As a thought experiment having no actual meaning, except for being the kind of thing that makes sports fun, my friend challenged me recently to name the top ten basketball players I'd choose to start a franchise with, keeping age in mind. My list, with comments is as follows.

1. Lebron James

Can there be any debate? The King is just 24 and yet will almost definitely be named MVP and led the Cavaliers to the #1 seed in the east and a sweep in the first round of the playoffs. He is a scoring machine, and he does everything, from scoring almost 30 points a game, to averaging over seven rebounds and assists each a game. Simply put, he's the best there is, and I don't think there's all that much debate about that.

2. Dwight Howard

The Magic center who led his team to significantly overplay its talent in the regular season is just 23, and still developing. Size is something that can't be improved upon, and Howard is a true center in a league where there don't seem to be too many of them anymore. Howard won his first defensive player of the year award this past season, and led the league in rebounds and blocks. Hard to top starting your team with that kind of defense and rebounding in the middle.

3. Chris Paul

We follow with the NBA's best point guard, Paul, who led the league in his share of marquee categories as well, assists and steals, while leading the Hornets to a disappointing seventh in the west, which wasn't really his fault. He checks in at just 23 as well (though 24 in a week to be fair) and would be ideally suited to lead your new team. I think these three would more or less universally be the top three (or am I wrong) with the combination of age, skill, and position that the others, although great, don't have.

4. Kevin Durant

Unlike most of the other players, he hasn't won at all yet. But he's all of 20 and has already shown the crazy kind of talent that dominated college basketball and is already making the Blazers regret selecting Greg Oden with their #1 pick. In his second year he improved his field goal and three point shooting percentages dramatically along with his rebounding numbers and increased his point per game average to over 25. It's not his fault his team is awful.

5. Dwyane Wade

Wade led the NBA in scoring this year while leading the Heat back to the playoffs (albeit in a first round loss to the Hawks) with over 30 a game while dishing 7 and a half assists per game as well. Wade is the second best player from the great draft of 2003 and would be even higher on this list (as if 5 isn't high enough) if he didn't have a little bit of injury history and wasn't 27 (makes it sound like it's old - it's not, but it's not 20, either).

6. Brandon Roy

No superstar is quite as under the radar as Roy. (well, not under the radar so much as a player, but as being a superstar). Just watching the end of the Rockets-Blazers series, Ron Artest claimed Roy was the hardest player he had ever guarded, and that he was the only player to put up 40 points on him (not sure I want to go through the work to check that out, so let's take Artest on his very reliable word). Whether that's true or not, the fact is that Roy, the best pick of the the not so great 2006 draft (Patrick O'Bryant at 9? Oof - though Rondo at 21 was a steal) emerged in his third year as the best player on a rapidly improving young Blazers team, and increased his field goal percentage at points per game at a ripe young age of 24.

7. Kobe Bryant

The senior member of this list, there's really not much that need be said - he's probably the most famous person in the NBA right now (well, him or James anyway, but James has yet to be embroiled in a rape scandal), and not without reason - he's the premier scorer in the NBA as well as a lockdown defender, and his points per game have only gone down as his team as improved around him (the acquisition of a second all star in Pau Gasol and the emergence of Andrew Bynum). Basically, he's this low just because he's 31, though he still has years left of the same thing in him.

8. Yao Ming

Ming often suffers from Carlos Beltran syndrome (maybe I'll write a full article about this - but really Joe Posnanski created it here), kind of the focus on what Ming doesn't do instead of what he does - be the second best center in the NBA today (he's not Howard), score 20 points a game with a very high field goal percentage and rebound 10, while being a defensive presence. Sure, he has injury problems, and yes, people will always wonder what more he can do, but he's done a pretty good job anchoring the Rockets, and maybe this, their first first round victory since 1996-97 will show he's the heart of the team, and not McGrady (though I don't think some of the detraction on McGrady is unfair, but that's something else entirely). He's not extremely young at 28 but he's not old either.

9. Derrick Rose

The youngest player on this list at 19, he is also understandably the least polished, and this pick relies more than any of the others on upside, but what he's shown so far has been impressive enough. He is the rookie of the year by a good deal and he has shown in the first round playoff series why - making brilliant plays on both ends of the floor, none perhaps more so than a block of Rajan Rondo in the final minutes of Game 6 against the Celitics which the Bulls won to advance to a game 7. Expect to see his numbers increasing in the next couple of years, and there's no reason why he can't be up top in the CP3 class of point guards in the NBA.

10. Tony Parker

Parker, at 26, is both properly rated as among the best in the game, and overlooked sometimes, mostly because he is the only player on this list who has a teamate who is better (well, at least was - Parker will ascend past an aging Duncan if he hasn't yet, but Duncan is an inner-circle Hall of Famer), while he does have the spotlight on him as a member of the Spurs, who have been so successful in recent years. In fact, because of that success, it almost seems as if he's older - he's been playing since he was 19, and has been on the three championship teams. Parker is one of the best shooting guards in the NBA, scoring 22 a game while shooting over 50% and it will be him on which the future of the Spurs rests.


Honorable Mentions Include:

Deron Williams - just shy, still a very promising and talented young point guard, with a little less talent than the guys on the list

Dirk Nowitzki - he really is a great player, he's just too old to justify putting here (I still think the Mavs should have won that NBA Finals)

Joe Johnson - he has blossomed into a star and the Hawks are good again after so many bad years

Carmelo Anthony - couldn't justify him in the top 10, but he's still a fine and young player and an excellent scorer


Note: Unfortunately, at this point in time I am loathe to admit I don't understand advanced basketball statistics nearly as well as I do with baseball statistics. I am attempting to rectify this problem as soon as possible. If anyone has advice, or I make any glaring errors, I would enjoy being informed.