Ranking the NBA's 20 Best Individual Star Seasons Since 2000 – Bleacher Report

The NBA’s modern era has given us some wild individual seasons.
Offensive numbers are at a level we haven’t really seen in decades. Someone averaged a triple-double for an entire season (and did so more than once) for the first time since the 1960s. Others are getting closer to that benchmark.
The three-point revolution is largely responsible for the boost, but more control over team offenses for individual players has contributed, too.
The results are some truly eye-popping numbers.
To determine the 20 best since 2000, we used the criteria and methodology explained below.

The first thing to note is that this exercise is about individual seasons, rather than team success. So, a lot of the campaigns highlighted below didn’t end in titles.
What’s interesting is that a lot of the best players throughout the game’s history weren’t able to check that box until their individual numbers came down a bit. Generally speaking, a little more deferring and a little more team play seem more conducive to championship runs.
That doesn’t mean the formula below is completely divorced from winning, though. One rule that eliminated Luka Dončić’s 2022-23 and Kevin Love’s 2013-14 from the list is that players had to make the postseason to qualify. As you’ll read, players get credit for winning a Finals MVP too.
In all, this exercise definitely rewards individual production more than win tallies, but those two things often go hand in hand.
To determine the final order, a whopping 8,209 campaigns (regular and postseason combined) were considered by finding, among other things, the box plus/minus (“a basketball box score-based metric that estimates a basketball player’s contribution to the team when that player is on the court”) and game score (“a rough measure of a player’s productivity for a single game”) for each.
Points were also awarded for MVP wins and Finals MVP wins (with a little more weight given to the Finals MVPs as one of the two nods to team success in the exercise).
Every individual campaign of 500-plus minutes since the start of 1999-2000 was then sorted by the average of their ranks in each category, which gave us the order below.
Just one more note, though. Players were only allowed one spot on the list. Otherwise, the top 20 would have been almost entirely LeBron James, Nikola Jokić and Giannis Antetokounmpo. Those interested in just how thoroughly those three have dominated this era can see the list without that rule at the end of the slideshow.

92 games, 25.7 points, 9.4 rebounds, 3.6 assists, 0.9 steals, 0.8 blocks, 51.1 field-goal percentage, 79.8 free-throw percentage +5.0 plus-minus, +7.5 box plus/minus
The 1999-00 campaign was Karl Malone’s 15th. He was 36 years old. Putting up numbers in what could be considered the NBA’s dead-ball era that go toe-to-toe with some of today’s best, at that age, is remarkable.
Appearing in all 92 of the Utah Jazz’s regular and postseason games from that year is also tough to wrap your head around.
Malone may not have been at quite the same athletic level he was in his prime, but he was steady, had unstoppable chemistry with John Stockton and had really honed a mid-to-long-range jumper that made him a nightmare to defend.

86 games, 23.9 points, 6.0 rebounds, 5.5 assists, 1.8 steals, 0.4 blocks, 54.1 two-point percentage, 35.4 three-point percentage, 83.9 free-throw percentage, +0.4 net rating (net points per 100 possessions when a given player is on the floor), +1.1 net rating swing (the difference between a team’s net rating when a given player is on or off the floor), +8.1 box plus/minus
Jimmy Butler’s regular-season production doesn’t leap off the screen like that of some of the other stars represented in this exercise, but his securing a spot still feels right.
Over the last four seasons, he’s been one of the most dynamic and forceful postseason players of this era (and probably ever).
In the 2023 playoffs alone, he willed his eighth-seeded Miami Heat past Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks and all the way to the NBA Finals.
The magic wore off a bit by the time the Miami Heat faced the buzzsaw that was the Denver Nuggets, but he finished 2023 with postseason averages of 26.9 points, 6.5 rebounds, 5.9 assists and 1.8 steals. He had a 56-point outing against Milwaukee and got to at least 25 in 14 of his 22 appearances.
Butler may insist that “Playoff Jimmy” is not a thing, but his performance on the game’s brightest stage says otherwise.

87 games, 34.8 points, 5.4 rebounds, 4.6 assists, 1.8 steals, 0.4 blocks, 48.5 two-point percentage, 35.1 three-point percentage, 84.5 free-throw percentage, +3.5 net rating (+11.3 swing), +7.2 box plus/minus
Kobe Bryant’s case for being considered top 10 to 15 of all time has as much to do with longevity as it does his peak. Throughout his career, whether it was Tim Duncan, LeBron James or other stars here and there, there was always at least one other player with a strong “best in the world” argument.

