NBA's 2014 Ballon d'Or winner

— -- Next month in Zurich, FIFA will present the highest honor for professional soccer players, the annual Ballon d'Or (French for "golden ball"). Unlike the NBA's most valuable player trophy, the Ballon d'Or rewards performance in a variety of competitions throughout the entire year -- the calendar year, not the soccer and basketball seasons that cross over.

A hoops version of the Ballon d'Or would incorporate the results of the playoffs, as well as international competition -- factors that go into our subjective assessments of players but are never considered when it comes to basketball's highest honors. As a result, it's a better reflection of which basketball player is really on top of the world at any given time.

So, in the spirit of the Ballon d'Or, I've invented the "Insider Golden Basketball" and retroactively awarded it going back through 1990. Congratulations to our winners:

Insider Golden Basketball Award Winners, 1990-2013

I tried to choose the player I suspected a voting panel would have favored in any given year. That proved to favor postseason performance over regular-season success. Of the previous 24 winners, 20 also were Finals MVP, as compared to 10 regular-season MVPs. (Nine of the 10 regular-season MVPs chosen also won Finals MVP, with Bryant in 2008 the lone exception.) Another selection, Duncan in 2007, was the best player on the title-winning team but not Finals MVP (That went to Tony Parker).

Incorporating the playoffs works to the advantage of players such as O'Neal, who won just one MVP during the three-year span when he was the league's best player and his Lakers were three-time champions. The Golden Basketball better captures O'Neal's dominance of the basketball world.

Occasionally, the choice got tricky. In 1990, Finals MVP Isiah Thomas had relatively little impact in the regular season while regular-season MVP Magic Johnson saw his Lakers crash out of the playoffs in a second-round upset. I figured voters would have rewarded the league's best player, Jordan, despite his Chicago Bulls losing to Thomas' Pistons in a seven-game series in the Eastern Conference finals.

The most interesting choice was 2004, when the champion Pistons lacked a dominant star. Chauncey Billups, the Finals MVP, did not receive a single vote for regular-season MVP. While voters might have simply rubber-stamped regular-season MVP Kevin Garnett, I saw this as an opportunity to reward Ginobili for his role in Argentina's historic run to the gold medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics -- still the only gold won by a country besides the USA since NBA players began participating in the Olympics.

Fittingly, 2014 shapes up as another difficult choice. The Finals MVP, Kawhi Leonard, wasn't even an All-Star in the regular season, and the Spurs won with depth rather than behind a star individual. Leonard didn't make my list of three finalists for the award.

The 2014 ESPN Insider Golden Basketball Finalists

Stephen Curry | PG | Golden State Warriors
Résumé: Sixth in 2013-14 MVP voting, member of winning USA team in FIBA World Cup, early 2014-15 MVP leader

Curry narrowly edges James Harden for a spot among the finalists, same as with the MVP race I analyzed two weeks ago. The two guards have similar cases for the Golden Basketball: Both played key roles in the USA winning this summer's FIBA World Cup, and they've been two of the league's most valuable players early this season. However, the same factor probably undermines the candidacy of both Curry and Harden: Their teams lost in the opening round of the 2014 playoffs, meaning they had limited postseason impact.

Kevin Durant | SF | Oklahoma City Thunder
Résumé: 2013-14 MVP

In April, Durant was a shoo-in for his first Golden Basketball. (I had him second to Bryant in 2010, when he was the best player in the FIBA World Championship.) After Miami lost in the Finals, he was still a clear favorite in June despite Oklahoma City's Western Conference finals loss to San Antonio. Since then, however, nothing has gone right. Durant passed on the opportunity to play in the World Cup, withdrawing from the USA roster at the last minute, and has been limited to nine games in the 2014-15 regular season by injuries.

LeBron James | SF | Cleveland Cavaliers
Résumé: 2013-14 MVP runner-up, reached NBA Finals with Miami Heat

While James wasn't the NBA's most valuable player during the 2013-14 regular season, and hasn't been so far in 2014-15, he's been the most consistent player over the course of the past 12 months. There's no hole in James' résumé, though losing in the Finals kept him from making this choice obvious.

And the ESPN Insider Golden Basketball goes to ... LeBron James.

Durant's injury opened the door for James to win his third consecutive Golden Basketball. While I was tempted to pick Curry to reward his international success, James' playoff edge was impossible to overcome. Looking at combined wins above replacement player (WARP) by my system in 2014 (excluding the first two months of the 2013-14 season), James blows away the competition.

Combined WARP, 2014

So congrats, LeBron. The trophy is in the mail.*

*There isn't actually a trophy.

News and notes

• With back-to-back road wins over the L.A. Clippers and Denver Nuggets the past two days, the Toronto Raptors improved to 9-2 (.818) against the Western Conference this season, a better record than any West team has in conference games. (The Memphis Grizzlies are tops among West teams at 14-4, .778). Though the Raptors haven't played a balanced schedule of West opponents yet -- seven of those 11 games have come against lottery opponents -- Toronto has beaten both Memphis and the Clippers on the road.

More comprehensive measures suggest the Raptors have played as well as almost anyone in the opposing conference. Their plus-8.4 point differential is second best in the league behind the Golden State Warriors, and Toronto stays there even when adjusted for schedule. If Toronto can win one of its next two road games, at Portland (third in point differential at plus-7.5 PPG) and Golden State, the NBA world may have to concede the Raptors are as good as almost anyone in the West.

• The Dallas Mavericks unveiled a fascinating wrinkle in Sunday's win over the Oklahoma City Thunder. With center Tyson Chandler sidelined by back spasms, Rick Carlisle went uber-small, replacing the 7-foot-1 Chandler with the 6-foot J.J. Barea. That shifted Monta Ellis to small forward and Dirk Nowitzki to the middle. The offense-minded lineup blitzed Oklahoma City for 43 points in 14 minutes, posting a 134.4 offensive rating, according to NBA.com/Stats. And it did enough defensively, holding the Thunder to 106.4 points per 100 possessions to go plus-10 in those 14 minutes.

The matchup was particularly favorable for Dallas to go small, because the Thunder don't have a dangerous scorer at either small forward (with Kevin Durant also out because of injury) or center. And Carlisle surely wants to limit the wear and tear on Nowitzki playing against other 7-footers. Still, don't be surprised to see a similar lineup finish games at times this season.

• The L.A. Lakers won Sunday's Tarik Black sweepstakes, claiming the rookie big man after he was waived by the Houston Rockets on Friday to make room for Josh Smith. Don't get carried away with Black's potential. He's 23 and rated below replacement level this season, in large part because he's blocked just two shots in 393 minutes. There's a reason Black went undrafted and was waived by the Rockets.

At the same time, Black held his own in 12 starts in place of the injured Dwight Howard and has demonstrated he can capably sop up backup minutes. He's a fine rebounder and a high-percentage shooter. That makes him an asset to some teams, though not necessarily the Lakers, who already have Robert Sacre playing the same role behind Jordan Hill and Ed Davis. As Insider's Amin Elhassan noted on Twitter, Black could be a candidate for a trade or insurance if the Lakers deal Davis or Hill, both unrestricted free agents at season's end.

Weekly top five: Best games of 2014

5. L.A. Clippers 121, Phoenix 120, Dec. 8
4. Memphis 100, Oklahoma City 99 (OT), Game 5 first round, April 29
3. Oklahoma City 119, Toronto 118 (2OT), March 21
2. Portland 99, Houston 98, Game 6 first round, May 2
1. San Antonio 112, Oklahoma City 107 (OT), Game 6 Western Conference finals, May 31

Follow Kevin Pelton on Twitter @kpelton.