B/R NBA 200: Series Ranks the NBA’s Best Players Heading into 2016-17 Season

Ask five people how to organize just the NBA’s best players, and you’ll probably get five different answers. 

Now, let’s provide the real answer.

To do so, we need to use the end point of last season as our starting point for now. And a lot sure did change last year:

Until LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers took over during the NBA Finals, the 2015-16 campaign belonged to the Golden State Warriors. Stephen Curry was the runaway favorite for MVP, eventually earning the award in unanimous fashion for the first time in league history. Around him was a stellar supporting cast that included two more legitimate stars—Klay Thompson and Draymond Green. 

But the Dubs didn’t claim every great player. Kevin Durant bounced back in fantastic fashion, and he may not even have been the best on his own team. Kawhi Leonard continued his emergence as a bona fide superstar. Kyle Lowry thrived for the Toronto Raptors. 

Buckle up for the ultimate ranking of the Association’s best and brightest: the B/R NBA 200 as we count down all of the NBA’s standout performers this year before arriving at a definitive answer to the aforementioned question, as well as so many others. Over the next few days, we’ll be going position by position, determining the top dogs at each based on a combination of extensive scouting and plenty of number-crunching fun. 

Remember though, these aren’t going to be the positions you’re used to. Well, not entirely. Positions are increasingly fluid in today’s NBA, meaning players aren’t necessarily pigeonholed into one spot in the lineup. That was never more true than in 2015-16, which saw some lineups become almost entirely amorphous. 

Players such as Paul George and Carmelo Anthony routinely suit up as both small forwards and power forwards. We have guards such as C.J. McCollum who are perfectly comfortable running the show as point guards or taking on more off-ball duties as shooting guards. Anthony Davis and LaMarcus Aldridge defy description as either true power forwards or true centers. 

To account for the burgeoning irrelevance of the five typical positions, we’re breaking down the top 200 into nine types of players: point guards, combo guards, shooting guards, swingmen, small forwards, combo forwards, power …

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