Kobe was at or near that level for over a decade, though. And in 2005-06, while leading a team whose third and fourth leading scorers were Smush Parker and Chris Mihm, Kobe had a statement campaign in which he scored at a rate few others in league history have.
Per-possession averages are tracked back to 1973-74, and his 34.2 points per 75 possessions that regular season ranks fifth over that time frame.
His insatiable appetite to get the ball in the basket was far and away the driving reason behind the Los Angeles Lakers winning 45 games and making the postseason. And though they didn’t win it all, 2005-06 may exemplify Kobe’s determination even more than 2008-09 and 2009-10 (when the Lakers were crowned champions).

83 games, 26.5 points, 9.4 rebounds, 3.3 assists, 2.1 blocks, 1.4 steals, 56.2 two-point percentage, 34.2 three-point percentage, 84.2 free-throw percentage, +6.9 net rating (+1.9 swing), +8.2 box plus/minus
LeBron James understandably gets a lot of the credit for the Los Angeles Lakers 2020 Finals win. Fair or not, the fact that it was in the NBA’s “bubble” often gets a nod too.
But Anthony Davis turned in one of the best performances of all time from a team’s No. 2 player, particularly in the playoffs.
Over 21 postseason games, AD put up 27.7 points and shot 38.3 percent from deep. That second number has been characterized by some as fluky (often as a way to discredit the “bubble” championship), but he deserves credit for the focus it took to shoot that well from the outside.
When that’s combined with the defensive force Davis almost always is, he looks more than worthy of his selection as one of the game’s 75 best players ever.

104 games, 26.6 points, 9.6 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 1.3 threes, 0.9 blocks, 0.8 steals, 49.5 two-point percentage, 39.3 three-point percentage, 90.0 free-throw percentage, +7.8 net rating (+9.4 swing), +8.4 box plus/minus
The 2005-06 campaign ended in heartbreak for Dirk Nowitzki and the Dallas Mavericks, when the Miami Heat won four straight Finals games to send them packing, but the German was at the top of his game over the course of 100-plus appearances.
In this relatively early portion of his career (2005-06 was his age-27 season), he was still very much an anomaly. And the combination of his outside shooting and seven-foot frame always had defenses scrambling.
Even in the post-Steve Nash era, Nowitzki led this team to a top-50 offense of all time (by relative offensive rating, or a team’s points per 100 possessions minus the league average).

75 games, 31.9 points, 10.1 rebounds, 4.0 assists, 1.8 blocks, 1.0 steals, 57.7 two-point percentage, 31.1 three-point percentage, 86.2 free-throw percentage, +7.6 net rating (+9.0 swing), +8.3 box plus/minus
Joel Embiid’s 2022-23 ended with another playoff flameout, but he had a regular season for the ages, in which he won MVP, led the league in scoring and finished in the top 20 for All-Defense voting.
He was dominant from just about everywhere on the floor. He shot 81.0 percent on shots within three feet of the rim and 49.0 percent on twos from further out. And his ability to get to the free-throw line was almost unparalleled.
Embiid’s 12.5 free-throw attempts per 75 possessions trailed only Giannis Antetokounmpo’s 13.7 in 2022-23 and ranks fourth of all time.

86 games, 25.8 points, 6.1 rebounds, 3.7 assists, 2.0 threes, 1.8 steals, 0.7 blocks, 53.2 two-point percentage, 38.9 three-point percentage, 88.8 free-throw percentage +8.9 net rating (+6.2 swing), +10.1 box plus/minus

Prior to the “load management” phase of Kawhi Leonard’s career, he was one of the most dominant perimeter defenders the game had ever seen.
And though he finished third in Defensive Player of the Year voting in 2016-17, that had more to do with the ascendance of Draymond Green (who won) and Rudy Gobert than it did with Leonard, who’d won the award in each of the two previous seasons.
In this campaign, he was still a nightmare for opposing wings, and it was the first in which he looked like a superstar on the other end too.
With his contributions on both sides, there was a real “best in the world” case for Leonard. And had Zaza Pachulia not run under his feet while closing out on a jumper, the San Antonio Spurs would’ve had a chance to spoil the Golden State Warriors’ “Lightyears Ahead” era in its first season with Kevin Durant.

