Ranking each NBA team’s All-Decade starting 5 from the 2010s
You could argue other eras had more talent towards the top of the all-time lists or they were more competitive on a nightly basis. Where the 2010s have everyone beat, however, is in the sheer volume of talent across the NBA landscape that has accumulated more and more with each passing year.
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There’s been an influx of international talent this decade with more and more overseas ballers making their way to the states to the point where it’s showcased at every All-Star Weekend on Friday night.
Big men are breaking traditional molds to develop into the players they were on track to become pre-growth spurt while outlier body types continue to normalize.
Not every team was able to compete for or bring home a championship over these last 10 years, but that doesn’t absolve each of an all-decade squad to match up against their contemporaries for no other reason than curiosity and entertainment purposes.
Some parameters have to be in place for an exercise with no definitive ranking to appease everyone who comes across it:
- To qualify for a team’s all-decade squad, one has to have played at least one full season with that team. So no, Kawhi Leonard and Paul George won’t be teaming up with Lob City nor will Anthony Davis stand alongside Kobe Bryant and LeBron James — spoilers.
- The type of player who appears on a team represents the best version of themselves on that team in this decade. Tim Duncan is not necessarily the player who won three Finals MVPs and the Kevin Durant who appears on the Oklahoma City Thunder isn’t the same KD as the one on the Golden State Warriors.
The line between systematic fit and overall talent is admittedly a bit blurred — and of course slightly opinionated — if only to acknowledge the full strength and greatness of each lineup to the best of its abilities.
While this ranking is to both applaud and condemn each organization appropriately, at its heart it’s meant to highlight all the good that came from these last 10 years and wrap a bow on what will go down as a truly unforgettable period in NBA history.