Who’s the best basketball player in the world?

Our readers have a clear favorite

BY HENRY ABBOTT, JAROD HECTOR, TRAVIS MORAN, and DAVID THORPE

In advanced stats, the Thunder’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has no flaws. In our poll of TrueHoop subscribers and basketball insiders, he’s seen as barely a consideration for the title of best player in the world. JOSHUA GATELEY/GETTY IMAGES

The question is intentionally vague. That’s the point.

It’s different from the MVP conversation, which had too narrow a definition before the league made it even narrower. It used to be the best NBA player in the less-important regular season. Now it’s the best player in the less-important regular season who manages to squeeze out at least 65 games. 

The injury to Joel Embiid proves the MVP debate misses the point. Before he went down, the 76ers center was Vegas’ clear pick to be this year’s MVP; depending which betting house you prefer, he was about 50 percent likely to win the award. Jokić, in second place, was under 30 percent. And with more than a month before the playoffs, there’s still a chance Embiid will change everything for the whole league in the postseason.

And so: Embiid is proof that a player might be widely seen as the best basketball player in the world without winning the MVP. Official voters will settle one of those in a few weeks. We’d like to settle the other: Who is the best basketball player in the world?

Many years, someone nibbles through the regular season and then eats the playoffs alive. Other years, someone sets the league ablaze and then gets hurt before the voting. What about players from other leagues? What about Caitlin Clark?

In the NBA, this year, we see six candidates. In the advanced stat we use most often, Estimated Plus-Minus (EPM), the best players in the NBA right now are Joel Embiid, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Luka Dončić, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Nikola Jokić. 

But in Vegas, just like in Basketball-Reference’s algorithm-driven MVP tracker, those five are shaken into a very different order: Jokić is first, then Shai, followed by Luka, Giannis, and—in place of the injured Embiid—Jayson Tatum.

So Jokić is first or fifth; Shai is second (or first if Embiid is out of the running); and Tatum, the best player on the best team in the world’s best league, is barely in the conversation. 

Not too long ago, David Thorpe announced that he suspected Shai would win MVP this year. And then the other day, he asked us, now that Embiid is out, whom we’d name as the world’s best player. We batted around several names. At the time, David made a case for Luka. After studying a lot more tape, he’s now changed his answer.

Curious, we decided to poll all the smart people we know: TrueHoop subscribers, basketball writers, insiders. The results touched off some difficult conversations.