92 games, 21.4 points, 11.5 assists, 4.1 rebounds, 2.7 steals, 1.1 threes, 51.9 two-point percentage, 35.9 three-point percentage, 84.0 free-throw percentage, +7.2 net rating (+8.5 swing), +10.5 box plus/minus
As an even six-footer in a league mostly populated by much taller players, Chris “Point God” Paul dominated the NBA in 2007-08 with his passing and defensive peskiness.
That season, he generated 439 more points with assists than he did with his own buckets. And his 217 total steals from the regular and postseason was second among all the players sampled for this exercise (only 2002-03 Allen Iverson had more).
And of course, none of that production was of the empty-calorie variety. By just his third season, as a 22-year old, CP3 carried the Hornets to 56 wins and a second-place finish in the West with a supporting cast led by David West, Peja Stojaković and Tyson Chandler.

105 games, 23.6 points, 13.4 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 3.0 blocks, 0.7 steals, 51.7 field-goal percentage, 70.1 free-throw percentage, +8.9 net rating (+17.8 swing), +8.2 box plus/minus

Some of the advanced numbers are probably looking for a little more playmaking and scoring efficiency from 2002-03 Tim Duncan, but this campaign probably fits the number-free definition of “best season” better than most others on this list.
Beyond the gaudy rebound and block totals above, he was a game-changer on offense and defense who won both MVP and Finals MVP. And few (if any) of his seasons exemplified that better than this one.
The San Antonio Spurs could dump the ball to Duncan in both the low- or high-post at any point and rely on him to get a decent shot. And his rim protection helped anchor a defense that allowed just 97.7 points per 100 playoff possessions on the way to a title.

100 games, 24.3 points, 14.0 rebounds, 5.0 assists, 2.2 blocks, 1.4 steals, 49.0 field-goal percentage, 78.8 free-throw percentage, +8.3 net rating (+20.2 swing), +9.4 box plus/minus
Dirk Nowitzki is more commonly credited for the basketball evolution that led to stretch and playmaking bigs, but Kevin Garnett also deserves some love in that discussion.
He’s one of this era’s original “unicorns,” despite the fact that he didn’t take many threes. He checked pretty much every other box as a dominant scorer and rebounder who was also second on his team in assists per game.
And unlike Nowitzki, 2003-04 Garnett (who won MVP that season) also dominated on the defensive end. He was the anchor of a resistance that finished sixth in the league. And individually, he was sixth in Defensive Player of the Year voting.
Like several others on this list, Garnett’s individual peak didn’t coincide with a championship, but it’s hard to blame him for that. As soon as he found his way to the Boston Celtics and a more title-ready supporting cast, he broke through.

86 games, 30.1 points, 7.3 assists, 5.0 rebounds, 2.1 steals, 1.4 blocks, 1.2 threes, 52.1 two-point percentage, 32.3 three-point percentage, 77.2 free-throw percentage, +3.2 net rating (+13.5 swing), +10.3 box plus/minus
Dwyane Wade was at the absolute peak of his individual powers in 2008-09, when he completely imprinted his will on both ends of the floor.
For a team whose second leading scorer was 20-year-old Michael Beasley (who contributed 13.9 points per game), Wade led the league in scoring and managed to drag the Miami Heat to the postseason.
Functionally, he was somehow their point guard, shooting guard and best perimeter defender all rolled into one. And as that 6’4″, one-man wrecking machine, he finished third in both MVP and Defensive Player of the Year voting.

82 games, 32.1 points, 6.5 rebounds, 5.4 assists, 2.3 threes, 1.7 steals, 0.8 blocks, 48.1 two-point percentage, 38.2 three-point percentage, 79.2 free-throw percentage, +2.2 net rating (+11.5 swing), +10.5 box plus/minus
Relative to the season and era in which it came, Tracy McGrady’s 2002-03 is one of the best offensive campaigns in NBA history.
His plus-9.8 offensive box plus/minus in the regular season trails only Stephen Curry’s 2015-16 mark on the all-time leaderboard. He led the league in scoring and his team in assists per game.
And with his 6’8″ frame, this point-forward performance almost feels like the immediate predecessor to LeBron James (who was a rookie in 2003-04) in hindsight.
Long before heliocentrism enjoyed the popularity it has in the last decade or so, McGrady did everything for the Orlando Magic.

100 games, 31.6 points, 7.7 rebounds, 5.2 assists, 2.4 threes, 1.2 steals, 0.8 blocks, 54.1 two-point percentage, 38.1 three-point percentage, 86.3 free-throw percentage, +6.4 net rating (+7.2 swing), +9.4 box plus/minus
In some ways, Kevin Durant’s 2013-14 (which secured him a regular-season MVP nod) feels like the next link on basketball’s evolutionary chain after Tracy McGrady’s 2002-03.
Because he played with Russell Westbrook, he wasn’t in charge of creating on as high a percentage of his team’s possessions, but Durant’s size and jump-shooting ability was (and is) reminiscent of peak T-Mac.
But he was also much more efficient.
Basketball Reference’s points added by overall shooting is “the number of extra points added by True Shot Attempts made above league average,” and Durant’s 383.9 led the NBA that season.

