Welcome back to the NBA Star Index -- a weekly gauge of the players who are most controlling the buzz around the league. Reminder: Inclusion on this list isn't necessarily a good thing. It simply means that you're capturing the NBA world's attention. Also, this is not a ranking. The players listed are in no particular order as it pertains to the buzz they're generating. This column will run every week through the end of the regular season.

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LeBron James
LAL • SF • #23
PPG25.0
APG11.1
SPG1.3
3P/G1.929
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With 25 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists in a Lakers victory over the Thunder Tuesday night, LeBron James has now recorded a triple-double against all 30 NBA teams over the course of a career that seemingly gets more historic by the game. The Lakers are sitting at 12-2, the best record in the league, entering play Thursday night, and LeBron is right there with Giannis Antetokounmpo and Luka Doncic in the way-too-early MVP rankings. 

This pass is so ridiculous:

The physical ability to make that pass -- the strength, the precision -- is wild in itself, but the court feel to know Kyle Kuzma was going to be open in the corner before the passing lane even developed is just next level. Watch it again. Pause it just as the pass from Troy Daniels is being delivered to LeBron. Defenders are always going to prioritize covering one pass away, and Kuzma is in the opposite corner -- the farthest pass away. LeBron knows he's going to be ignored as long as he's more than one pass away. 

For an earthly passer, Kuzma WAS more than one pass away from the point where LeBron received the ball; it normally would've required a swing pass to the wing and then another to the corner, which would give the defense time to rotate back. But LeBron is not of this planet, and he sniffed this out before he even touched the ball and fired a strike as the crow flies as soon as he touched it. The defense didn't know what hit them. 

When people talk about basketball IQ, court feel and sense, advanced playmaking, this is the height of all of it. LeBron is arguably the most physically and mentally gifted player of all time. He is truly playing a different game than everyone else. 

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Luka Doncic
LAL • SF • #77
PPG29.9
APG9.4
SPG1.4
3P/G3.071
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Doncic had 22 points, five rebounds and five assists against the Warriors on Wednesday. 

In the FIRST QUARTER. 

Doncic, all by himself, outpaced the Warriors' entire team in first-quarter points, assists and rebounds. You have to go all the way back to 2003 for the last time a player did that -- Allen Iverson against the Bulls, per Elias Sports. By halftime, this was Doncic's line against Golden State:

Per ESPN Stats, this was the first time in the last 20 years that a player has posted at least 30 points and five assists on 90 percent shooting in a single half. With more than three minutes still remaining in the third quarter, Doncic's seventh triple-double (in 14 games) of the season was already secured. 

But wait, there's more. Per ESPN Stats, Doncic is now the youngest player in NBA history to record consecutive 35-point triple-doubles after going for 42 points, 12 assists and one rebound against San Antonio on Monday -- which, in turn, made him the second player in NBA history to record a 40-point triple-double before turning 21 years old. The other player? LeBron James.

Doncic has over 300 points, 100 rebounds and 100 assists IN HIS LAST 10 GAMES. He's the first player in NBA history to do that over any 10-game span, joining LeBron, Michael Jordan, Russell Westbrook and Oscar Robertson. I'm not really sure what else to say, except that I'd really hate to be the Suns, Kings or Hawks, all of which passed on drafting Luka in favor of Deandre Ayton, Marvin Bagley III and Trae Young, respectively. 

Oops. 

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Marcus Smart
LAL • PG • #36
PPG12.1
APG5.1
SPG1.3
3P/G2.571
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When people talk about guys who can guard one through five, they are talking about Marcus Smart, who is such a defensive beast (not to mention a legitimately good secondary playmaker and overall offensive contributor) that, in my opinion, he single-handedly makes the Celtics a contender to win the Eastern Conference.

Yes, Kemba Walker is fantastic, and Jayson Tatum looks like a future All-NBA player, if not MVP candidate. Jaylen Brown has been really good on both ends after signing his four-year extension. Gordon Hayward was terrific before he broke his hand, and he'll be back in about a month. Brad Stevens -- what do you know! -- is a good coach again. 

But Smart is the guy that make a conference title possible, because he can guard ANYBODY. He'll take the best point guard and stuff their penetration. He'll take the best shooters and swarm them off the ball. He'll switch onto centers and stymie them in the post, the way he does here to Kawhi Leonard:

Smart has to be the early leader for Defensive Player of the Year. I mean seriously, look at this play he made in Wednesday night's game vs. the Clippers:

A little closer look:

A little context here. The Celtics were down three with less than 20 seconds to play in overtime when Smart made this play. That is an incredible defensive effort in any situation, but with the game on the line, denying Kawhi Leonard that far away from the hoop, getting over a screen, deflecting the pass and diving to save it off Leonard's foot to give Boston the ball back with a chance to tie the game, is just stupid. 

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James Harden
LAC • SG • #1
PPG38.4
APG7.5
SPG1.7
3P/G4.8
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James Harden is averaging a rub-your-eyes-to-make-sure-you're-not-seeing-things 38.4 points per game -- eight points better than the league's second-leading scorer, Giannis Antetokounmpo. After Harden put up a ho-hum 37 points against Portland on Tuesday, Russell Westbrook reminded us to not take what Harden is doing statistically, and has been doing for some time, for granted.

"I think that a lot of people like to normalize greatness when you see it over and over again, but it's not normal because there's nobody else that can do it," Westbrook told reporters. "If it was normal, everybody would do it." 

