since 1998 also known as since Jordan retired as a member of the Chicago Bulls my list 1999 - Tim Duncan 2000 - Shaquille O'Neal 2001 - Shaquille O'Neal 2002 - Shaquille O'Neal 2003 - Tim Duncan 2004 - Kevin Garnett 2005 - Steve Nash (yep, I use to say Duncan, but Nash for me) 2006 - Kobe Bryant 2007 - Kobe Bryant 2008 - Kobe Bryant 2009 - Lebron James 2010 - Lebron James 2011 - Lebron James 2012 - Lebron James 2013 (currently) - Lebron James
1999 - Shaq 2000 - Shaquille O'Neal 2001 - Shaquille O'Neal 2002 - Shaquille O'Neal 2003 - KB24 2004 - KB24 2005 - KB24 2006 - Kobe Bryant 2007 - Kobe Bryant 2008 - Kobe Bryant 2009 - KB24 2010 - KB24 2011 - LBJ 2012 - Jeremy Lin 2013 (currently) -Jeremy lin
I'm less interested in your choices (which look fine to me) than how you arrived at them. What criteria do you use to identify the league's best player?
1999 - Tim Duncan 2000 - Shaquille O'Neal 2001 - Allen Iverson 2002 - Kobe Bryant 2003 - Tim Duncan 2004 - The Detroit Defense 2005 - Dwade 2006 - Dwade 2007 - Tim Duncan 2008 - Kobe Bryant 2009 - Dwight Howard 2010 - Kobe Bryant 2011 - Dirk 2012 - Lebron James 2013 (currently) - Chris Paul
In my opinion, lebron has been the best player in the league since 05. Just look at those sorry teams he carried to those great regular season records. People can say kobe this or kobe that, but I think if you gave lebron that lakers team that lost to the celtics,they ain't losing to the celtics.
It's just the guy that had the combination of the best overall season and was the best in terms of abilities and production to help his team win. I'm not sure how you can prove that to be true considering how Lebron played worse in the 2008 playoffs than Kobe did. It had more to do with how their games worked. In 2008, Lebron's jump shot was still very weak and considered to be a noticeable flaw. That was why Lebron shot very poorly in the first 2 games of the series. You might say, "well, Lebron got his team to 7 games vs. the Celtics, while Kobe only got his team to 6 games." While this is true, it doesn't say much about how Kobe and Lebron performed. The truth is Ray Allen was shooting like complete garbage in that series. He averaged less than 10 ppg and less points than Rajon Rondo. It's hard to do well in a series when your 3rd option is invisible out there. We all saw how Ray played in the 2008 Finals, he arguably should have been the Finals MVP over Pierce.
1999 - Shaquille O'Neal 2000 - Shaquille O'Neal 2001 - Allen Iverson 2002 - Tim Duncan 2003 - Tim Duncan 2004 - Kevin Garnett 2005 - Steve Nash (yep, I use to say Duncan, but Nash for me) 2006 - Kobe Bryant 2007 - Kobe Bryant 2008 - Kobe Bryant 2009 - Lebron James 2010 - Lebron James 2011 - Lebron James 2012 - Lebron James 2013 (currently) - Lebron James
1999 - Shaquille O'Neal 2000 - Shaquille O'Neal 2001 - Allen Iverson 2002 - Tim Duncan 2003 - Tim Duncan 2004 - Kevin Garnett 2005 - Steve Nash (yep, I use to say Duncan, but Nash for me) 2006 - Kobe Bryant 2007 - Kobe Bryant 2008 - Kobe Bryant 2009 - Lebron James 2010 - Lebron James 2011 - Lebron James 2012 - Jeremy Lin 2013 (currently) - Jeremy Lin
1999 - Shaquille O'Neal 2000 - Shaquille O'Neal 2001 - Allen Iverson 2002 - Tim Duncan 2003 - Tim Duncan 2004 - Kevin Garnett 2005 - Steve Nash (yep, I use to say Duncan, but Nash for me) 2006 - Kobe Bryant 2007 - Kobe Bryant 2008 - Kobe Bryant 2009 - Lebron James 2010 - Lebron James 2011 - Lebron James 2012 - Jeremy Lin 2013 (currently) - Jeremy Lin
He was quite clearly worse than Duncan and KG. I would say he was worse than Kobe too that season but that's debatable.
