The Los Angeles Lakers did not make the playoffs and LeBron James did not win the scoring title. While his team may have had one of the most disappointing seasons of all time, there is still no denying that LeBron James is one of the best players in the NBA at 37 years old.
However, unlike in the past, James is no longer the best player on the planet. For most of his career, LeBron has been the best in the league and it has not even been close. Nowadays, you could rank him in several different spots in the top 10.
We decided to rank the 10 best NBA players in the league based on performance in recent years as well as overall ceiling. Simply put, these are the 10 best players in the league that we would pick if we needed to find someone to win us just one basketball game in a do-or-die setting.
Ranking LeBron James among the 10 best NBA players:
10. Chris Paul, Phoenix Suns
This might seem a bit high for Chris Paul as his stats are not that incredible but anyone that follows the NBA closely knows just how smart Paul is and how important he is to playing winning basketball. Everywhere Paul has gone the team has gotten better and he elevated the Phoenix Suns into the best regular-season team in the league this season.
Guys like Kawhi Leonard or Paul George have higher ceilings and would kick Paul off of this list but Kawhi hasn’t played in a year and George is rather hit and miss. You know exactly what you are going to get out of Paul, who is going to go down as one of the greatest point guards of all time.
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9. Ja Morant, Memphis Grizzlies
Ja Morant took the NBA by storm this season. After a great rookie season and an even better second season in the league, Morant took the leap to superstardom this year and has cemented himself as one of the best players in the entire league.
Just look at the Memphis Grizzlies. While Ja certainly has talent around him that helped the Grizzlies become the second seed in the West, you do not win that many games if you do not have a superstar piloting the ship and it is undeniable that the Grizzlies have themselves a superstar.
Morant should be considered one of the favorites to win the MVP award next season as he is only going to get better with more experience in the league. The third-year guard started to turn a corner with his three-point shot this season and if he continues those improvements then he will be nearly impossible to stop.
Morant could easily find himself in the top five or six depending on how next season goes and one thing is for certain: out of anyone on this list, Morant undoubtedly provides the most can’t-miss moments.
In the same way that Stephen Curry did seven years ago, Morant is capturing the imagination of the league and is the NBA’s next future superstar.
8. Jayson Tatum, Boston Celtics
The Boston Celtics have quietly been one of the best teams in the entire NBA. After a slow start to the season, the Celtics really turned things around and have quietly been the most consistent team in the entire NBA since the turn of the calendar year.
Despite having the sixth-best record in the league, Boston leads the entire NBA in net rating. Boston is the best defensive team in the league and leading the way on the offensive end is Jayson Tatum, who is continuing his leap into superstardom.
Tatum has been fantastic for the Celtics this season and if it were not for a wonky past few years because of a global pandemic he may have already hit that MVP ceiling. Let’s not forget that before the pandemic Tatum was really starting to turn a corner, starting with the 2020 NBA All-Star Game.
Things slowed down a bit (although he still played great) and they are now picking up again. Tatum is likely going to receive some fourth and fifth-place MVP votes this season and he is deserving as he is the go-to scorer on one of the best teams in the NBA.
Tatum notably grew up as a fan of the Los Angeles Lakers and LA fans can only dream that he eventually leaves the Celtics to finally don the purple and gold. In a few years’ time, he could easily be a top-three player on this list. He just barely turned 24, after all.
7. Stephen Curry, Golden State Warriors
This might seem a bit low for Stephen Curry, who almost won the MVP award for the Golden State Warriors last season. While it is undeniable that Steph is the hardest player in the league to slow down when he is on fire, he cannot do as many things as the players ahead of him on this list.
That is by no means meant to discredit what Curry has done as he is still going to go down as one of the most influential basketball players in league history. But when you combine his defense, ability to stay healthy and his cold shooting (for his standards) this season, then it is hard to rank him higher than seventh on this list.
It will be interesting to see how the second half of Curry’s career treats him. LeBron James has defied conventional wisdom when it comes to aging but Curry is different. He is an undersized guard who has a lot of miles on his body from the multiple title runs with the Golden State Warriors.
While it might not be happening yet, Curry is a lot older than many realize as he just turned 34. There is a chance that the 2020-21 season was the last in which Curry will be at an elite level, and that is fine. He is already a first-ballot Hall of Famer.
As a basketball fan, you have to hope that Curry has a few more of these prime seasons left in him.
6. Luka Doncic, Dallas Mavericks
Luka Doncic suffered a calf strain in the last game of the regular season and has not been given a timetable to return. That truly is a shame as Luka has been playing at an MVP level in the second half of the season and the Mavericks have really started to figure things out after trading Kristaps Porzingis.
Dallas made the leap into being a true contender by winning 52 games this season and while the heliocentric teams don’t always tend to do well in the playoffs, it is hard not to like Dallas’s chances to make a deep run with Luka running the show.
Of course, he is not going to be doing that and the difference without him is going to be massive. While he does not have a bad supporting cast, it will become abundantly clear just how good Luka Doncic really is when we see the Mavericks play the Utah Jazz in the first round of the NBA Playoffs.
The 23-year-old Doncic averaged 28.4 points, 9.1 rebounds and 8.7 assists per game this season. He definitely is going to be a front-runner to win the MVP award next season and there is no doubt that he has the potential to be the best player in the league as early as next season.
The 2022 playoffs could have been the true launching pad to that moment for Luka and it is a shame that he got hurt.
