{"id":461371,"date":"2017-10-13T11:55:05","date_gmt":"2017-10-13T15:55:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/?p=461371"},"modified":"2017-10-13T13:36:35","modified_gmt":"2017-10-13T17:36:35","slug":"lebron-james-top-50-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/news\/nba\/lebron-james-top-50-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"SLAM Top 50: LeBron James, No. 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

This, I think, is the best way to capture just how dominant LeBron James<\/a> remains, even now, at the age of 32 and entering his 15th(!) NBA season: A 73-win juggernaut of a team felt it needed to recruit Kevin Durant<\/a>, the second best player in the world, in order to stave off his challenge.<\/p>\n

Think about that for a moment. The Warriors, a team that won more regular season games than any other team in history, and boasted the two-time reigning MVP, along with two other top-20 players (Klay Thompson<\/a> and Draymond Green<\/a>) were, well, scared of facing off against LeBron once again in the Finals. And they weren\u2019t wrong.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the greatness of LeBron. He\u2019s still a one-man wrecking ball capable of destroying everything in its path, no matter the strength.<\/p>\n

I mean, just look at the numbers he put up during last year\u2019s postseason: 32.8 points, 9.1 rebounds and 7.8 assists per game. He also shot a ridiculous 56.5 percent from the field and 41 percent from deep, all while playing an obscene 41.3 minutes per game.<\/p>\n

Do you know how hard that is, to play that many minutes and carry that much of a load but also do so that efficiently? It\u2019s literally unprecedented, as was his averaging a triple-double (33.6 PPG, 12 RPG, 10 APG) during the NBA Finals, and all that came after leading the League in minutes per game during the regular season (and Real Plus-Minus, by the way, so don\u2019t worry about the slight downtick in numbers). The dude\u2019s a cyborg, only stronger and smarter.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s a good thing, too, because with Kyrie<\/a> now gone, and Isaiah Thomas<\/a>\u2019 hip likely holding him out for a few months, the Cavs will be leaning even more on James. One of these years, he\u2019s going to show signs of age and fatigue. He has to, right? Either way, that time, remarkable, appears to be years away. The Warriors may be the title favorite, but only because they amassed a collection of stars unlike anything the League has ever seen. That\u2019s what it takes to beat LeBron James. There\u2019s not another player in the world that can boast that claim.<\/p>\n

Previous Rankings:
\n2016: No. 1
\n2015: No. 1
\n2014: No. 1
\n2013: No. 1<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rankings are based on expected contribution in 2017-18\u2014to players\u2019 team, the NBA and the game.<\/em><\/p>\n

No. 50 \u2013 Dion Waiters<\/a>
\n<\/strong>No. 49 \u2013 Ben Simmons<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>
\nNo. 48 \u2013 Brook Lopez<\/a>
\nNo. 47 \u2014 Harrison Barnes<\/a>
\nNo. 46 \u2014 Jrue Holiday<\/a>
\n<\/strong>No. 45 \u2014 Lonzo Ball
\n<\/strong><\/a>No. 44 \u2014 Myles Turner
\n<\/strong><\/a>No. 43 \u2014 Goran Dragic<\/strong><\/a>
\nNo. 42 \u2014 Andre Drummond
\n<\/strong><\/a>No. 41 \u2014 Al Horford<\/a>
\nNo. 40 \u2014 LaMarcus Aldridge<\/a>
\nNo. 39 \u2014 Kevin Love<\/a>
\nNo. 38 \u2014 Paul Millsap<\/a>
\nNo. 37 \u2014 Hassan Whiteside<\/a>
\nNo. 36 \u2014 Andrew Wiggins<\/a>
\nNo. 35 \u2014 Marc Gasol<\/a>
\nNo. 34 \u2013 DeAndre Jordan<\/a>
\nNo. 33 \u2014 Bradley Beal<\/a>
\nNo. 32 \u2014 Kemba Walker<\/a>
\nNo. 31 \u2014 CJ McCollum<\/a>
\nNo. 30 \u2014 Devin Booker<\/a>
\nNo. 29 \u2014 Nikola Jokic<\/a>
\nNo. 28 \u2014 Joel Embiid<\/a>
\nNo. 27 \u2014 Mike Conley\u00a0<\/a>
\nNo. 26 \u2014 Kyle Lowry<\/a>
\nNo. 25 \u2014 Rudy Gobert<\/a><\/strong>
\nNo. 24 \u2014 Gordon Hayward<\/strong><\/a>
\nNo. 23 \u2014 Kristaps Porzingis<\/a>
\nNo. 22 \u2014 Carmelo Anthony<\/a>
\nNo. 21 \u2014 DeMar DeRozan<\/a>
\nNo. 20 \u2014 Blake Griffin<\/a>
\nNo. 19 \u2014 Draymond Green<\/a>
\nNo. 18 \u2014 Chris Paul<\/a>
\nNo. 17 \u2014 Klay Thompson<\/a>
\nNo. 16 \u2014 Jimmy Butler<\/a>
\nNo. 15 \u2014 Isaiah Thomas<\/a>
\nNo. 14 \u2014 Karl-Anthony Towns<\/a>
\nNo. 13 \u2014 Damian Lillard<\/a>
\nNo. 12 \u2014 DeMarcus Cousins<\/a>
\nNo. 11 \u2014 Kyrie Irving<\/a>
\nNo. 10 \u2014 John Wall<\/a>
\nNo. 9 \u2014 Paul George<\/a><\/strong>
\nNo. 8 \u2014 Anthony Davis<\/strong><\/a>
\nNo. 7 \u2014 Giannis Antetokounmpo<\/strong><\/a>
\nNo. 6 \u2014 James Harden<\/a>
\nNo. 5 \u2014 Kawhi Leonard<\/a>
\nNo. 4 \u2014 Stephen Curry<\/a>
\nNo. 3 \u2014 Russell Westbrook<\/a>
\nNo. 2 \u2014 Kevin Durant
\n<\/a>No. 1 \u2014 LeBron James<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

RELATED:<\/strong>
\n GALLERY: 2017 SLAM Top 50 Players<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Can’t stop the reign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":96,"featured_media":461385,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,36],"tags":[32614,13004,2625],"yst_prominent_words":[14362,16496,15940,14504,15690,14636,14391,15633,14374,14544,14813,20544,26282,14639,21818,17605,14437,14502,14878,14481],"class_list":["post-461371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba","category-slam-top-50","tag-2017-slam-top-50","tag-lebron-james","tag-slam-top-50"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/96"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461371"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":461442,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461371\/revisions\/461442"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461371"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=461371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}