In the upcoming issue of Sports Illustrated they ask 190 NBA Players: Who is the best all-around athlete in the NBA? Here are the results:

LeBron James, Cavaliers F 66%

Josh Smith, Hawks F 7%

Kobe Bryant, Lakers G 6%

Dwight Howard, Magic C 4%

Amar'e Stoudemire, Suns F-C 3%

These are always the most telling polls to me. When you ask the players and they don’t have to put a quote with it, but rather just get to give their objective answer without fear of a follow up question or offending a teammate. These are the polls where frustrated players and teammates vote Kwame Brown and Tim Thomas as the top 2 players who get the least out of the most talent (Jan. 08 poll) and where players admit they would most like to play for Mike D’Antoni and Phil Jackson (21% each in Jan. 08).

Even with this unabashed honesty, its rare that players are this unanimous on anything. It speaks to how dominant LeBron has become this season and put the League on notice in the process. In fact, only 11 months ago Sports Illustrated asked, “Which opposing player scares you the most to play against?” Kobe won at 34% and LeBron finished 4th with a measly 4%. Something tells me if we poll that one again next month, we’ll get some different answers. What a difference a year makes…