NBA Power Rankings: The 10 Best Players at Every Position in the League
The NBA Finals are in full force, and with just one game every couple of days or so to write about, I find my mind wandering around, which obviously means a huge number of lists coming from every angle possible.
One of the debates that will get everyone riled up is arguing about the best players at each position in the NBA, so naturally I figured that I would put my two cents in so I could keep my mind off the idea of LeBron James possibly getting a ring.
There are plenty of small caveats in every single part of this debate. Who are the top 10 players at each position? Who is the best at each position? LeBron or Durant? Wade or Kobe? Does anyone actually measure up to Dwight Howard? How do you clear up the race for the best point guard?
So hopefully I can clear up the debate a little bit here (although I'm sure the opposite of that will happen).
I've got a list here of the 10 best players at each position in the NBA, and feel free to throw in your own ideas on the issue.
10th Team Point Guard, Jason Kidd
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As long as Jason Kidd is doing what he is doing, then it's hard to argue against including Jason Kidd as a top-10 point guard.
Kidd is still one of the smartest players in the NBA, and is full of veteran savvy. Plus, he has honed his three-point game as his career has started to wind down so that he can play as long as possible.
10th Team Shooting Guard, Jamal Crawford
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Jamal Crawford had a bit of a downfall in production this year, but I'm convinced that, given a starting role, he would easily be a top-10 shooting guard based on production when he is on the floor.
Crawford still has quite a bit of athleticism at his advanced age, and he is the best player on the Hawks at penetrating.
10th Team Small Forward, Andrei Kirilenko
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It's hard to find a more up-and-down career than the one that Andrei Kirilenko has had, mostly due to injuries.
Kirilenko was a threat for a triple-double on any given night earlier in his career, leading the league in blocks back in 2005.
He has started to revitalize his career at this point, still playing great defense on the ball and scoring quite well as well.
10th Team Power Forward, Luis Scola
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Luis Scola was a part of the Rockets back court this season, and that should have been way too small to be successful.
Scola is one of the scrappiest players in the NBA, and he has the ability to score at will from almost anywhere on the floor, along with putting forth some beautiful defensive moves.
10th Team Center, Al Jefferson
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Al Jefferson puts up the offensive numbers to be mentioned as one of the best centers (the least deep position in the NBA these days), but that's about all I can say about the guy.
Jefferson is one of the worst defensive centers in the game, but he at least makes up for that with some good offense.
9th Team Point Guard, Andre Miller
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One of the most unorthodox point guards in the NBA who continues to produce even as he starts getting older is Andre Miller.
He's a bit too big and a bit nonathletic, but he can penetrate quite well and fits in very well with the team that he is on.
9th Team Shooting Guard, Jason Terry
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Jason Terry has really come on strong in the past few months as a main contributor to the Dallas Mavericks, but he has always been a very proficient shooting guard.
Terry is an excellent shooter who can dribble as well as most point guards in the league, giving him a very strong ability to penetrate into the lane.
9th Team Small Forward, Shawn Marion
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The Matrix isn't nearly the offensive threat he used to be, but he can still score efficiently (shooting 52 percent this year), and he is rebounding well, so he has just lost his ability to hit the long ball.
Marion is still an excellent defender, and he is able to guard any other small forward in the league. He has done a marvelous job guarding LeBron James so far in the Finals.
9th Team Power Forward, Carlos Boozer
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Carlos Boozer gets my vote for the most disappointing player this season. He has failed to fit in well with the Chicago Bulls, and he looked awkward at times in their system, which to me is a big reason that the Bulls fell apart near the end.
Nonetheless, Boozer is still a good enough scorer to be considered one of the 10-best power forwards in the NBA.
9th Team Center, Tyson Chandler
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Tyson Chandler is a modest guy who never tries to get in the headlines or on the top-10 plays on SportsCenter, he just does his job and does it well.
Chandler was the most efficient scorer in the NBA this year, with a true shooting percentage just under 70 percent.
8th Team Point Guard, Stephen Curry
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There is currently a debate raging in the Golden State Warriors circles about whether the Warriors should keep Monta Ellis or Steph Curry, and with their signing of Mark Jackson as their new head coach, my final vote is to keep Curry.
He is one of the most impressive young point guards in the NBA who isn't a genetic freak, and he can score in as many ways as you can count.
8th Team Shooting Guard, Kevin Martin
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Another guy who is a scoring machine with very little ability to defend is Kevin Martin.
There are very few guys in this league who can score in as many ways as Kevin Martin. He is a good three-point shooter, and one of the best shooting guards at getting to the line.
8th Team Small Forward, Danny Granger
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Danny Granger is falling out of favor in Indiana, as they are leaning toward making Darren Collison their franchise player, but he is still one of the best small forwards in the NBA.
