Despite the Lakers’ pathetic excuse of a team, the Mavericks making the most exciting yet least productive trade in recent memory for the franchise, and the Spurs finally looking old this year, it has been a heck of a season to follow so far. (If that opening sentence doesn’t show who my favorite teams are, you should probably reread it. Got it now? OK.)

Since we are in yet another year when my teams don’t look like they will gift wrap a championship for me, I have paid far more attention to the general events and storylines around the league. The amazing guard play, which if you care about the NBA at all you’d have to have been living under a rock to either not notice or hear about, has been in my opinion a boost the league needed. I say this because the overwhelming majority of star power in the league over the last few years has come in the form of super scoring Small Forwards. The leading scorer has been either Kevin Durant or Carmelo Anthony since the 2009 season, with the top three over that time consisting primarily of a mix of those two and Lebron James. (Kobe has been involved in the top three just twice during that time, and hasn’t led the league since the 06-07 season.) While this season has mostly been without Durant and Anthony due to a mix of injuries and the Knicks sucking so bad it would be a waste for Melo to still be playing, there is still a noticeable infusion of guards among the leaders of the most attention garnering basketball stat.

Russell Westbrook (a one, point, or as the very entertaining Bill Simmons calls them- a zero guard) is paced the league in scoring this season at just under 28 a game. Behind him in the top ten follow two more point guards, two shooting guards, Lebron, three power forwards, and, wildly enough in today’s NBA, one center in Demarcus “Boogie” Cousins. That makes half of the top ten current scorers guards, which is entirely impressive to me given the team first, pass first emphasis throughout the league every Spurs championship furthers. Points scored per game when referring to an individual player may not be as big, and by that I mean popular, as it once was, but having a player that going into any game is likely to get more buckets than anyone else on the floor still has a heck of an impact on a coach’s game plan and an opposing player’s defensive strategy. If stretched out farther to the top twenty-five scorers in the league right now, guard domination is even more prevalent as backcourt players take up ten of those next fifteen spots. For those counting, that makes fifteen of the top twenty-five scorers on a per game basis back court players. I love it.

Here is the thing about seeing a small guard lead their team, conference, or league in scoring, it means they are taking control of the game by themselves. Sure when a team has a player like Westbrook or Steph Curry or classically Jordan or Kobe, the team will plan much of their offense around their superstar player’s skills, helping to boost their opportunities and consequently their scoring. That type of offensive planning only helps so much though since it gives a player the opportunity to make DECISIONS in a game, not necessarily SHOTS. Chris Paul, Derron Williams (Utah Version), Rajon Rondo, Jason Kidd, and John Stockton are all players who were or are the offensive plan for their teams, which didn’t actually make them take the amount of shots per game that allow them to score as much as possible.

It is when a player is given the authority to make decisions for their team and then chooses to take control themselves that their scoring explodes and fans are able to fully see their awesome skill set.

I am as much a fan of watching the Thunder and Pelicans fight for the last playoff spot as I am a fan of watching Russell Westbrook and James Harden shoot their way to the scoring title. That may make me among the minority of today’s fans who love team play and passing the air out of the ball, but damn it if I don’t prefer one on any-defender-who-has-the-guts-to-challenge isolation basketball. While being a major fan of organizational tradition, (like the Lakers sixteen titles, the Spurs all time highest team winning percentage, the Celtics rightful retiring of more numbers than any other team has hoped to be able to do) I am an even bigger fan of Lebron possibly winning more MVPs than Kareem, Durant scoring like wild for the rest of his career and owning the career scoring title, or Poppovich proving to everyone (without caring at all) he is the greatest coach of all time.

Some prefer to root for glue guys and underdog role players who step up when called upon, but I will always be in the corner of the assassin leader with ice in his veins who refuses to cede the burden of his team’s success, or his glory as the one responsible for it.