Nothing is bigger than Stephen Curry versus LeBron James
Tim Hardaway recognizes stars when he sees them. A Hall of Fame point guard, Hardaway battled his fair share of them, including Michael Jordan, during a 14-year NBA career.
So when he sees Stephen Curry and LeBron James meet again in the NBA playoffs, only one comparison comes to mind.
“Michael Jackson and Prince,” Hardaway said. “You have to see that. That’s how big of a star they are. They command the crowd.”
James, with the Los Angeles Lakers, and Curry, with the Golden State Warriors, have the attention of the basketball world in the Western Conference Semifinals. It’s not the biggest stage, such as when they went head-to-head in four straight NBA Finals from 2015 to 2018, when James played for Cleveland. But in the NBA, whatever stage they’re on is the biggest. Together and separately, they have defined a generation of league whose individual stars can shape a team’s fate and change the wider culture more than stars in other team sports.
A playoff series headlined by Curry and James is the basketball equivalent of the Rolling Stones and the Beatles touring together. Or Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier, except with a tad grayer and a lot more mutual respect. Or, in basketball terms, this is Magic Johnson vs. Larry Bird in the 1980s.
But this year’s matchup is especially important. James, at 38, and Curry, at 35, are nearing the end of their careers that revolutionized basketball, with no clear heirs to continue the progression. Curry’s mastery of the 3-pointer ushered in a new era of long-range shooting as a primary offensive line offense, at all levels of basketball. A powerful 6-foot-9 and 250 pounds, James is physically almost impossible to duplicate, but he changed the way basketball stars saw their own ability to shape teams and create political and social capital for themselves.
Their playoff game this year may be the last time fans will see two basketball players of this level of influence go head-to-head in the postseason, which may be why ticket prices are breaking records for a non-championship series.
“What will it be like when those two guys – clearly two of the biggest names in the league, if not the biggest – are gone?” said Dell Curry, Stephen Curry’s father and a former NBA player. “I think the league is very healthy in terms of star power, but who will take the lead in that role?”
For much of the past two decades, James and Curry have been the NBA’s biggest draws, generating revenue through ratings, sponsorships, and jersey and ticket sales. In 2009, when Golden State drafted Curry, Forbes estimated the team was worth $315 million – the 18th most valuable NBA franchise. Last year, after Curry led the team to its fourth championship in eight years, Golden State was ranked No. 1 with a eye-popping valuation of $7 billion.
Tamika Tremaglio, the executive director of the NBA players’ union, said in an email that Curry and James “have fueled economic prosperity in the cities in which they play.”
“From an equity point of view, our players are powerful, and Steph Curry and LeBron James are living proof of that truth,” Tremaglio said.
New Orleans Pelicans guard CJ McCollum, the president of the players’ union, said, “What they’ve done is astronomical for our game in terms of viewership, in terms of globalizing the game.” He added: “Our league is in better shape as a result.”
James’ presence has been a blessing at every stop in his career, from the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Miami Heat and now to Los Angeles. He has become a symbol of modern fandom, in which many fans follow players, not teams. And Curry, whose pregame shooting routines draw fans even from opponents, has shown how transcendent talent can test even the staunchest of loyalties.
“The basketball impact is like any kid, especially coming into the league now, that’s the two guys you want to be,” said guard Isaiah Thomas, who has played with James and had to defend Curry. “I’ve seen younger guys come into the league and be in awe of these guys and compete against them.”
Jamal Crawford, who recently retired after two decades in the NBA, said Curry’s physique—six feet and 185 pounds—made him look like “the boy next door” compared to taller athletes.
“He’s the guy – the boy – that any kid can look up to and say, ‘You know what? If I work hard on my game, if I work on my skills, if I believe in myself, I can do incredible things “When you look at LeBron, you say, ‘Wow, he’s a force of nature, something we’ve never seen before.'” said Crawford, now an analyst at TNT.
