Allen Moll is an avid NBA and College Basketball fan who watches and studies games religiously and coaches youth basketball in his native Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania. Allen is a regular columnist for thehoopdoctors.com, Bleacherreport.com, UpperDeckblog.com, and his own site, Hoops Haven.
With the NBA on TNT enlisting fans to help in selecting their All Decade Top Performances, the The Hoop Doctors thought it was the perfect time to announce our very own All Decade Award Winners. We will be honoring the decade’s best individual players, teams, and performances that were simply the best over the past 10 seasons(2000-2009). This will be a multi-part series with periodic entries showcasing this era’s top moments and players. Check back often for each new installment such as Franchise of the Decade, All Decade Teams by Position, Player of the Decade, and Dunk of the Decade.
Part Two – Player of the Decade
In selecting an individual Player of the Decade, a lot of factors like overall offensive and defensive statistics and that player’s team success is taken into consideration. By those qualifications, only three players make our final list of the Top 3 performers of the last 10 seasons.
Our 3rd place finisher, Kevin Garnett’s statistics are phenominal(21.5 ppg, 11.4 rebs, 1.4 blks, 1 MVP, 4 All NBA First Team), and is probably a safe bet for the Hall of Fame, but his teams only made the postseason in 7 of the 10 seasons and won 1 NBA Title with Boston. Our runner up is “The Big Fundamental” Tim Duncan. As another sure fire Hall of Famer and quite possibly one of the best power forwards to ever play the game, Duncan’s numbers are slightly better than Garnett’s(21.7 ppg, 11.8 rebs, 2.2 blks, 2 MVP’s, 3 Finals MVP’s, 7 All NBA 1st Team), but his Spurs won 3 titles in the decade.
The only way that either Garnett of Duncan could finish out of the top spot is if their was a once in a lifetime type player, who truly is one of the All Time Greats, who dominated the hardwood by putting up better stats and won more titles. Fortunately for us, we have been witnesses to one of those players. No,………… it is not Lebron James. The Hoop Doctors Player of the Decade is:
Kobe Bryant
Kobe truly is a once in a lifetime talent no matter how you compare players. He could have played in any generation and been a great player. His statistical numbers during the decade, which are other-worldly, only tell half of the story:
28.1 ppg, 5.9 rebs, 5.3 ast, 1.7 stl, 2 Scoring Titles
1 MVP, 1 Finals MVP, 7 All NBA First Team, 10 Time All Star, 4 NBA Titles
Where his true measure of greatness comes is in how he makes his teammates better. No one was better at winning and making it to the postseason this decade, like Kobe. Although some argue that Kobe would not have had as much success early in his career if it were not for Shaquille O’Neal, he undoubtedly has helped to quiet those critics by not only winning a title without O’Neal last season, but making it to the Finals an amazing 6 out of the 10 seasons this decade. When his career is over(hopefully not to soon), he will just like Duncan, be a 1st ballot Hall of Famer, mostly because of his outstanding play in the 2000’s. For further evidence of Kobe’s qualifications, please check out our very own Kobe Player Rewind Series.
Honorable Mention:
Dirk Nowitzki, Lebron James, Paul Pierce, Dwayne Wade
