For the sixth season in a row, ESPN.com is ranking the top players in the NBA. Who will be the best player this season?
To get the final ranking, we asked our expert panel to vote on pairs of players.
LeBron James vs. Stephen Curry. Russell Westbrook vs. Kevin Durant. Damian Lillard vs. Chris Paul.
We asked, "Which player will be better in 2016-17?" To decide, voters had to consider both the quality and the quantity of each player's contributions to his team's ability to win games.
We'll roll out the rest of our top 200 players over the next week. If you want to get involved in the discussion or just follow along, #NBArank is the Twitter hashtag to use. You also can follow along @ESPNNBA and on Facebook.
On to the list ...
35. Marc Gasol
Grizzlies | C | @MarcGasol
Last year's rank: 10
2016-17 projected RPM: 1.05
Insider profile: Even when healthy, Gasol wasn't the same player in 2015-16 as in his previous All-Star campaign. At 31, Gasol may simply be slowing down. His offensive decline can be traced to an unprecedented inability to finish around the rim. Gasol made a career-low 59.5 percent of his shots inside 3 feet, according to Basketball-Reference.com, down from 69.9 percent the year before. Gasol remained good as ever in the high post, where he's both an excellent midrange shooter (43.5 percent on 2-point attempts beyond 16 feet) and one of the best passing 7-footers in the league. Read more »
#NBArank 31-40