87 games, 27.3 points, 12.4 rebounds, 5.7 assists, 1.6 blocks, 1.3 steals, 0.8 threes, 56.3 field-goal percentage, 71.1 free-throw percentage, +11.9 net rating (+8.8 swing), +10.0 box plus/minus
It came as a bit of a surprise to see Giannis Antetokounmpo’s first regular-season MVP season come in ahead of his 2020-21, in which he won the title and secured Finals MVP, but the advanced numbers preferred the earlier campaign’s defense. And it’s not hard to see why.
That season, he was second to Rudy Gobert in Defensive Player of the Year voting. Only 14 campaigns in NBA history matched or exceeded all of his marks for defensive rebounding percentage, block percentage and steal percentage.
And unlike most of the others on that list (which includes names like Marcus Camby, Andre Drummond and Ben Wallace), Antetokounmpo was also his team’s primary offensive hub. He led the Milwaukee Bucks in both points and assists per game in 2018-19.

89 games, 35.6 points, 7.4 assists, 6.7 rebounds, 4.8 threes, 2.0 steals, 0.8 blocks, 52.2 two-point percentage, 36.6 three-point percentage, 87.4 free-throw percentage, +5.7 net rating (+5.3 swing), +10.6 box plus/minus
Those who were on James Harden’s side of the 2018-19 MVP debate will surely enjoy this.
At least according to this exercise, 2018-19 was the peak individual campaign for both Harden and Giannis Antetokounmpo, and it gives a slight (actually, very slight) edge to the former Houston Rocket.
Harden had perhaps the greatest scoring season we’ve seen. He’s first on the points per 75 possessions leaderboard mentioned on Kobe Bryant’s slide. And he even compares favorably to Wilt Chamberlain’s legendary 1961-62 campaign.
Chamberlain famously averaged 50.4 points per game, but he played 48.5 minutes for a team with an estimated pace of 131.1 possessions per game. In other words, he averaged around 28.5 points per 75 possessions that season. Harden was at 36.2 in 2018-19.
When you add that scoring volume to Harden’s passing, rebounding, steals (yes, steals) and moneyball-like efficiency, it’s not hard to see how this campaign rose as high as it did on the list.

86 games, 31.9 points, 10.7 rebounds, 10.4 assists, 2.5 threes, 1.7 steals, 0.4 blocks, 45.9 two-point percentage, 33.7 three-point percentage, 84.2 free-throw percentage, +4.0 net rating (+14.7 swing), +11.0 box plus/minus
In another controversial MVP race, Russell Westbrook came out on top of James Harden and Kawhi Leonard (and not by a huge margin). And almost immediately after the results were revealed (and for the six years since), Westbrook detractors claimed triple-doubles were arbitrary, that many of his rebounds were unearned and that his penchant for hero-ball cost the Oklahoma City Thunder a bunch of wins.
But let’s be real.
Prior to 2016-17, most who followed the game even casually knew Oscar Robertson was the only player who’d averaged a triple-double for an entire season. And the natural assumption from most was that no one would reach that benchmark again.
In this campaign, Westbrook pulled that off in fewer minutes per game and at a lower pace of play. And despite the claims of some, his numbers generally didn’t come at the expense of the team. On the contrary, as noted above, OKC’s point differential was dramatically better when he played.
And all that raw production coming in one of Westbrook’s four seasons in which he had an above-average true shooting percentage made this one of the greatest campaigns in the history of basketball.

97 games, 29.1 points, 6.4 assists, 5.5 rebounds, 5.0 threes, 2.0 steals, 0.2 blocks, 55.3 two-point percentage, 44.5 three-point percentage, 90.9 free-throw percentage, +15.3 net rating (+16.9 swing), +11.0 box plus/minus
An earlier version of this exercise awarded some points for championships (and by extension, dinged non-champions), which elevated Stephen Curry’s 2014-15 over his 2015-16 campaign. And that just didn’t pass the sniff test.
This season ended with one of the most humiliating Finals losses ever. Thanks in large part to Draymond Green taking a swipe at LeBron James and getting himself suspended for a pivotal Game 5, the Golden State Warriors became the first team in league history to blow a 3-1 series lead in the Finals.
That bizarre set of circumstances knocking Curry’s 2015-16 off the list just doesn’t make sense. This is arguably (and the argument is strong) the greatest individual offensive season we’ve seen.
Curry’s otherworldly scoring, outside shooting and off-ball gravity were the driving forces behind the Warriors going 73-9 and breaking the single-season record for wins.
His 402 regular-season threes are also an all-time record.
The impact of his shooting alone would have this campaign in the neighborhood of the best ever, but solid playmaking and underrated averages for rebounds and steals help too.
It wasn’t a surprise then, and isn’t one now, that Curry’s 2015-16 led to the only unanimous MVP vote in league history.

