The Warriors are heavy favorites to repeat as NBA champs for a simple reason: No team in the league can rival their stockpile of superstars.
It was no surprise Thursday, when Sports Illustrated published the final part of its annual ranking of the Top 100 NBA players, that Golden State was well represented. Five Warriors players cracked the top 50, including four in the top 20, three in the top 10 and two in the top three.
Even after his Cavaliers fell to the Warriors in five games in the NBA Finals, LeBron James maintained his spot atop SI’s rankings — just ahead of Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry. Here is a look at where each Golden State player checked in on SI’s list:
Andre Iguodala, No. 46
Last year: No. 44
“Iguodala could mean so many things to so many teams, most paling in comparison to what he gives the Warriors. His is a perfect fit. It’s worth remembering, then, that ranking him based on his broader value will necessarily underrate his reality. Golden State might prefer Iguodala to many of the players who rank above him here, but other sorts of teams might not be able to account for Iguodala’s sparse scoring (7.6 PPG, 4.0 RPG, 3.4 APG) as easily as the Warriors do.”
Klay Thompson, No. 20
Last year: No. 19
SI excerpt: “Thompson is inconceivably the fourth-best player on his own team, all because he has never let ego get in his way. Rarely will a 20-point scorer so graciously fall into the background. Should the Warriors need him to shoot, Thompson (22.3 PPG, 3.7 RPG, 2.1 APG) is ever willing to let loose. If the offense is finding fertile ground elsewhere (or even if his own shot has deserted him), Thompson will defend and curl just as hard, content to have indirectly done his part. Thompson’s game scales up and down effortlessly—from minute to minute and from game to game—so that his team can always draw exactly what it needs from him.”
Draymond Green, No. 10
Last year: No. 13
SI excerpt: “If Green (10.2 PPG, 7.9 RPG, 7.0 APG) comes off as arrogant, it’s only because he knows exactly how good he is. He’s seen entire possessions smothered by his coverage alone, bouncing from one threat to the next as if they weren’t half the court apart. He’s experienced the Warriors’ offense at its highest gear, which so often relies on his playmaking as its beating heart. He also watched as Golden State lost its edge in Game 5 of the 2016 Finals without him. That a suspended Green put himself in that predicament with a nut-kicking spree is an unfortunate part of the experience. In the end, his absence affirmed—somewhat cruelly—his value to one of the greatest teams in NBA history.”
Stephen Curry, No. 3
Last year: No. 3
SI excerpt: “There’s no player in the league that has power quite like Steph Curry. It’s because of him that a certain breed of big man has become almost completely obsolete. If a power forward or center can’t hang 20 feet from the basket, he can be played off the floor. It’s because of Curry that switchable wings have become a functional necessity in the league, because there is no hope of beating his Warriors without them. Curry leaves nowhere to hide. Try to stash away a poor defender on one of Curry’s teammates and he’ll fish them out by running around staggered screens or pulling them in to defend a pick-and-roll. It takes an entire team of perfectly cast defenders to have any hope of denying Curry. Even then, the best-conceived strategies employed by well-suited opponents are left to the mercy of his long-range artillery.”
Kevin Durant, No. 2
Last year: No. 2
SI excerpt: “When the cold-blooded Durant (25.1 PPG, 8.3 RPG, 4.8 APG) lined up a deep three over LeBron James and then splashed the biggest shot of his career late in Game 3 of the Finals, he ended the long-standing narrative that he couldn’t beat the King and all-but-cinched the first NBA title of his 10-year career. With that shot, and a spectacular overall showing against Cleveland, Durant validated his polarizing decision to leave Oklahoma City for Golden State, completed his comeback from a scary late-season knee injury, stated an unimpeachable Finals MVP case, and took the Warriors another step closer to becoming a full-fledged dynasty.”
Connor Letourneau is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: cletourneau@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @Con_Chron