Granger is a good three-point shooter and a decent rebounder for his position and has a terrific ability to get to the rim.
8th Team Power Forward, Josh Smith
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Josh Smith is one of the most exciting and most high-flying power forwards in the league, and he may be the best player on the Hawks.
Smith can block any shot that is put up, he can steal the ball quite well, he has a good shooting range and can shoot free throws. Plus, he has a pretty good three-point shot.
8th Team Center, Joakim Noah
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Say what you want about him, but Joakim Noah is a very effective player and an excellent center.
He is a high-energy guy who makes a lot of enemies in the NBA, so he has a lot of what the young'uns today call "haters", but he can score, he can defend and he can get under the skin of his opponents.
7th Team Point Guard, Tony Parker
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Tony Parker is a small Frechman who doesn't get many assists, but that just plays into the type of game that the Spurs play.
Parker is nonathletic, but he plays like a good athlete. He is tiny, but impossible to block at times and can get into the lane as well as the most athletic point guard in the NBA.
7th Team Shooting Guard, Ray Allen
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Ray Allen is the best three-point shooter in NBA history (by pure volume at least), and he is an extremely clutch shooter. And what's more is he seems to be getting better.
Allen has improved his defense in the past few seasons, as he knows his limitations at this point and can guard his man with a little bit of cushion and read his moves to know when he is about to take his shot.
7th Team Small Forward, Gerald Wallace
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One of my favorite players in the NBA is also one of the best defenders in the game today.
Gerald Wallace is defined by his defense. He can score, but he makes his money for they way he plays defense, as he could legitimately guard any player in the league and do at least a halfway decent job of it.
7th Team Power Forward, Chris Bosh
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Chris Bosh is starting to grow on me as a good player (although he will never grow on me as a person that I think I could get along with), so he is rising up the power forward ranks. But I still can't bring myself to put him much higher, as the power forward position is stacked these days.
Bosh is a good shooter, so he can stretch out the defense quite well, but he is a soft defender, and when an offensive player gets rough with him, he usually starts to play worse.
7th Team Center, Marc Gasol
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With just a month of play, Marc Gasol has gone from Pau's little brother to a legitimate center in the NBA.
The bigger, stronger, more physical Gasol plays nothing like his brother, as he is a man in the post on either side of the floor and makes players pay for trying to take the ball into the lane when he is hanging around there.
6th Team Point Guard, Russell Westbrook
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Yes, I'm sure some people will be up in arms about Westbrook being left out of the top-five point guards, but with another year of play, I'm sure he will be up there.
Westbrook is an amazingly talented and athletic basketball player, but he just doesn't have the mind to know when to pass the ball and when to take the shot yet, which was shown quite often in this year's playoffs.
6th Team Shooting Guard, Monta Ellis
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Monta Ellis is a terrific dynamic scorer and is starting to learn to play with a more team-oriented style. Now if only he could do the same when it comes to defense.
Ellis went through a stretch in his career where he couldn't find a shot that he didn't want to take, but now that he has some legitimate teammates (on the offensive end of the floor at least), he doesn't mind making the extra pass to get his teammates involved, which has made him a more efficient scorer in the process.
6th Team Small Forward, Rudy Gay
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I'm not convinced that the Grizzlies would have beaten the Oklahoma City Thunder if Rudy Gay were playing, but it certainly wouldn't have hurt them at all.
Gay is a terrific athlete and is able to score from many areas on the floor. Plus, he is a pretty good defender, although alongside some of the players on his team (he is surrounded by at least three top-20 defenders) he looks pretty mediocre.
6th Team Power Forward, Tim Duncan
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The Big Fundamental, the most boring superstar to play the game, or whatever you want to call him, is still quite a good player.
People have asked me if I would honestly still take him over Chris Bosh, and if I try to throw all my bias aside (which I think I can do pretty well given the circumstances), I would say yes. If I had one game to play, or even one season, I would still take Duncan over Bosh (although if you say for multiple years, I'd obviously take Bosh).
Duncan is still one of the best leaders in the NBA, he can defend as well as he ever could and, for my money, he is the smartest player in the NBA (he edges out Steve Nash because of his defensive brilliance).
So yes, I still take Duncan over Bosh...for now.
6th Team Center, Nene
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Somebody needs to show some love to Nene, so I figured that I would.
Nene is one of the four best starting centers in the NBA defensively, and he isn't exactly hopeless on the offensive end.
Sure, he doesn't rack up the defensive stats that some others in the league do, but he has the footwork and the strength to keep his man as far away from the basket as possible, and when you watch the man play, he certainly passes the "eye" test.
