Okay this is my new list, and its not who is currently the best, its who I'd pick if I was starting a franchise.

C - Dwight Howard. It was either Howard or Yao, and Yao is injury prone.

PF - Chris Bosh (CB4). He's not as good as dirk, but he's better on D and better rebounder + he's 6 years younger.

SF - LeBron James. The most obvious pick ever.

SG - Dwayne Wade. Kobe is 32 years old so he maybe has 4-6 good years left before his skill really starts to deteriorate. Wade is 28 so he might have as many as 10 good years left. Oh and Wade isn't a rapist :)

PG - Chris Paul by a hair over Derron Williams. Oh and btw Chris Bosh was CB4 before Chris Paul was CP3 so fuck off.

Hmm, if we are talking about picking the player best suited to start a franchise with then my list would be identical to yours; the players you mentioned are not necesarrily the best but they still are young and have time to get better.

I'm seeing no love for Carmelo.....

not when he plays the same position as Lebron...

Carmelo is a great player, its just too bad he came into the league the same time as Lebron. Lebron will always over shadow him. lol

I don't care what Kobe use to be able to do. If I want to know about the amazing history of achievements by Kobe, I'll check them out on wikipedia. The title of the thread clearly says "today". And Kobe's defense is nothing compared to Lebron's. When you have them performing almost equally on offense, and both being outsanding clutch players, but the other lacking so badly in a different area, the choice is obvious.

Lebron James is the first and only player to block a 360 dunk (4:05)

Lebron James is the best NBA player today.

That last block was sick man. lol

Carmelo is more clutch than LeBron. Carmelo is the better outside force.

-Good offense always beats good defense.

-Guess what this means?

-KOBE>LEBRON.

Sorry but your last two posts made me lol. Lebron is also "clutch" when he needs to be and his outside shooting is getting better every day.

And Lebron's D is so much better than Kobe's that it make up for his slight disadvantage on the offensive end. He can score almost as good as Kobe can and I'm sure if he took as much shots as Kobe even more.