LeBron James: Still The League’s Best Player?

For years now, LeBron James has been the NBA’s best basketball player. We all know that Father Time is undefeated, and even James himself, who has more miles on him than a rocket ship to Pluto, has already joked around with the idea that he’s getting up there.

He’s now on the wrong side of 30 and with the rise of one Stephen Curry, it has become a fair question to ask: is King James still the league’s best player?

Well, to answer that we also have to take a look at the challenger(s) and the questions surrounding the term “best player” itself. For the latter can be taken in at least two directions, both of which deserve merit enough to be discussed.

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So let’s start with the challengers and cut to the chase. There are really only two: Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry.

I don’t want to seem like I am about to discredit Durant’s career so far and what he’s capable of, but it is pretty obvious by this point that Curry has surpassed him as an NBA player. That’s not a knock on KD – he’s excellent – but Curry is simply playing in another stratosphere right now and has been for over a full season.

Over the last year, Durant’s career has been filled with injuries to the point that people have forgotten how great he was in 2013-2014 when he won the MVP award. To remind you, he averaged 32/7/5 that season on 50/39/87 percent shooting.

He had 12 straight games in which he dropped 30-plus points including this 54-point performance against, wouldn’t you know it, the Golden State Warriors:

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So yeah, Durant was damn good. He’s still good. The problem I have here is that we haven’t seen him hit that level, that extra gear he put on full display during his MVP run, since the end of that season. The following season he dealt with foot, ankle and toe injuries and only ended up playing 27 games.

Since then, he’s had recurring issues (the latest being a hamstring strain) that’s kept him out of games and effectively dislodging him from people’s minds as the NBA’s No. 2 guy.

On the other end of the spectrum, Curry’s rise to superstardom has come while KD’s been forced to wear a suit and sit on the sidelines.

Note: it is important to mention here my thoughts on differing levels of stardom in the NBA, because I don’t use the word “superstar” lightly. I reserve that for the truly great players. Check it out:

• Scrub: Guys who barely play and who make casual fans go, “Who???” (E.g. Most of the 76ers’ team)
• Veteran: Older dudes who may be able to or who may not be able to contribute to team success; either way they’re best days are behind them (E.g. Vince Carter)
• Role Player: Players who contribute very worthwhile minutes doing what they’re good at (E.g. Draymond Green)
• Very Good: Players who have set themselves apart from role players in terms of production and are at the early stages of All-Star status (E.g. Andre Drummond)
• Star: Players who are cemented All-Stars and who can take over games at times but who can’t dominate nightly to rack up wins (E.g. Carmelo Anthony)
• Superstar: Players who dominate the game, who are transcendent, who win (E.g. LeBron James)

Curry’s edge over Durant is that he’s already been the best player on a team that won a title (despite not winning the Finals MVP, which I thought should have went to LeBron), has matched him with an MVP award, and, most saliently, has been at his highest gear (so far?) for a longer period of time.

Then we get into the meat of this still-infantile season, and it’s clear that Curry is at a superior echelon to Durant. All of this isn’t to say that KD can’t get back to what he was doing in 2013-14, but I’ll believe it when I see it.

For now, Curry is sustaining a seemingly impossible statistical and physical romp. He himself, not just his team, is running wild on the league. They’ve started 16-0, breaking the NBA record for best start to a season, and they’ve needed every bit of Curry greatness they could muster.

Now seems like the appropriate time to start comparing him to James, who has also led his Cleveland Cavaliers (which has key injuries) to a very respectable 11-3 that has them sitting atop the Eastern Conference. Similar to the Warriors, the Cavs have needed all that James can offer to get off to such a positive start.

But this isn’t about the teams. It’s about the players, while keeping in mind that their personal impact on their teams is important. It’s undeniable that the Warriors are currently the superior ball club to the Cavaliers. We saw LeBron try to dismantle the Dubs in The Finals by himself last postseason (how did he steal two games?!) to no avail.

We’ve seen that movie before. We’re talking Curry vs James. King vs Chef.

So here’s the argument for Curry as the usurper to the crown, the new best player in the world: he’s only 27 years old (close to four years younger than James) and through 16 games this season is just decimating teams on a nuclear level.

