National Basketball Association

Paul George Is the NBA's 9th Best Player, Says Sports Illustrated

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

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Paul George made the NBA’s top 10, placing 9th overall, in this year’s SI ranking of the league’s top 100 players.

Everybody knows there aren’t many humans alive who are better than Paul George at basketball, and Sports Illustrated has put a number on it. According to their ranking of the NBA’s top 100 players, Paul George is the league’s 9th best.

Rob Mahoney of SI adeptly sums up the unique value that Paul George brings to his team.

Basketball analysts of all kinds, ourselves included, are often guilty of treating offense and defense as discrete enterprises. Teams are discussed for their performance on either end without considering how the two might be related. Players are dissected in a way that can make every individual basketball skill seem separate from the others in application and concession. George, in particular, points out the flaw in that framework. How many players in the league are both their team’s primary shot creator and full-time defensive stopper? The only other certain qualifier (Kawhi Leonard) ranks just a few spots higher than George. So many others fall behind him because of the unique strain of that kind of dual role and what it means to carry it. Even those players who could take on both roles often don’t for the sake of conserving energy. That George is willing to makes it all the easier to build a winning team around him.

Ninth seems about right.

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You could quibble with the few guys directly ahead of him. James Harden might be worse and Anthony Davis still has a lot to prove. Kawhi Leonard certainly out-ranks PG in the consensus view, but there is a legitimate argument to be made about that.

But, really, this is about right. And it’s a big jump from his laughable ranking, 20th, in last year’s edition.

LeBron James, Steph Curry, and Kevin Durant are the undisputed top three. Russell Westbrook and Chris Paul definitely round out the top five. Then there is Kawhi, Davis, Harden, and Paul George, plus Blake Griffin, who are all relatively close.

No doubt Paul George doesn’t like being in this grouping, however.

He certainly believes he’s more Kevin Durant than James Harden.

Perhaps this 9th overall ranking will give him that extra motivation to go out and prove it in 2016-17.

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