When talking about the players who have, at some point, been widely regarded as the best in the NBA over the last 15 or so years, a few names come to mind, like LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Nikola Jokic.
They are far from being the only ones to have made a mark on the league in that time, though. Anthony Davis, James Harden, Dwight Howard, Damian Lillard, Russell Westbrook, Carmelo Anthony, Paul Pierce, Joel Embiid, and Chris Paul also made quite an impact and fans were asked who had the highest peak among them.
One went with Harden, Westbrook, and Embiid, as they are the only ones to win MVP.
The 3 mvps…
RUSS HARDEN EMBIID..
— Dendrxx (@Deee3z) July 16, 2023
A fan picked Howard for leading his team to the NBA Finals, with his other two picks being Paul and Harden.
Very hard choices here. Dwight for sure, none of the other carried their team to the finals. CP3 > Russ & dame even though Russ is triple double machine. Then for my scorer/wing (I know I don’t need to do it this way), I think I go with harden. Best passer and scorer of the bunch
— TonyGabagool💥💥 (@aba1og) July 16, 2023
A fan picked Davis from the 2019-20 season to go with Paul and Howard from 2008-09.
2020 AD, 09 CP3 & 09 Dwight
— ali (@alij8h) July 16, 2023
A Celtics fan is picking the three players to win championships from this group, Pierce, Davis, and Howard.
There’s only three players that have championships on this list and only 1 of them is a finals mvp
— CELTICS ☘️ BANNER 19 (@BiggLynch) July 16, 2023
One fan believes Harden is at the top by 100 miles, with Westbrook and Howard rounding off the top three.
Harden is number 1 by 100 miles. After him, Russ and Dwight. Carmelo deserves a mention
— Sell The Cowboys (@Alpaca2Rich) July 17, 2023
There are really some strong cases to be made here. Howard was a name that came up often and he won three DPOY awards in a row at his peak from 2009 to 2011. Westbrook was another and he won an MVP in 2017 while also averaging a triple-double four times in a five-year span.
Harden, meanwhile, won his MVP in 2018 and led the league in scoring three years in a row from 2018 to 2020. Embiid is the latest to win MVP and he has led the league in scoring in each of the last two seasons.
Then you have Davis, who had arguably the best playoff run of any of these nine when he helped the Lakers win the title in 2020. Paul Pierce, though, as a fan mentioned, is the only one to win Finals MVP from this group.
Dwight Howard Thinks He Had A Greater Peak Than Nikola Jokic
If you ask Howard who had the greatest peak in this group, he would certainly pick himself. That’s because he believes he was greater in his prime than even Jokic. Howard received some pushback when he initially said it, but he stood his ground and explained why his prime was indeed greater.
Not a lot of people agreed with him there, though, with Stephen A. Smith being one of the many to disagree. Howard is nowhere near the offensive force that Joker is, and the huge disparity there to go with the fact that Dwight never led his team to a title makes this a no-contest.
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