Ranking the NBA: Shooting Guards

S : Best in the game (LeBron)A+ : Right on heels of best player (Durant)

A : Top 5 player

A- : Top 5 at position/Potential All-NBA players

B+ : All-Stars

B : Good starters/fringe All-Stars

B- : Good starter

C+ : decent starter

C : fringe starter/bench player

C- : good bench player

D+ : average bench player

D : Fringe rotation player

D- : bad player

F : not NBA caliber

Factors: production+efficiency+talent (emphasis on this year but whole career taken into account)

*Note: There is no specific order within each tier

- Previous Position Breakdowns -

• POINT GUARDS

For the purpose of these grades/rankings, I am not looking at last season in a vacuum. I am trying to give an idea of where each of these players stands in regards to each other after last season. One poor season doesn't sink a player's stock if the rest of his career paints a different story, the exact opposite is true as well.However, I am not factoring potential into my rankings, meaning rookies are graded as NBA players and do not garner special consideration because of their youth.

I'm probably making this more complicated and subjective than it needs to be, but I suppose that only makes for more discussion. With that being said, on to the rankings.

Tier 1 (A-)

• Dwyane Wade
• James Harden
• Kobe Bryant

Wade had an injury-plagued season, but is still one of the best players in the game. Harden proved himself in his first season as a No. 1 option. Kobe is still Kobe. All three are tremendous talents, but all three also have flaws in their games that keeps any one of them from jumping ahead of the others for me.

Tier 2 (B)

• Manu Ginobili
• Eric Gordon

The shooting guard position is the weakest in the NBA right now. I can't even find any clear-cut all-stars outside of the top three so I don't even have a B+ tier. Even these two B players are shaky. Ginobili was a shell of himself last year and appears to be in decline, and Gordon hasn't looked like himself or even been healthy since leaving L.A.

Tier 3 (B-)

• Monta Ellis
• Joe Johnson
• Klay Thompson
• Arron Afflalo
• Wesley Matthews
• J.J. Redick

This is a tough tier as well. Johnson, Afflalo and Redick all had down years by their standards, but none of them were in great situations and I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt. I'm not even sure where to put Monta Ellis, who is very talented but doesn't play a winning style.

Tier 4 (C+)

• Gerald Henderson
• DeMar DeRozan
• Lou Williams
• Kevin Martin
• J.R. Smith
• Jamal Crawford
• Vince Carter

This is a tier of guys who get buckets but don't do much else. Vince Carter, surprisingly enough, might be a bit low based on last season. He was one of the better all-around guards in the game, which again shows how weak the position is.

Tier 5 (C)

• Marcus Thornton
• O.J. Mayo
• Danny Green
• Ray Allen
• Bradley Beal
• Tony Allen
• Thabo Sefolosha
• Avery Bradley
• Iman Shumpert
• Lance Stephenson

This is a tier of role players who are pretty good at their roles. Lockdown defenders, knockdown shooters and Bradley Beal, a young player who started off slow but got better and better as the season rolled on.

Tier 6 (C-)

• Dion Waiters
• Carlos Delfino
• Marco Belinelli
• Terrence Ross
• Jordan Crawford
• Nick Young
• MarShon Brooks
• Jason Terry
• Courtney Lee
• John Jenkins
• Jason Richardson

I'm probably being a little kind to some of the players here, especially the rookies who weren't really all that good in their first season. They all have talent but most of them struggle with efficiency.

Tier 7 (D+)

• Jodie Meeks
• Alan Anderson
• Wayne Ellington
• Anthony Morrow
• John Salmons
• Richard Hamilton
• C.J. Miles
• Shannon Brown

These guys are decent players that more or less deserve to be in a team's rotation. They each have their strengths. But all of them are pretty replaceable. Salmons and Hamilton probably don't belong here anymore and haven't been good (or healthy) the last year or two. And as much as we dislike Shanon Brown, he's not completely awful and has his moments.

Tier 8 (D)

• Roger Mason
• Damien Wilkins
• Rodrigue Beaubois

Tier 9 (D-)

• Xavier Henry
• E'Twaun Moore
• Sasha Pavlovic
• Daequan Cook
• Kim English
• Ben Gordon

Ben Gordon was just awful for the Bobcats last year. He was one of the worst defenders in the entire league and was pretty bad on offense as well. The others didn't show very much at all either.

Tier 10 (F)

• Austin Rivers
• Will Barton
• Doron Lamb

These were a few of the worst players in the entire league last year. They didn't really do anything well.

You know the drill. DISCUSS.