5. LeBron James, Los Angeles Lakers
Yes, LeBron James is still the face of the NBA and is the second-greatest player in league history. As it currently stands, there are four guys in the league that I would take over the Los Angeles Lakers superstar as being the best players in the NBA.
Don’t get me wrong, if we are heading into a do-or-die game and he is completely healthy, LeBron James is the last player you want to see. He is still the most reliable player in the league in big spots because he has played in so many of them. If the Los Angeles Lakers weren’t so bad this season then he would have put up great playoff numbers yet again.
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However, it is not controversial to say that LeBron is no longer at his peak form. Sure, he averaged the second-most points per game of his career at 37 years old but that was by design. LeBron cannot play with the same physicality every single night that he once could and that is apparent by the fact that he attempted eight threes per game, which is by far a career-high.
Defensively, LeBron has not tried for years, although he can still be a good help defender when he actually puts in the effort. LeBron is absolutely still good enough to pilot the Los Angeles Lakers to an NBA Championship; the front office just has to give him a far better supporting cast.
But at the end of the day, there are four players who have past him up on the NBA’s hierarchy and LeBron himself should know that.
4. Joel Embiid, Philadelphia 76ers
Joel Embiid might win the MVP award this season but he still ranks fourth on my list. Personally, I would give the MVP award to the player that is ranked third on this list, but that does not seem to be what is going to happen.
We all know that the MVP award is half based on narratives and Embiid has the narrative. This is now his second great season in a row and voters are going to be more likely to want to award that performance, especially with him holding down the fort during the Ben Simmons fiasco.
Embiid is a rare specimen that can do just about anything on the court. He is someone who is going to punish every single team that goes small on him while also having the ability to stretch the floor and hit shots when needed.
Defensively, there are not many players who are better at the rim than Embiid is, making him one of the best two-way players in the entire league. However, you can get him uncomfortable a bit on defense if you draw him out of the paint with a big that can shoot or in small lineups.
But as mentioned, if you try and go small against the 76ers then Embiid is just going to drop 40 points on your head.
Embiid won the scoring title over LeBron James this season and quite frankly, that is better for basketball. Embiid is someone who went out and helped his team win games while LeBron was very obviously stat-padding over the second half of the season.
3. Nikola Jokic, Denver Nuggets
Nikola Jokic’s insane 2021-22 season is getting overlooked because of how good he was last year as well. If Jokic was having this season without the appetizer last year then it would be getting much more media attention than it currently is.
However, last season was the true breakout year into being one of the best players in the NBA and this is simply a better version of that, making it easier to overlook. When it all comes down to it, though, Jokic has been the most valuable and impactful player in the entire league this season.
Jokic led the entire NBA in Box Plus/Minus with a number that is historically important. Jokic’s 13.7 BPM is the best a player has had in a single season in NBA history with at least 2,000 minutes played. Better than LeBron, better than Michael Jordan, better than everyone.
Jokic is averaging 27.1 points, 13.8 rebounds and 7.9 assists per game on a Nuggets team that does not have much talent at all. He is playing center on the defensive end and point guard on the offensive end. He is one of the most gifted players we have ever seen.
So why rank Jokic as the third-best player in the league if he just had the best season of all time? Well, there are still two players in the league I would take over him in a do-or-die situation as I believe the ceiling of these two players is simply higher than everyone else.
2. Kevin Durant, Brooklyn Nets
Kevin Durant is going to go down as one of the 20, if not 15, best players in NBA history. That might not seem like a massive deal with LeBron James going down as the second-best player in league history, but Kevin Durant is a generational superstar.
There has never been anyone in the league like Durant who at his size can score the basketball in any way he wants. When it comes down to overall skill and capabilities, Durant very well could be considered the greatest pure scorer of all time and that is not the only thing he does on the basketball court.
Durant does not get the credit he deserves (even if many still consider him to be elite) because he went to Golden State and has been tied up in this Brooklyn fiasco for the last three seasons. However, when it really boils down to it, he is someone you do not want to play in a Game 7 and is someone who many people would rank no. 1.
Heck, Durant almost led the battered Nets to a playoff series win over last year’s champions, the Milwaukee Bucks. If Durant’s foot was not on the line in the game-tying shot in Game 7 then we might be talking about Durant being a three-time champion, not a four-time champion.
Durant has the seventh-best career BPM in NBA history with at least 20,000 minutes played. That is how special he is.
1. Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks
While the conversation around the MVP award has been centered around Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid, Giannis Antetokounmpo has quietly been putting up an MVP-caliber season and will likely finish third in the award voting.
If Giannis had never won an MVP before and was still coming off of the NBA Finals win then he probably would have won the award this season as that narrative would have captured the votes. However, as a multi-time MVP, Giannis has gotten overlooked despite putting up better numbers.
Giannis has the second-best BPM in the league, only behind Jokic, and averaged 29.9 points, 11.6 rebounds and 5.8 assists per game. And let’s also not forget that at his best he is the best defensive player in the league to stop.
Giannis has deserved the top spot on this list after putting up incredible season after incredible season and having a truly historic run in last year’s playoffs. The Greek Freak reached an unprecedented level in the NBA Finals last season that still has not set in for the casual fan. He averaged 35.2 points, 13.2 rebounds and 5.0 assists per game in last year’s Finals while shooting 61.8% from the field.
In terms of BPM, Giannis had the fourth-best NBA Finals performance in NBA history, only being bested by Michael Jordan in 1991, Kevin Durant in 2017 and LeBron James in 2016. That is quite the list.