To be fair, I'd rather not rate either a top 3 player. For me, the best MLS player right now is Giovinco. He is having a tremendous year in Toronto, a bit younger than the usual DPs (at 28) and drops into midfield to help start the attack. He's the ideal "DP" player. I also love the season Kamara is having, and he just "looks" the part. True center forward poacher, his presence allows a pretty good attacking team to play all around him, instead of him just standing and waiting and not creating spaces. Then he just swoops in for goals. Both are very dynamic players, in different ways.
Dempsey doesn't strike me as "dynamic" any more. Atleast not on that level. He can certainly take advantage of the less experienced defenders of the MLS. He's still a very useful attacking player. But his movement off the ball, especially in an attacking sense, has diminished and he's not beating players 1v1 with pace any more. If we focus just on league games (because those are the ones that matter) his strike rate is 7 goals, over 13 games in 19 shots (thank you MLS.com). That's pretty good. Add 6 assists to it and its solid. I don't think top 3, but I'd have hoped a player like Bradley or Zusi would fill a spot like that. Maybe its Dempsey's surroundings. (Keane sits at 11 goals over 15 games in 22 shots. Bit better, and he moves off the ball with much more energy). It may be more where Dempsey is choosing to get the ball. I feel like he's having to come down deeper and deeper, and is settling for shuffling the ball along. Bradley does the same thing, but isn't afraid to turn and attack with it. Maybe that changes with the players around him.
I've no issues with Dempsey. Very happy he's in the MLS and with the Seattle. My concern was that I didn't feel Seattle took the right approach in the market to support him. Again, happy to be proven wrong. The league "can" attract top young talent from around the globe (and the states). Martins was that type player when he arrived. I'd love to see more players like him, Giovinco, the two African internationals at Chicago, arrive on the scene... younger, faster, dynamic attacking players, and it doesn't hurt to hand out DP slots to your Academy players (as Sporting did with their young CB, Palmer-Brown, who will probably move on to Europe soon). It helps the league, and it helps develop the sport here in the US. Many of the younger Americans coming through the academies have choices where they will move on to. Pushing a 18 year old dynamic or possession midfield player into the MLS right now doesn't seem the best place for his development. I'd like to see that change. It starts by giving those players targets to play to, and freedom to move.