102 games, 29.9 points, 14.0 rebounds, 3.6 assists, 2.9 blocks, 0.5 steals, 57.3 two-point percentage, 50.6 free-throw percentage, +8.0 plus-minus, +9.0 box plus/minus
To this day, even with LeBron James and Zion Williamson now in the annals of NBA history, we’ve probably never seen anyone as physically dominant as Shaquille O’Neal.
He was a 7’1″, 300-plus-pound battering ram who could move with the grace of a much smaller player when necessary and had underrated touch in the paint. Most of his highlight reels are understandably dominated by the standard-moving dunks, but he could hit an array of hook shots, floaters and flip shots too.
Offensively, he was truly unstoppable, and that was perhaps never more evident than it was during the 2000 Finals. In those six games O’Neal averaged 38.0 points, 16.7 rebounds, 2.7 blocks, 2.3 assists and 1.0 steals on the way to his first championship and Finals MVP.
Those numbers (and the ones in bold above) were the product of absolute dominance on both ends of the floor and earned him a regular-season MVP.

99 games, 26.6 points, 8.1 rebounds, 7.1 assists, 1.7 steals, 1.4 threes, 0.9 blocks, 58.4 two-point percentage, 39.7 three-point percentage, 75.9 free-throw percentage, +11.5 net rating (+13.7 swing), +11.4 box plus/minus
As you’ll see at the end of this slideshow, without the rule limiting players to one entry on this list, LeBron James would have had three of the top five seasons and five of the top 12.
He is, without question, the face of the NBA’s post-Michael Jordan era. And if this was a more subjective pursuit, you could easily argue for a handful of LeBron campaigns for the top spot.
In this one, he secured his fourth and final regular-season MVP, his second Finals MVP and his second championship.
He dominated both ends of the floor and had probably the second most efficient scoring season of his career.

89 games, 25.7 points, 12.2 rebounds, 9.8 assists, 1.2 steals, 1.0 threes, 0.8 blocks, 64.5 two-point percentage, 40.9 three-point percentage, 81.6 free-throw percentage, +11.6 net rating (+20.3 swing), +13.0 box plus/minus
Nikola Jokić’s detractors (assuming any are left) may cry “recency bias” upon seeing this. The extra points for Finals MVP could be seen as a bit of a thumb on the scale, but this campaign came out on top even without that.
And if you just take another (hopefully unemotional) look at those numbers, it shouldn’t be hard to see why.
Jokić essentially averaged a triple-double with peak Stephen Curry-like scoring efficiency.
His total raw plus-minus of 809 was 260 points clear of the nearest non-Denver Nugget (the distance between him and that fifth-place player was the same as the distance between fifth and 25th).
And somehow, he found another gear for the Nuggets’ 16-4 postseason run. In the 2023 playoffs, Jokić averaged 30.0 points, 13.5 rebounds, 9.5 assists, 1.1 steals and 1.0 blocks on the way to a championship and Finals MVP.
Regardless of era, few players have ever dominated the rest of the league as thoroughly as Jokić did in 2022-23.

As promised, if players were allowed more than one spot on the list, here’s what the top 20 would’ve looked like:
1. Nikola Jokić (2022-23)
2. LeBron James (2012-13)
3. Shaquille O’Neal (1999-00)
4. LeBron James (2008-09)
5. LeBron James (2011-12)
6. Nikola Jokić (2021-22)
7. LeBron James (2009-10)
8. Stephen Curry (2015-16)
9. Russell Westbrook (2016-17)
10. Nikola Jokić (2020-21)
11. James Harden (2018-19)
12. LeBron James (2017-18) and Giannis Antetokounmpo (2018-19)
14. Kevin Durant (2013-14)
15. Giannis Antetokounmpo (2021-22)
16. Giannis Antetokounmpo (2020-21)
17. James Harden (2017-18)
18. Tracy McGrady (2002-03)
19. Dwyane Wade (2008-09)
20. Giannis Antetokounmpo (2019-20)

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