...BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

Pierce is okay, but I don't think the greatest player in the league. I'd cast my vote for Tim Duncan as the greatest player in the league based on track record and numbers. LeBron is up there, and Kobe is in the mix, but he's probably 4 or 5, much of it for those same reasons Pierce mentioned.

You are giving him more credit than I did. I don't think he is even the best player on the Celtics.

Paul Pierce is a great player but the best? Absolutely not.

No, I was saying Kobe is 4 or 5. Pierce is maybe Top 10.

I think Garnett and Pierce are probably close to each other.

Garnett has been the best player in the league for the last 5 years...go look at the efficiency ratings. Duncan just always had a better team around him. Kobe is definitely better than Paul Pierce. Pierce couldn't win without a supporting cast, but Kobe can do alright without much help.

Chris Paul will be the best player in the NBA for the time to come...he made the freakin Hornets watchable.

You can argue for Garnett with efficiency ratings and stats, but there's that little tendency he had to forget where he was come crunch time. Duncan did have the benefit of a better supporting cast, but he still confidently and surely led his team to a couple of titles and went deep into the playoffs when they didn't win it all.

Garnett had a few championship caliber teams in Minnesota that he was the unquestioned leader of, but they couldn't get over the hump.

I'm not taking anything away from Garnett, because I like him a lot, and he's right up there at the top of the list, and he's had staying power. He's been an elite player for, what, 10 years? And he's still in his prime.

Can't agree with that...Garnett had one team worth anything in Minnesota, KG got them to the Western Conference finals against the "lets-get-a-ring" all-star Lakers. He had an amazing series, played out of his mind, but his teammates were nowhere to be found. Crunch time he has always been there...look at this year for example....it's his team that was always holding him down. His playoff numbers are freakin better than his regular season numbers (few players can say that)...how is that failing in crunch time?! KG single handedly got most those teams to the playoffs, but was outmatched in the West with the amount of solid teams.

While I can name about 4 playoff games Tim Duncan has blown with his disability of hitting free throws when they matter. Tim has had David Robinson, Ginobli, Parker and a cast of solid players. Garnett has had Cassell, Sprewell and freakin Sczerbiak. They finally put a good team around Garnett...best regular season record and a championship. Just think if Garnett had that team around him his whole career....you wouldn't even know Tim Duncan's name.

Most underrated player in NBA history....besides Oscar Robertson.

I'm not talking about playoff stats so much as what he did the last 5 minutes of a game. Garnett always had that tendency the last few minutes to go all Chris Webber on you and either push the ball off to someone else or to shoot a 15-foot jumper.

I don't think it's a coincidence that this year he had Pierce and Allen there, two guys who want the ball when it matters, and they won.

Still, we're nitpicking. I don't want to disparage Garnett too much, because again I like him, and he's one of the top players of this decade. But I still have to give it to Duncan. Every great player might miss some, but Duncan still has the rings to back it up, and that's the bottom line.

And while we're talking about what Garnett didn't have, we can talk about the max money he'd been making for years and years, which was partially what kept Minnesota from getting big-name players. Of course, it's also partly because Kevin McHale couldn't (and still can't) GM his way out of a damp cereal box if you opened the top for him.

LOL, Garnett. Kobe is the most talented player closely followed by LeBron. After those 2, it's a 'pickit' thru the top 10.

I agree with you that Kobe is the most talented, or maybe he and LeBron are 1-2, but Kobe doesn't have the winning instinct. It's more about him. I get the feeling he'd rather score 40 points every night and coast into the playoffs than actually win it all scoring 20.

And LeBron needs to win a title or two before he can be called the greatest player in the league.

Paul Pierce wouldn't even have been considered in the Top 25 active players until this year

Actually, I thought this was one of his worst years...his best years, at least statistically were when the Celtics had nobody. About 3 years ago, he was a top 10 player in the league.