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This era of NBA basketball has been loaded with superstars, dynasties and some of the most entertaining playoff runs the league has ever seen.
The 2000s started with the Shaq-and-Kobe Los Angeles Lakers. Kobe Bryant gave the Lakers another run in the late 2000s and into the 2010s. LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh then formed the Heatles. And finally, all that gave way to the lightyears Golden State Warriors.
And oh yeah, the San Antonio Spurs were the running thread throughout all of that.
Each of those teams features stars who put up big numbers in more than one trip to the Finals. And the aim here is to find the best performer on that stage.
To be clear, this isn't a ranking of the best player during individual Finals runs. Someone like Giannis Antetokounmpo would certainly be much higher in that case. Instead, we're looking at the totality of what players have done since 2000. So, we'll use both rate (think points per game) and cumulative (think total points) numbers to reward someone like Robert Horry, who's played in 26 Finals games during this time period.
A truly objective and definitive ranking is probably impossible, but that didn't stop us from trying.
If you take every player since 2000 with at least 100 Finals minutes and sort them by the average of their ranks in box plus/minus (and a cumulative variant of box plus/minus), average game score (and total games core), points per game (and total points), total Finals MVPs and championships (while adding extra weight to those last two categories), you get the following top 20.
It's not perfect (no criteria is), but it likely got us closer than pure subjectivity.
Honorable Mentions
There are plenty of names you might expect to see but won't. By this specific criteria, they aren't top 20, but they have to be mentioned.
The 2007-08 Boston Celtics: This group may be unfairly punished by the use of points and points per game (though one member did make the cut).
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https://syndication.bleacherreport.com/amp/10038113-ranking-stephen-curry-and-the-top-20-nba-finals-stars-since-2000.amp.html