Westbrook is, in one way, stating the obvious here. Clearly the statistical tear Harden has been on these past few seasons isn't anything close to normal, and there's no doubt a correlation can be drawn between exposure to greatness and our appreciation for it. LeBron James has been making 27-7-7 look "normal" for the last 15 years. 

What remains supremely interesting as it pertains to Harden is Westbrook's claim that "nobody else can do it." There is, clearly, a situation element to Harden's production. No other star in the league plays in a system of such statistical opportunity. Harden's 40.3 usage rate, entering Thursday, is again tops in the league (by a wide margin), as are his 13.9 3-point attempts per game and 24.7 overall shots. 

For comparison, LeBron shoots under 20 times a game, as does Damian Lillard, Luka Doncic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Anthony Davis and pretty much every other star player. Devin Booker, who has a lot of Harden's scoring qualities, is only shooting 17 times per game. When Stephen Curry got injured, he was shooting 16.5 times per game, and under 10 3-pointers a night. I think we can all agree that if Curry shot 25 times a game, including 14 3s, his stats would be off the charts, too. 

There's simply no denying the volume aspect of Harden's game. This season marks the highest scoring average of his career on the lowest 3-point percentage of his career, and his lowest overall field-goal percentage since his rookie season. That said, Harden is averaging an even 40 points on just under 47 percent shooting, including 42.5 percent from 3, over his last eight games. If that were to continue, forget about it. 

There's also a shot-difficulty factor to consider. None of the players mentioned above would likely keep their career shooting percentages intact if they were launching up 27-foot step-backs as they're falling down. There's just no way to defend a guy who can create offense out of thin air, with world-class range and the handle and shiftiness to create space where there shouldn't be any to be found. 

There's also a breakdown element. Sure, Booker or Lillard or Curry, given the opportunity, could put up Harden-like numbers for a week or a month or maybe even a full season. But could they do it EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, YEAR AFTER YEAR? 

Harden's durability, and his scoring consistency (voluminous approach or otherwise) are what truly set him apart. That, and the 14.2 times he gets to the free throw line every game, which is again a career high by an appreciable margin. For various reasons, I don't believe there is another player capable of getting to the line that much. 

In the end, it's all working for the Rockets, who've won eight of their last 10 and sit at 11-4 on the season, good enough for the No. 3 slot in the Western Conference entering Thursday. The bottom line is Harden has scored fewer than 30 points just three times this season, and the Rockets have lost two of those games. So this is necessary, at least given the way Houston has designed its roster and offense. So, keep on keeping on, Mr. Beard. You are very clearly not normal. 

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Carmelo Anthony
LAL • SF • #7
PPG10.0
RPG4.0
BPG1.0
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After almost exactly a calendar year on the shelf, Anthony, on a non-guaranteed deal with the Blazers, made his return to the NBA on Tuesday, posting 10 points on 4 for 14 shooting from the field -- 2 for 11 from 2-point range -- with five turnovers and zero assists for a team-worst minus-20 in 24 minutes. 

That looks pretty bad on paper, and honestly, it didn't look that much better to the eyes. Melo haters are going to feast on that plus-minus number. It's one game. It's a flawed statistic to begin with, even more so in small samples. But it's not nothing. We have a lot of evidence that speaks to Anthony being a negative overall player. 

I gave Melo a B- for his debut on the offensive end. The 4 for 14 doesn't look great, but he had a couple of shots go halfway down and he was 2 for 3 from deep -- which is where he's likely to help the Blazers the most as a floor stretcher when Damian Lillard, who missed Tuesday's game with back spasms, gets back in the lineup. 

Below are Melo's first three buckets as a Blazer, all in the first half. 

Anthony can clearly still score at all three levels, but the same questions exist: Can he do it efficiently? And is he willing to change his shot selection away from isolation pull-up mid-rangers and tough post-ups? If his first game is any indication, it's pretty much same old Melo in that regard:

As for Melo's defense, well, not much of a surprise here. It was pretty bad, if not terrible. The Pelicans didn't even spotlight Melo the way a lot of teams surely will, but he was slow to rotate on multiple occasions and had trouble containing dribble penetration. 

In the following two clips, Melo gets caught way out of position off the ball and has no chance of recovering to his man at the 3-point line, and then gets cooked off the bounce by Frank Jackson.

Here's a full breakdown of Melo's debut on both ends of the floor, and what it means for the Blazers moving forward. 

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Paul George
PHI • SF • #8
PPG28.3
APG4.8
SPG.5
3P/G4
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George has been back four games for the Clippers and doesn't appear to have missed a beat. In his first two games, in just 44 total minutes, George scored 70 points on 34 shots. That's over two points per attempt, if you're counting. That's, like, really good. 

On Wednesday night, George was terrific down the stretch of the Clippers' overtime win against the Celtics, particularly as a playmaker. Even in his most "pedestrian" effort of the season (18 points on 7-of-14 shooting vs OKC), he's out here hitting game-winners:

George's game is so smooth it basically qualifies as meditation to watch him play. He plays perfectly as a No. 2 option (it feels so ridiculous to call one of the 10 best players in the world a No. 2 option), and his defense alongside Patrick Beverley and Kawhi Leonard is going to be, and has already been, a nightmare for opposing teams. There were large chunks of the game Wednesday night when the Celtics just flat-out could not get any kind of penetration whatsoever.