LeBron James and the 10 Best Players in the NBA Right Now

The Internet is rife with debates over who the MVP is, and what it means (i.e. what "value" entails).

Likewise, there's no shortage of lists and the like that discuss the "greatest" players, which include all kinds of extra dimensions like "rings" and "leadership." It's a little bit ironic because these debates often revolve around ambiguous terms, but so much of it comes down to discussing who is "better."

So I had the thought, why not just have a top 10 list that discards all the ambiguity and just discusses the 10 best players in the NBA.

It should be noted that these are nothing more than a single writer's opinion of who is better and why, and that includes what matters and makes who "better," so perhaps it's just another chapter of ambiguity—but at least it's the chapter everyone seems to want to invoke in other conversations.

So here they are, my 10 best players in the NBA.  

10. Zach Randolph

Perhaps the hardest choice to make for a list like this is often not at the top of the list, but at the bottom. When you get to the 10th spot, it's not just about who is on the list, but who isn't. 

Zach Randolph on this list might surprise some people. It was a tough choice; it came down to a choice between Randolph, Carmelo Anthony, Amar'e Stoudemire, Pau Gasol, Russell Westbrook and Kevin Love.

The primary reason I chose Randolph over the other three is that he plays on both ends of the court. 

In fact, according to Synergy Sports database, Randolph gave up at least a tenth per player fewer than any of the other big men mentioned above (plus .05 PPP fewer than Westbrook, even though he's at a positional disadvantage), and that's why he makes the list while the others fall short.

When we're talking about the "best" player, things like wins, rings and All-Star games go out the window. It's about who can play, and on both ends of the court, Z-Bo can ball.

Only one player averaged more points, more rebounds and gave up fewer points per play than Randolph last season, and that's Dwight Howard. That's why Randolph makes the list while others fall short. 

9. Chris Paul

With Chris Paul, there's little need to justify putting him on this list. Since he's come into the league, the only players with a higher combined PER are LeBron James and Dwyane Wade.

Certainly that's sufficient to include Paul as a top 10 player in the league. 

There are of course problems with PER, such as the fact that it doesn't account for defense and rewards bad shooting. 

Paul's an outstanding defensive player too, making the NBA's second-team All-Defense three times. Additionally, a .571 career true shooting percentage could hardly be described as "bad."

No, the thing I need to defend here is not why Paul is on this list, but why he's not higher on it. The reason for that is that while scoring isn't everything, it's something, and Paul is not a great scorer. 

In fact, since January of 2010 Paul has only broken the 30-point barrier twice—once in the postseason and once in the regular season.

(Note that's 2010, not 2011; both times he only scored 33.)

Since his injury Paul simply has not shown he can take over a game by scoring. That's why he's dropped a few spots. 

8. Kobe Bryant

The screams are so loud I can actually hear them before they happen:

"How can you put Kobe Bryant so low?!?!?!" 

Well, it's simple. That's where he now belongs.

Yes, there are times where he reaches in and discovers moments of Kobe past, such as the All-Star game. However, the fact remains there are more times when Kobe reaches in and finds out it's just not there anymore, such as last year against the Mavericks. 

Say what you want, but Kobe averaged 22.8 points per game in the postseason. While the blame deserves a fair distribution, some of that lands on Kobe. He's just not as good as he once was, and the only way someone can deny that is if they're in denial. 

It's no longer a debate regarding who is better right now, Kobe or LeBron—there's no question there. In fact, there are now exactly seven players better than Kobe, and that's why he's eighth on the list. 

7. Deron Williams

Deron Williams showed how good he was when he got traded. The Utah Jazz, though floundering a bit before he left, completely dissolved when he did.

Meanwhile, Kris Humphries suddenly was looking like he could be famous for something other than his girlfriend.

In terms of both his passing ability and scoring, Williams is a regular part of the conversation about the best point guard in the NBA. It's hard to get much better than Williams, who was the only player in the NBA last year to score more than 20 points per game and average 10 assists.

6. Dirk Nowitzki

Dirk Nowitzki probably vaulted his place in history about 20-30 spots last postseason when he led the Mavericks to their first-ever championship. 

Dirk's getting to the point where he deserves consideration as a top 25 player in NBA history.

He's now one of only 14 players who have won both the regular season and Finals MVP at any point in their careers. He's only the eighth player to do so while scoring 20,000 career points. 

So while it may surprise some that Dirk would be placed this high, it shouldn't. Right now he's among the hardest players to guard, and his defense has improved more than most people recognize. Granted, part of that is the benefit of playing alongside Tyson Chandler, but the reality is that Dirk's been improving for some time. 

5. Kevin Durant

Kevin Durant is in the top 10 for an obvious reason: He can score.

