NBA Top 100 Ranking: Giannis, Stephen Curry, and Kevin Durant vie for first place; LeBron James slips

The level of talent in the NBA is at an all-time high, and with that comes his own set of problems in terms of deciphering and defining the absolute best. How does one choose the best sentence in a literary masterpiece? Or a delicious meal at a five-star Michelin restaurant? After a certain point, it becomes just a matter of personal preference, and even then, the person making the decision can hesitate from day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute.

Thus, we arrive at the torture inherent in the NBA Top 100 rankings.

Stephen Curry, LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and Giannis Antikonmo could not be more different – from body type to skill set to personality. However, are we somehow supposed to properly put them in order of greatness? Analytics are helpful. Prizes can be a tiebreaker. But in the end it is up to your gut.

That’s why, here at CBS Sports, we’ve taken a consensus approach. Each of the NBA writers came up with their own list of the 100 best NBA players for the 2022-23 season, taking into account potential improvement and decline. Then, through a very uncomplicated process, we came up with one glorious list to rule them all. (Just to illustrate how difficult this is, two of our writers didn’t have our top six players in the same order.)

The agony of an exercise like this is totally the point. We like to say “So-and-so is the top 10 player in the league.” Oh yes? Let’s see the list. You’ll drive yourself crazy for days before you realize the player you want to put out there isn’t even close.

Discussions like this are part of the reason we love sports. Games are fun and random like no other social enterprise, but questions like these fuel our passion. Who is the best player in the NBA? The topic deserves a lengthy and complex discussion, and we hope we’ve done it fairly with our list and analysis.

So this is the sport we love, and the butterflies that can only come with a new season.

With that in mind, let’s move on to the list. (For a closer look at each site individually, CBS Sports is also breaking down their ratings for point guardsAnd the shooting guardsAnd the small attackersAnd the attackers strength And the centers.)