Since they last met in the 2018 NBA Finals, Curry and James have expanded their influence on culture. Curry spoke at the 2020 Democratic National Convention, and James endorsed it Joe Biden for president that year and launched a voting rights group. They have spoken out against gun violence and Curry has helped reach public health amid the coronavirus pandemic. James is the first active NBA player to become a billionaire. And through production companies – James’s SpringHill Company and Curry’s Unanimous Media – both players have found opportunities to cement their legacy, perhaps in the direction of hagiography.
The documentary “Stephen Curry: Underrateddirected by Peter Nicks and co-produced by Unanimous Media, premiered last month at the San Francisco International Film Festival and will stream on Apple TV in July. Curry, a top-10 draft pick from Davidson, has won two Most Valuable Player Awards – one by unanimous decision, for the only time in NBA. history. To get there, he struggled with ankle injuries early in his career, but is now widely regarded as the best shooter ever.
In June, SpringHill, James’ company, will release the feature film “Falling starson Peacock, based on his high school team, St. Vincent-St. Mary High School in Akron, Ohio. It is an adaptation of a 2009 book by James and Buzz Bissinger.
The projects underline the two players’ vastly different paths to stardom. As a teenager, James was already a sought-after star. Sonny Vaccaro, the former shoe marketing manager, James once flew to a Lakers playoff game on a private Adidas jet while in high school. James was captivated, said Jeff Benedict, who recently released an independent biography of James titled “LeBron.” He said James had long understood that “basketball isn’t just a sport.”
“It’s like show business,” said Benedict. “It’s a very high form of public entertainment in the United States.”
The cultural impact of Curry and James has also rippled to the theater in off-star independent plays. This summer, Inua Ellams, a playwright based in Britain, will debut a play called “The demigod of the rainat the New York Theater Workshop. The plot combines mythology and basketball: a demigod comes to Earth and becomes the biggest star in the NBA Ellams, a longtime NBA fan, said the character is loosely based on Curry and Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo.
In another play, Rajiv Joseph’s “King James,” which has its off-Broadway premiere this month at New York’s Manhattan Theater Club, James appears but does not appear, an indication of his influence. The play chronicles the friendship of two Cleveland men who idolize James.
Joseph, a Cleveland native and lifelong sports fan, said the idea for the piece came to him after James won a championship with the Cavaliers in 2016.
“When I thought about it, I always felt he was almost like this deity who, when he smiled at our pretty little country in Cleveland, crops bloomed and rivers flowed clear,” said Joseph. And when he left, everything dried up. Now that is exaggerated, but from a sporting point of view it certainly felt that way.”
Ellams said the NBA will feel a “hollow” loss once Curry and James are gone. In February, James broke the league’s scoring record, held by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar since 1984. Last season, Curry broke Ray Allen’s record with three points in 511 fewer games.
“It’s going to take half a century for someone to get close to what they’ve been doing — what they’re actively doing,” Ellams said. “This is not history in the making. This is punching holes out of mountains.”
James is in his 20th season, well past the time when most players’ careers are over. He and Curry, in his 14th season, saved the NBA from having to completely transition into a new era of fame. But those in and around the league are optimistic about the future.
“There is always another, even if we can’t see it” said Candace Parker, one of the most veteran players in WNBA history.
She added: “That’s what we wondered about after Michael Jordan retired. After Magic and Bird retired. It just seems like there’s always the next one coming.
Parker, who plays for the Las Vegas Aces and is an NBA analyst with TNT, named players like Antetokounmpo, Dallas’ Luka Doncic, Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid and Victor Wembanyama, the French prodigy who is expected to go first in the NBA championship. draft of this year, as possible torchbearers.
Oscar Robertson, one of the best guards to ever play in the NBA, said part of the reason Curry and James were able to maintain their clout was because of how well they still played at their age.
“Some players are even too old at 29. Some players are too old at 34,” says Robertson, 84. He added: “Guys try to take the opportunity to play against these two athletes. And I am so happy that these two athletes take on that challenge every time they take to the field.”
But so far, no other current player in the NBA – or probably anyone else in American team sports – is in the same orbit of fame and influence as James and Curry.
“We just have to enjoy these guys in the present because who knows how much longer they’ll be playing?” said Crawford. “But what we do know is that we will never see two again. So we have to enjoy every moment.”