Who is the best player in the NBA?

LeBron James is the best player in the NBA, surpassing veteran Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant, 14-times All-Star guard Jerry West said on Monday.

West, a shrewd judge of talent who brought Bryant to the Lakers when he was their general manager, said the Cleveland forward could become the league's next Michael Jordan.

"I look at Cleveland say to myself, 'How many games could they win without LeBron James?'" West told Reuters in an interview. "That's how great he is.

"He has a chance to be arguably the greatest player ever to play the game."

West, the NBA's executive of the year with the Lakers in 1995 and the Memphis Grizzlies in 2004, said playing both ends of the floor was what made Jordan so great.

"Michael Jordan was the best defensive player in the league but he was also the best offensive player," said West. "It wasn't a one-year fluke, he proved it over time.

"LeBron James will do the same type of things because he's getting better. He's a much more effective shooter. When's he's making his shots from the outside, you can't play him.

"He's just too big, too strong, too quick. And he has incredible body control. But more than that, he's a great teammate. You can see his teammates love him."

James averaged 28.4 points this season and was named the NBA's most valuable player. But Bryant, a three-times NBA champion and 2008 MVP, still remains a force, said West.

"If I had to have somebody make a last-second shot, it would be Kobe Bryant," said West, architect of the great Lakers teams from Magic Johnson years in the 1980s through the Shaquille O'Neal clubs of the early 2000s.

"But even though it's hard for me to be objective, because I brought Kobe to Los Angeles, I do think LeBron has surpassed Kobe as a player."

West, 70, was in Washington attending a conference for atrial fibrillation, a condition he has that can cause a racing heart, sleeplessness, anxiety and depression.

(Reuters via China Daily May 20, 2009)