The NBA recently announced their 1st, 2nd and 3rd 2010s All-Decade Teams. They included Kobe Bryant on the 3rd team, and Kobe stans were deeply offended that he wasn’t on the 1st or 2nd team.
I was offended he made the 3rd team. It wasn’t the only poor choice.
As usual, I start with stats. I made a list of every player who was in the top 10 in Win Shares in at least one season from 2010-11 to 2018-19. (To really get a full decade, we’d have to either start a season earlier or wait until next season is done.) There are 38 players on the list. I then totaled their win shares for the nine seasons and ranked them.
Based only on Win Shares, here are your 2010s All-Decade Teams:
1st Team
Player, Total Win Shares
1. LeBron James, 123.4
2. James Harden, 117.3
3. Kevin Durant, 115.5
4. Chris Paul 108.9
5. Steph Curry, 98.4
The NBA’s 1st team has four of these five players. They leave off Chris Paul and add in Kawhi Leonard. (Can you say recency bias? Kawhi ranks 15th on my list.)
2nd Team
6. Russell Westbrook, 88.7
7. DeAndre Jordan, 80.7
8. LaMarcus Aldridge, 78.9
9. Blake Griffin, 75.2
10. Kyle Lowry, 74.8
The NBA’s 2nd team has Chris Paul (on my 1st team), Russell Westbrook, and Blake Griffin, so there’s still some overlap. They include Anthony Davis, who’s #11 on my list and therefore on the 3rd team. And they include Carmelo Anthony, who didn’t even meet my criteria. Yes, he’s 2nd team All Decade despite not having a single season in the decade in the top 10 in Win Shares. WTF NBA? (He finished the decade with 52.3 Win Shares which would rank 26th among the players that met my criteria.)
3rd Team
11. Anthony Davis, 71.9
12. Damian Lillard, 70.3
13. Kevin Love, 68.1
14. Jimmy Butler, 66.1
15. Kawhi Leonard, 65.7
The NBA’s 3rd team has Dwyane Wade, Kobe Bryant, Paul George, LaMarcus Aldridge, and Giannis Antetokounmpo. LaMarcus Aldridge made my 2nd team. Paul George finished 16th on my list (65.3); Giannis (53.2) finished 24th; Dwyane Wade (50.9) finished 26th. And Kobe Bryant (26.8) finished 37th out of 38 players meeting my criteria, only edging out Derrick Rose (25.9). Kobe had just one season in the decade that was top 10 in Win Shares.
Now, this all comes with the huge caveat that my criteria is just a simple starting point for creating the 1st, 2nd and 3rd All Decade NBA teams. But I’d have a really hard time including a player (cough, Carmelo) who didn’t finish in the top 10 in Win Shares in even a single season in the decade. I’d refine this list some by looking at playoff success, All NBA teams, All-Star selections, etc. I’d weigh total value (my starting point list) against peak value. But there’s no argument for including Kobe Bryant or Carmelo Anthony or Dwyane Wade on the 2010s All Decade NBA teams.
Also worth noting: the notion of an “All Decade” team is based on the arbitrary end points of the 2010-11 and 2018-19 seasons. This helps some players while hurting others depending on how their careers align with those end points.
Here’s the remainder of the list:
16. Paul George, 65.3
17. Marc Gasol, 64.8
18. Dwight Howard, 63.6
19. Pau Gasol, 60.7
20. Kyrie Irving, 58.4
21. Dirk Nowitzki, 56.7
22. Andre Drummond, 56.5
23. Tyson Chandler, 56.1
24. Giannis Antetokounmpro, 53.2
25. Rudy Gobert, 52.9
26. Dwyane Wade, 50.6
27. Isaiah Thomas, 47.0
28. Joakim Noah, 45.4
29. Karl Anthony-Towns, 45.4
30. Draymond Green, 42.3
31. Nikola Vucevic, 41.8
32. Ryan Anderson, 41.3
33. Nikola Jokic, 38.9
34. Paul Pierce, 37.5
35. Deron Williams, 37.4
36. Clint Capela, 31.3
37. Kobe Bryant, 26.8
38. Derrick Rose, 25.9
BONUS: Carmelo Anthony, 52.3.