Every week, we'll rank the top players from the previous week using game score as our starting point.
Created by former ESPN.com stats guru and current Grizzlies VP of basketball operations John Hollinger, game score measures a player's productivity for a single outing based on the weighting of various box score statistics. (For a more complete explanation, check out Week 1.)
With his post All-Star push, LeBron James has moved into a tie for second on our season-long standings.
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James and Anthony Davis are less than a half a point behind James Harden, who ranked 10th this week. Though Harden scored or assisted on 48 points per game, it did come in a week in which he shot just 41 percent from the field -- including 27 percent from 3. With so many players out for extended stretches, we set a 60-game minimum for our season standings that removed Stephen Curry (previously fifth), DeMarcus Cousins (ninth) and Jimmy Butler (10th).
To give you an idea of just how good our top four has been, the average game score of MVPs over the previous 40 years is 22.4, a number exceeded by Harden, James, Davis and Antetokounmpo. With regard to our top three, there has not been a season in which three different players recorded an average game score of at least 24 since 1987-88, when Michael Jordan won the MVP over Larry Bird and Charles Barkley.
Now on to the rankings.
Note: These rankings are for games played from Monday, March 19, through Sunday.