re: Where did LeBron James rank as a player each year?

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You could watch any of the Finals featuring Lebron and Curry and there was never a question who was the better basketball player. Until Durants first title, this was also true. Many guys won MVPs over the years but they weren’t better at basketball than Lebron. The award doesn’t match the actual name.

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I agree with this overriding sentiment. Running through my year to year evaluation is the idea that even if someone nudged out LeBron statistically, I'd rather have LeBron when the chips were down even if someone beat him out in PER.

Anyone thinking Curry is a better player than Bron, needs meds or is on some heavy meds already.

Agree 100%. The pass Curry has gotten from the media after laying some big turds in the Finals is just bizarre. Like I said, any other top 5 superstar level player would’ve been eviscerated by the media for some of the performances Curry has had imo.

Iguodala winning the 2015 FMVP is pretty damning imo. You know Curry really didn’t play well when holding Lebron to 36/13/9 lands someone a Finals MVP Lebron’s efficiency did go down as his usage rate went through the roof but who was the 2nd best player on the floor for Cleveland? Dellavedova? Lol

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I don’t know why but that last possession of game 7 in 2016 is forever ingrained into my memory. When Curry was trying to play hot potato even though he had the favorable matchup with Kevin Love guarding him. And then heaving up a prayer that clanked wildly off the backboard lol. I couldn’t believe what I was watching when that happened.

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Curry in an interview said that he could have driven the ball to the basket past Love if he wanted to, but just chose to go for the 3.

that Was not the same steph that won 70 games. And lebron knew it. After game 6 in his speech to the team he mentioned how fricked up physically the warriors were. Everyone knew it. It is some kind of revisionist history to act like lebron beat the 70 win warriors. He didn’t. In that shape they are a 50 win team tops.

Muh Bogut

That 73 win Warriors team was so awesome that Draymond ran to the parking lot right after game 7 and begged KD to come.

My responses to your responses:

05-06:

I'm not giving LeBron 06 despite this was Bron's breakthrough season to the absolute NBA elite. Outside of his threepeat with Shaq, this season is the centerpiece of the Kobe legend: absurd statline, 81-point game, and he doubled as the best defensive player alive. At least for this season, LeBron will have to settle for 2nd.

06-07:

32-6-5's not a bad drop-off for Kobe coupled with him still providing elite defense and he replicated that statline in the playoffs. On the other hand, his team's record declined to 42-40 and got swiftly eliminated in the playoffs. I won't repeat Nash's regular season accomplishments (though they exceed his MVP seasons) but he replicated and even improved upon his numbers in the playoffs, particularly the robbery that was the San Antonio series. The mythology of LeBron as a pro begins with the 48 Special however he incurred a performance drop-off in the Finals, wasn't like he was doing everything like he's done in recent seasons, dude's stats declined. Still among the elite players but part of the group at this point not the top.

07-08:

Not gonna repeat all the comparative stats and analytics however the Cavs' record declines whereas the Hornets come out of nowhere in a stacked West to achieve the 2 seed with CP3 as their lone bluechipper. Not only that, CP3 elevated his production another level in the playoffs. All things considered, this has to go to CP3.

13-14:

All things being mentioned so far and KD achieving a slightly better defensive rating than LeBron, KD was amazing the first two rounds then his production declined in the conference finals against the eventual champion Spurs to the point Westbrook leads the team in scoring, still won 2 games against them though. As far as LeBron and that season's finals are concerned, dude did not play to his standards in a critical game 3 shifting to Miami tied 1-1 then the team proceeded to get blown off the court by a record margin, couldn't even win another game. They did not have any chance to win those final two games so his stats then are hollow. Not enough to render him the best this season.

14-15:

All things being mentioned, Harden basically replicated his regular season performance in the playoffs and the Rockets had chances to defeat the Warriors TWICE in Oakland the first two WCF games but lost then the Dubs proceeded to blow them out the rest of the way. Steph's regular season, playoffs, and finals performances speak for themselves and AD actually submitted a better statline in the playoffs than his regular season performance. What LeBron did the first three games without Love and Kyrie was amazing however he completely failed to step up in the crucial Game 4 IN CLEVELAND and got outscored by Iggy as the Warriors tied the series. Then he and Steph engaged in a draw of a duel in Game 5 though LeBron was inefficient as he was guarded by Iggy and LeBron basically repeated the inefficient scoring in Game 6 as the Warriors submit a tremendous team performance in winning the title. Though the total stats reflect it, his 2015 Finals performance was tremendously overblown when we factor the final 3 games. I have a difficult time giving him this season taking everything into account.

15-16:

The centerpiece of the Steph legacy is this regular season, it was so historic and dominant it's difficult to knock it off. Of course, two of Steph's flaws in retrospect manifest in the 2016 playoffs: injuries and failure to step up in the clutch in high-stakes games. By the second half of the 2016 Finals, Draymond gets suspended for Game 5, rim protector Andrew Bogut sustains injury and gets knocked out of the Finals, and a 70% Steph is struggling to lead. On the other hand, LeBron does LeBron things and leads one of the greatest playoff comebacks in league history. We're combining an all-time legendary performance against a team that's 70% of what it was in the regular season vs an all-time regular season. This is close because so much stock is rightly placed on the playoffs and Finals so if I were to compromise on any position, I probably would compromise on this just difficult to overcome such a legendary regular season within a legendary regular season team.

16-17:

Kinda hard for me to put LeBron up there on regular season alone since one could argue Kawhi was a superior all-around player than LeBron this season and Harden probably should've won the MVP. In spite of Westbrook's triple-double playoff average, he basically shot the Thunder out of the playoffs against Harden's Rockets with his inefficient scoring. Until Game 6 of the Western semis, Harden was submitting a solid playoff statline throughout then he decided to throw a VERY WINNABLE GAME 6 AT HOME AGAINST A KAWHI-LESS SPURS (my theory) to end his season, it was that dismal. As far as Kawhi is concerned, he was playing at an elite level throughout the playoffs until the ZaZa cheap shot and one could argue that was the difference in the Western Finals as the Spurs were leading the Warriors by a ton until that point then couldn't even win a solitary game. On the other hand, one could argue in some instances Kawhi was expendable since they still defeated the Rockets on the road to clinch the Western Semis without him (though I think Harden threw the game). For LeBron, he clearly elevated his game another level in the playoffs despite coming up short in Game 3 of the Finals IN CLEVELAND whereas KD rose to the occasion and basically ended the Finals. On the other hand, one could argue he and the defending champs dominated a clearly inferior East that playoffs and only submitted the regular season record they did to stay fresh for the playoffs so the stats are inflated. This is tough, I might exclude LeBron from top player this year because ZaZa's dirty close out on Kawhi flipped an entire world championship possibly, very close call but I won't give LeBron this this season.

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LeBron's 33.4-12-10 in the Finals might be the greatest Finals performance ever.

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I definitely disagree with this conclusion but a triple-double in the Finals is pretty cool.

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The three seasons beginning with 2013 through the end of 2016....did you actually watch basketball or just check these stats? Lebron James was the best basketball player in the world every one of those seasons.

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Absolutely false.

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LeBron took over #1 from Kobe around 10-11

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that is patently and objectively false. By 07/08 it was no longer even straight-faced arguable. Lebron was the better player by virtually any conceivable objective metric and it wasn't a particularly close call.