I mean, he can really score. 

Here's the problem though: Durant's numbers fell across the board last season—points, rebounds and assists were all down by about 10 percent from 2009. His field goal percentage was also down, as was his three-point percentage. His PER also fell to 2.6. 

Furthermore Durant is not a great defender; at best, he's average. He's also not as good of a rebounder as he could be.

While Durant's a tremendous scorer, there are still other holes in his game that need work, and he needs to take care of those things before he can enter into the discussion of the NBA's best player.   

4. Derrick Rose

There's a tendency to try and use the postseason to "prove" that Derrick Rose is "overrated."

Can we take a step back and take a look at how "bad" Rose really played?

He averaged more than 27 points, seven assists, four rebounds and one steal per game. That's just the 11th time in the history of the NBA that feat was accomplished for a postseason, and by even fewer players.

The others who have done that are Larry Bird, Clyde Drexler, Allen Iverson, LeBron James and Michael Jordan.

Not bad company, right?

The criticism is because of Rose's lowly .396 field goal percentage. People need to recall something though—Rose had a Grade 2 ankle sprain. That means there's actual tearing in the ligament. 

Add to that that he's a player who depends on his explosiveness, jumping and speed—all things that are severely affected by that kind of injury. Those who watched Rose consistently can tell you he simply didn't have the same explosiveness or lift during the playoffs.

That's not an excuse, it's an injury. 

It is an injury that normally would call for 2-6 weeks of rest. Of course, not resting is going to prolong the healing time. 

If you figure that the ankle sprain only effected one tenth of his shots, that means it brought down his field goal percentage 10 percentage points. 

Frankly, it's stupefying that a player who was the third-leading postseason scorer, who put up literally historic numbers and who did so on a sprained ankle that the Bulls trainer described as, "The worst I've ever seen anyone play on," could actually be criticized for doing so. 

Derrick Rose is easily in the discussion of the top five players in the game right now. While people would like to ascribe "best point guard" to Paul or Williams, in their head-to-head matchups last season Rose dominated them both. At one point he did so in back-to-back games.

He's not higher because he has too many mental lapses. Rose does take some ill-advised shots, and he is careless with the ball sometimes.

His lapses are enough to keep him behind the top three for right now, but he could very well be on his way up.  

The fact is that the single-most important thing an NBA player can do, create his own shot, is something Rose did more than anyone in the NBA last year. No one made more unassisted field goals. 

He was also the league's best "clutch-time" (defined as the last five minutes of the game with the score within five points) player last season, averaging 47.8 points, 10.4 rebounds and 9.8 assists per 48 minutes of play. 

Dwyane Wade

Here is the complete list of players with at least 500 games played and career averages of more than 25 points, five rebounds and six assists: Jerry West, Oscar Robertson, LeBron James and Dwyane Wade.

How's that for elite company?

You could make a solid argument that Dwyane Wade is the greatest player in NBA history to never win the MVP (story idea!). There's a compilation of reasons for that.

There were injuries, there was the fact that for a while his teammates weren't good enough and now they might be too good.

There's also the fact that he has the bad luck of playing at the same time as Kobe Bryant and LeBron James, and for so long they dominated the MVP debate.

Regardless of awards though, Wade is the third-best player in the league right now, and he could arguably be placed higher than that.  

Dwight Howard

On the one hand, Dwight Howard is on the precipice of taking over the title of best player in the NBA.

On the other, he's in danger of dropping out of the top five. 

Defensively, Howard's the most dominant player in the game. Offensively, he showed huge progress last year, but there's still room for him to be better. Frankly, he should be averaging more than 25 points per game. 

Howard's current free-throw percentage is only .596. If he could even raise that to a moderate average of .750, he'd add 1.7 points to his average.

However, not only would he add those points, he would add attempts at the most important time of the game.

In clutch-time scoring, Howard is only 63rd in the NBA. It's hard to hand the title of "NBA's Best Player" to a player whom you don't want to give the ball to when the game is on the line.

Furthermore, Howard's getting a reputation for his temper. He missed two games last season because of excessive technical fouls. This is an area where teams can't afford to have their leaders consistently wandering.

If Howard can remain composed and become an even average free-throw shooter, he'll be able to challenge for the title of best player, but right now he can't.  

LeBron James

While he's not the greatest player in the league, and while he might have had some problems in the Finals, LeBron's still the best player in the NBA.

Frankly, it's downright scary that he's working on getting better. 

Do you want to know how good James is? Here's the complete list of players who have played 500 games and averaged 27 points, seven boards and seven assists: 

LeBron James.

Now he's in the prime of his career—and getting better.  

Do you really need to say anything else?