man in the league.

Carmelo Anthony

Another great player who is not on the right team. When the Knicks picked up Amar'e in free agency, they should have put player around him to complement him, not another dominant scorer.

Anthony is the type of player a team can be built around and the same can be said for Amar'e. However, they should never find themselves on the same team.

They both want plays called for them, want scoring opportunities and, of course, neither of them plays defense. On the same team, they are two black holes that will not pass the ball up when they get it.

This was obviously an attempt to counter the Miami Heat, but they missed a key factor as to why that experiment worked.

LeBron, Wade, and Bosh are all willing to move the ball around, and while their chemistry has not been perfect, they have been very successful.

The Knicks are not the Heat, and because of their poor management, 'Melo is stuck looking like an overrated player who I have to put on this list.

Jamal Crawford

Crawford has to be one of the worst decision makers in the NBA. He often decides to take the most ridiculous shot possible, and it shows with his 38 percent shooting.

He is not a bad player, and has a good skill set, but he just does not have a high enough basketball IQ to use it correctly. In the right setting, he can be great, but he cannot be trusted with the ball consistently.

Nonetheless, no matter how much is said about him, teams still chase him hoping that they will not make the same mistake and that Crawford will not be forcing this time.

Well, no matter what team he goes to I can guarantee that Crawford will continue to be a player who forces ridiculous shots every night on the court and lays waste to his team's possessions.

Kobe Bryant

Oh man, the next two slides are going to be fun.

Kobe has had a great career and I am not disrespecting his legacy. However, fans need to realize that this is not the Kobe of old.

Yes, he is leading the league in scoring, but he shooting 43 percent in his campaign. His poor shot selection would not be terrible if he did not have Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum to share the ball with.

Both of those players, by the way, are shooting above 50 percent on the season. Bryant needs to learn how to pass the ball and not just to get it back.

He needs to utilize his ability to draw defenders to pass to open men and help create better quality shots. His decision making might seem fine now, but it will only get worse in the playoffs.

Kobe has the biggest ego in the game, and he will want to prove to everyone in the world that he's still one of the top players, but will fall flat and let his team down.

Kobe Bryant is a name who will go down in history as one of the best players, but this season he has been very disappointing.

Another reason I no longer have him too high on my best players list is due to his awful defense. Whether NBA fans want to admit it or not, for the past few seasons Bryant has not been impressive on the defensive end.

He's slower and less determined to shut guys down, but that only adds to how overrated this guy is. 

Derrick Rose

Now this one I am sure I will have a lot of fun arguing with the passionate Bulls fans who will preach to me how amazing this guy is.

Rose is yet another player who forces way too many shots up in the air, all the while surrounded by solid talent. People need to stop kidding themselves, the Bulls are a good team—Rose needs to start taking more advantage of it.

He tends to love to hold the ball for large portions of the shot clock only to force up a bad shot or give his teammate a bad look. Rose is a great player, but he's nowhere near the top.

His MVP last season was undeserved, and while it should have gone to LeBron James, it was instead given to the most popular player in the league.

Numbers are not everything, but one look at them and it is baffling to see how Rose was the best player in the league last year.

If they truly wanted to give it to the most valuable, then Dwight Howard should have won. Bottom line, Rose has an incredibly large fan following, but he is not one of the best players.

He is not even the best in his own position. Chris Paul holds that honor—and that title looks safe.

Rose is both the most popular and most overrated player in the league, a correlation that happens all too often around the sports world.

Thank you for reading and please feel free to leave a comment!