He’s cutting teams’ throats in the first 10 minutes of games. He comes out and bangs home eye-popping triple after triple, putting his defender on skates, and building the Warriors’ lead early while obliterating the opposing team’s confidence in their chances to slow him down.

It’s not that Curry just can’t be stopped – it’s the way he does it. He embarrasses other squads. He’s on Hall of Fame mode while they’re stuck on Rookie. He’s already cooked a perfect steak while they’re still starting the barbecue. He’s lapped them six times while they’re still filling up with gas.

Curry has reached that transcendent echelon in that when he steps on the hardwood, fans get butterflies of excitement fluttering in their stomachs, while opposing players have to steel themselves in preparation and, sometimes, even look downright terrified.

And why shouldn’t they be? They’re up against the greatest shooter in the history of the game whose ability to score is, for at least the moment, unparalleled. No matter which way you slice it, Curry is going to torch you. And the fact that he’s been able to sustain this insanity is what makes his monumentally strong case for best player.

Right now he’s averaging 33/5/6 on 51/44/94 percent shooting. That’s mind-boggling enough, but his shooting from deep is even more impressive than it first seems. He’s currently chucking up 11 three-pointers a night, which is ballistic. That means he’s making about five triples a game, which most NBA players aren’t even attempting. For comparison, sniper Kyle Korver is taking 4.3 threes per game.

Without taking into account his three-point percentages, Curry is shooting a breathtaking 60.1 percent from the field (he shot 52.8 on twos last season) and his true shooting percentage is 68.2 percent, by far the highest this season.

He found the few offensive weaknesses in his game and solved them. For example, last season he shot 45.8 percent from 3-10 feet of the basket, and made it his offseason goal to improve on methods of scoring around the rim. That included adding a deadly floater and closer pull-up shots. Now his percentage from the same spot is 60.5.

And while not an end-all be-all stat, PER (player efficiency rating) is still useful. As it stands, Curry’s is 33.5, which is the highest in NBA history (Wilt Chamberlain holds the record at 31.8).

LeBron’s numbers, while certainly nothing to sniff at, aren’t that close to Curry’s. He’s still putting up a fantastic 26/7/7, something we’ve become accustomed to from him. His shooting percentages, however, leave something to be desired this season and are at 52/32/63 percent right now.

His defense has been impressive, though. Which is an area in which he still bests Curry simply due to his size and ability to cover multiple positions when necessary.

But seasonal statistics aren’t the argument for King James as the best player in the NBA. Not anymore. By this point, we all know that we aren’t getting the absolute best from James until the playoffs arrive. That’s just the way it is. If he can find an opportunity to rest more often and coast through some of the more blah parts of the regular season, then he’ll do it.

Anything to win a title. At this stage in his career, it only makes sense.

So we’re not getting the best of James on a nightly basis. But we are getting the best of Curry (even as his ceiling seems to keep rising).

To remind ourselves of what LeBron is capable of at full force, we don’t have to look back very far into history. Just take a gander at the 2015 NBA Finals. He averaged an inhuman 36/13/9, arguably the greatest Finals numbers ever. Yes, he shot poorly, but that’s mostly because he was going one-on-five every single possession due to the fact that his team was playing third-stringers as starters.

This was not years ago. This was less than five months ago. It would be foolish to think that James can’t reach that level now when he needs to.

That supernova level of play, however, wears LeBron down quickly now that he’s older and thus he only saves effort like that for truly important moments.

Curry, on the other hand, is not slowing down because he doesn’t need to. In fact, he thinks he can get better. Therefore he’s putting his best on the line every night.

So it comes down to this: do you give the title of “best player” to the guy whose ceiling is the highest but can’t get to it every night, or do you give it to the guy who can sustain an extraordinary gear every night but hasn’t yet reached the ceiling of the other guy?

In the end, the decision is subjective. There is an argument for each of them. Personally, I like to think about it like this (credit to Bill Simmons for the following analogy): if a race of basketball-playing aliens came down to Earth and there was a single game to determine the fate of human life, who would you pick first for Team Earth?

Right now, my answer is LeBron. In a single game of basketball, in which he empties everything in his arsenal, I still think he is the most dominant player on the planet. But, yes, it’s now a debatable topic.

Next: NBA: The Big Question Facing Every Team In 2015-16

And if things continue as they are, it won’t be for long.