5th Team Point Guard, Rajon Rondo
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Yea, he has no jumper outside of about 10 feet, but he does other things on the court that help his team and drops some jaws along the way.
Rondo is one of the best penetrating point guards in the NBA, partly because of the fact that defenders give him a substantial cushion of free space to work with and partly because he is deceptively quick.
He is an amazing defender and a very tough player (see Eastern Conference Semifinals 2011, the Dwyane Wade-Rajon Rondo incident).
5th Team Shooting Guard, Joe Johnson
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For the contract he signed in the offseason, Joe Johnson had a terrible year, but I'm still convinced that he will bounce back next year after he saw how good his team could be even with him playing bad.
Johnson dipped under 20 points a game for the first time since he came to Atlanta, but it was mostly due to a cold streak from the three-point line and fewer shot attempts per game compared to last year, both of which should get better for him next season.
5th Team Small Forward, Luol Deng
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Luol Deng gets my vote for the most underrated player in the NBA, as he is constantly overlooked as a good scorer and a good defender. But I would say he is better than good at both.
Deng can score as long as he has someone good to pass to him (and Derrick Rose is pretty good I've been told), and he could easily make a case to be on one of the all-defensive teams.
5th Team Power Forward, Kevin Garnett
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Kevin Garnett is getting older by the minute, and fortunately for Boston fans, he is turning into a grumpy old man.
Whenever someone waltzes their way into his lane, he gets an angry look on his face and tries to keep them from ever coming back, although he was much better at this with Kendrick Perkins backing him up.
Garnett is still a most proficient scorer and even still has some explosiveness in his old knees from time to time, although it is quite rare nowadays.
5th Team Center, Andrew Bogut
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I have seen Andrew Bogut block some pretty crazy shots this season, and his ability to return the ball back into the grill of his opponent alone notches him some top-10 merit.
The big Aussie led the league in blocks this year and just seems to be getting better as he gets older, he just needs to learn to be more efficient on the offensive end of the floor and he could go even higher.
4th Team Point Guard, Steve Nash
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He's old and he can't play defense very well any more, but just imagine where the Suns would be without him.
The only reason the Suns offense still works is because Steve Nash is a brilliant offensive mind, and when he is roaming around the court it's like listening to Dizzy Gillespie bee-bop his way through a trumpet solo.
4th Team Shooting Guard, Andre Iguodala
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He played out of position as a small forward for most of the year this year, which makes what he did all the more impressive.
Andre Iguodala reinvented himself as a terrific defender this year, and while he put up lower offensive numbers, he was able to more than make up for it with defense, which earned him an All-Defense second team nod this year.
4th Team Small Forward, Paul Pierce
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Like the rest of the aging Celtics, there are questions of whether or not he can keep up an elite level of play for much longer, but he still put in another top-notch year with the Celtics in 2011.
Pierce had one of his worst three-point shooting seasons in years in 2011, but he made up for it with his usual stout defense and great shooting elsewhere.
4th Team Power Forward, Zach Randolph
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For a while there I was thinking Zach Randolph could sway my opinion of him enough to put him as a top-two power forward in the league.
While I have turned from the opinion that he is a lazy basket-case at best (he is now a hard-working, level-headed beast in my mind), I still can't put him any higher than the fourth best power forward in the NBA today.
4th Team Center, Al Horford
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Al Horford was the only player on the Atlanta Hawks that I would say lived up to expectations this year.
While he has some limitations on growth, as I think he won't ever make that jump to being an elite center in the NBA, Horford is probably one of the best players in the NBA at knowing his limitations and working within those limitations to be a great basketball player.
3rd Team Point Guard, Chris Paul
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After his injury problems, Chris Paul not only re-opened, but lost the Chris Paul-Deron Williams debate for the time being. But he is well on his way to getting back above Williams.
Paul put in another fine year, and he almost led the Hornets, which were without their second-best player in David West, past the now-exposed Los Angeles Lakers in the first round of the playoffs.
Paul can still score quite well, and he is always improving his point guard skills, which are what makes him as good a player as he is.
3rd Team Shooting Guard, Manu Ginobili
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Manu Ginobili is the most unorthodox player in my lifetime (second place goes to Shawn Bradley, but for much worse reasons) and it continues to stun me that he can play the way he does.
He isn't overly athletic, but he gets into the lane and contorts his body in the most awkward position you can imagine (I've seen him look like a question mark many times throughout his career), and he still ends up putting up a shot and draining it home.
3rd Team Small Forward, Carmelo Anthony
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Carmelo Anthony may have had a season full of distractions and reputation-hurting trade rumors, but he is still one of the five best scorers in the league today.
