If you asked me, I would say yes. Not everyone is as convinced though.
Given, I live here in the great city of Portland and am a die-hard Blazer fan, but this guy is something special.
With all the spare time I have these days (I love it, by the way, and have no complaints...), it's been fun. I go to a lot of school, I watch a lot of TV, and I play on the internet a whole lot too. And with all that TV and all that internet, I get to take in lots of information.
I caught a debate on the sports station here in Portland, 1080 The Fan, the other day. One of the hosts was saying how he would venture to say that Brandon Roy has now become one of the top 15 best players in the NBA. Lots of people called in to say they agree and why they disagree. It was a very interesting question, and peaked my interest.
Actually, right now they are dedicating a whole segment to discussing this very subject. They have a caller on the line who said that he could list 30 players better than Brandon Roy right now in the NBA. He then proceeded to email that list to the guys at 1080 The Fan, and they are reading it on the air right now. Oh and this caller is on the line too, while they are going over the list.
His list had all the "no-brainers", you know, guys like Kobe, LeBron, Steve Nash, Kevin Garnett, Chris Paul, Dwight Howard, Dirk Nowitzki, so on and so forth.
I won't bore you with his whole list. Not that I can even remember all of them names. But there are a few names that I thought were just crazy. Guys like Allen Iverson, Paul Pierce, Baron Davis, and Joe Johnson.
Wait a minute, Joe Johnson?!? I wouldn't say so.
As they go through the list, they start talking about something that throws the entire debate out the window. The point of this debate was "Who are the best 15 players in the NBA and is Brandon Roy included in those top 15?"
Here's an example of where the conversation turned: "Allen Iverson was so good when he took the 76ers to the 2000-2001 NBA Finals, so he sure is better than Brandon Roy."
Well that's fine and dandy. Yeah, if you're debating all these players and only taking their peak performance years, and then comparing the players against each other. But that is irrelevant to the present conversation, I think.
In my opinion, right now, Brandon Roy is one of the best 15 players in the NBA.
I don't know exactly where he would be at in my rankings. I don't have rankings, per se. I just think that there are only about 10-12 players that are "locks" for being better than Roy. After that, the individual debates begin.
The thing a lot of people forget about Brandon Roy is that he does a whole lot more than just score. So with that in mind, I would put him above guys like Iverson, Joe Johnson, Baron Davis, Caron Butler, Pau Gasol, Chris Bosh, and Shawn Marion.
Final thought. Some guy named Maurice Brooks, who writes for NBA.com, thinks pretty highly of Brandon Roy and what he's been able to do this season so far. Here is his take on Roy, and his rankings for his "Race to the MVP." He seems to know a little bit about the NBA.
See you tomorrow people.
