2010 NBA All-Star Game Open Thread

Personally, I wouldn’t say LeBron because he wasn’t even in the league for large parts of the decade. (He’s got anh inside line on the best player of this coming decade, though.)

But this here is a silly argument — “LeBron” hasn’t failed to win a championship. LeBron, Mo Williams, Ilgauskas, Delonte West, Varejao and around fifteen other people in various combinations have collectively failed to win a championship.

And to put the failure on LeBron is ridiculous, given that he’s the only above-average starter on that whole team. That’s 40 minutes of LeBron and 200 combined minutes of mediocrity — you can’t expect one-sixth of the team to somehow outweigh the other five-sixths. It’s amazing the question even comes up — it’s amazing that the Cavaliers are even a contender. Usually, one-star teams are like the Heat: pretty good some years, mediocre other years. They don’t win 66 games, that’s for sure. And at least the Heat usually have a couple additional scorers out there.

I mean, seriously. Name a championship team this decade on which any of the other Cavaliers would have been even the third-best guy.

Then consider last year’s conference finals, a series in which LeBron did everything it was possible for one man to do on a basketball court, and his team and coach let him down.

And then try to drag team performance into individual questions? Hmph.

If you consider him a center, he’s the best center of the decade. Shaq was right up there for the first half of the decade, but he’s declined. Duncan’s still going for 20, 10 and 2. And while Duncan was never quite the offensive force Shaq in his prime was, he was always the stronger defender. I’d put Shaq as a whole fifth of all time, behind Wilt, Russell, Kareem and Olajuwon… this might not be fair to some of the earlier centers out there, but there it is. Duncan would be in that range as well.

But if he’s a power forward, he very well may be the greatest one ever. Now, granted, that’s partially due to a lack of competition… you don’t have a Kareem out there at PF, let alone a Wilt or a Russell. You have… Karl Malone? Charles Barkley? Bob Pettit? Garnett? All great players, but not quite equal to the top centers. Duncan’s right up there with any of them, and quite possibly ahead.

And really, he’s the only one from this decade who you could say that about. Kobe’s not close to Jordan. Neither Nash or Kidd is the equal of Magic, Stockton or Oscar. LeBron has a good shot at surpassing Bird, but he hasn’t done it yet. (And really, he’s the only one you could even say that about… maybe Chris Paul, if everything breaks right for him, but even that’s a bit of a stretch.)

So Duncan gets my vote as well.