Watching Anthony in isolation against a good defender is a treat, because he is one of the few players who can exploit good defenders in two or three different ways on the same play. There is something special about this dude, even if he doesn't have a ring. (And, yes, I would say the same about LeBron James, so shut up!)
3rd Team Power Forward, Pau Gasol
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The Big Llama looked pretty bad in the playoffs this year. I'm not going to sugarcoat that, but he is still one of the best-scoring big men in the NBA.
Gasol can stretch out the defense like Chris Bosh, but he is able to do it all better than Bosh, plus he is a better rebounder, passer and defender than Bosh.
3rd Team Center, LaMarcus Aldridge
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Rarely do you see a player play out of position for a year, but go on to make it the best year of his career anyway.
People always questioned whether or not LaMarcus Aldridge could make that next "step" in his career, whether that meant turning into a good defender or knocking on the door of "elite" status. He did both of those this year.
2nd Team Point Guard, Deron Williams
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Deron Williams can do some amazing things with the basketball, and I think he has turned into the second best point guard in the NBA, even though I always thought the Chris Paul-Deron Williams debate was silly until Paul got hurt.
Williams is going to be a treat for New Jersey fans for the rest of this year. Let's just hope he stays there to make the Nets a good team again.
2nd Team Shooting Guard, Kobe Bryant
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People will curse and yell, but Dwyane Wade is better than Kobe Bryant at this point, and the fact that Bryant got the first-team All-NBA nod over Wade is a travesty.
This doesn't mean Wade has had a better career, or Wade will win more rings than Bryant. It just means that, at this instant in time, Wade is a better basketball player than Kobe. So take a few deep breaths and calm down a bit Kobe fan-boys.
2nd Team Power Forward, Kevin Durant
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Kevin Durant just has two more steps that he needs to take to make a run for the "Best in the NBA" title.
He needs to become a better defender, as he is mediocre at best at this point in his career, and he needs to become a better leader, because there is no reason Russell Westbrook should have snubbed him as many times as he did at the end of games in the playoffs this year.
2nd Team Power Forward, Amar'e Stoudemire
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Yawn. Amar'e Stoudemire just had another one of his "score a kabillion points while ignoring the defensive end of the floor" seasons...right?
Wrong, strange man asking questions in my head.
Stoudemire took a leap toward becoming a good defender this season as he tried quite hard most of the time on defense this season, although it didn't show much with the Mike D'Antoni system and the plethora of defensively questionable players he shared laundry with this year.
2nd Team Center, Andrew Bynum
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Sure, we will all remember his 2011 season as the one that ended with him clothes-lining a man a full foot shorter than him and tearing off his jersey, snarling and flaunting his weird muscle-man boobs all along the way.
However, Andrew Bynum has the best pure-center skill set in the NBA at this point in his career, which makes it reasonable to think the Magic would take him in a package for Dwight Howard.
1st Team Point Guard, Derrick Rose
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The dude won the MVP this season, and even if you think it is just the basketball media riding his jock trying to crown a new king of Chicago, you cannot deny that he had a special season.
He is growing as an all-around point guard, and while the growing pains continue, he has that incredible athletic ability and knack for knocking down insane floaters in the lane to help out.
1st Team Shooting Guard, Dwyane Wade
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Like I said earlier, Dwyane Wade beats out Kobe Bryant by a narrow margin as the best shooting guard in the NBA.
He can shoot, he can block shots, steal balls, draw fouls, drive to the lane, pass, refrain from making bald jokes about LeBron James and stand Chris Bosh's annoying outbursts and yells.
There's nothing he can't do.
1st Team Small Forward, LeBron James
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Is there really any surprise here?
He is the best player on what seems to be the best team in the NBA and he is probably going to get his damned ill-gotten ring.
I hate giving him praise, but there it is.
I know, I'm bitter and I sound like a girl that's been dumped, but that's how I'm going to have to cope for the next few months if the Heat do end up beating Dallas.
1st Team Power Forward, Dirk Nowitzki
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The Dallas Cavricks...ahem...Mavericks, sorry about that, have the best-shooting big man in the history of the NBA on their team, and by far the best European ever to play the game.
He should be in consideration for the NBA Finals MVP, win or lose, as he has had one of the best playoffs in terms of taking complete control of a team since Shaq plowed through everything in his path in 2000.
1st Team Center, Dwight Howard
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Once again, this should be no surprise. Dwight Howard is the most impressive physical specimen in the NBA today and can out-muscle anyone in the league.
He does leave a bit of a taste in your mouth that he should have been able to reach a higher level at this point in his career, but that's just the talk of a greedy basketball fan who wants to see the maximum effort out of everyone in the NBA every night.
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