So (read: sooooo) many players were on the table for this 15th and final All-NBA slot. The list consisted of, in alphabetical order: Bam Adebayo, Jaylen Brown, Anthony Davis, De'Aaron Fox, Paul George, Rudy Gobert, James Harden, Chet Holmgren, Damian Lillard, Tyrese Maxey, Lauri Markkanen, Jamal Murray, Kristaps Porziņģis, Domantas Sabonis, Victor Wembanyama, Derrick White and Trae Young.

(Aside: That field is actually winnowed down from an initial crop that featured Scottie Barnes, Paolo Banchero, Brandon Ingram, Alperen Şengün, Pascal Siakam and Karl-Anthony Towns. FML.)

Trimming it down from here wasn't too painful. Selecting from my final-for-real-this-time pool of Adebayo, Davis, Fox, Harden and Sabonis was patently excruciating.

Fox originally snatched this spot. I will always default to primary shot creators who can float the entire show independent of a co-star, and he's shown enough defensive intensity to warrant the nod.

Sabonis' individual numbers pop more. I just don't know how to reconcile how poorly the Sacramento Kings fare when he plays without Swipa, or how much they need to work around his defensive deficiencies. Harden may have the strongest advanced-metric case of anyone. His role is a tad too streamlined for me to get there, though we should all appreciate his display of adaptability. Adebayo's offensive impact is subject to a hair too many stops and stars for my liking. On the flip side, he's once again defending at a DPOY level.

Davis' on-off splits won't support giving him the edge—not even on the defensive end. But is that a bug in his game or a feature of playing so many minutes previously with Taurean Prince and Cam Reddish? When you watch him, I'm not sure how you can attribute the Los Angeles Lakers' middling defense to anything he's doing or not doing.

Seeing him get bested by Nikola Jokić doesn't change. Everyone gets bested by Jokić. Davis is responsible for so much, arguably too much, on the defensive end. He still manages to be almost everywhere and impact shots around the basket. Opponents are fare noticeably worse inside 14 feet with him in the floor, and it's not by happenstance.

Dependence on others to set him up for scoring opportunities is the bigger knock. Head coach Darvin Ham hasn't exactly done a bang-up job of running things through Davis, even when he has perceived mismatches. But we've seen his lack of self-creation and outside touch burn possessions to the ground in the past.

Warts, restrictions and all, AD is averaging 25 points on enviable efficiency while spitting out the third highest assist rate of his career. He is without question more play-finisher than fire-starter, but play-finishing at deific levels is impressive. Between that, the ground he covers on the defensive end and his 200-plus-minute lead over Fox, I am flip-flopping off my first inkling and rolling with AD...for now.