Page Unturned: LeBron James vs. Steph Curry remains NBA's premiere attraction

Draymond Green wasn’t wrong.

Only a fool or a misanthrope (roughly: someone who hates mankind) would look at the matchup between the Golden State Warriors and the Los Angeles Lakers, between Stephen Curry and LeBron James, between Anthony Davis and his ever-rickety body and Green and his ever-bubbling temper, and not be excited; not want to pause and appreciate.

Green is a man of many words – he quotes himself from his podcast in his media availabilities – but every once in a while he nails it.

In the aftermath of the Warriors impressive Game 7 win over the Sacramento Kings on Sunday, and just 48 hours after James and the Lakers had dispatched the Memphis Grizzlies in six games on Friday night, Green looked ahead to a series that probably shouldn’t be happening and literally began rubbing his hands together in anticipation.

It starts Tuesday night, and the plot lines are binge worthy, with seasons of episodes stretching back nearly a decade.

Somehow, all these years after James vs. Curry in the playoffs first became a thing – the 2015 Warriors beat James and the Cavaliers and as a reward got to visit Barack Obama at the White House is how far back this goes in the way back machine –  it’s the biggest thing in the NBA again.

The timing works too: after a season and – maybe seasons – when the league has looked for the next transcendent star that will carry it forward, the best bets for now remain the ones who have been doing the heavy lifting for a decade or more.

“This series against the Lakers is going to be epic,” said Green, exaggerating barely, if at all. “You got Steph, you got ‘Bron doing it all over again. We’ve never played the Lakers in a playoff series. We get to experience that. There’s a tonne of little things going on.”

One of the things going on is that this should not be going on. James and Curry shouldn’t be the NBA’s premiere attraction.

By now someone else should be on the marquee. James made his NBA debut in 2003. Curry was drafted in 2009. Yet in all that time, they still move the needle, and there’s no one in the generation behind them quite ready to take the crown.

Think about it:

Giannis Antetokounmpo could have been the one to do it, but after winning the title in 2021, the Bucks have lost in the second round and first round of the playoffs in the past two years, which makes it tough on the myth makers.

Joel Embiid? He has everything it would take to be the NBA’s biggest star other than having never led the Philadelphia 76ers to the Conference Finals.

Jayson Tatum? He’s not even the most interesting player on the Celtics and is 0-for-1 in Finals, having got turned away by Curry and the geriatric Warriors last year.

Luka Doncic has legend potential, but needs to get in better shape, play some defense and hope the Dallas Mavericks find him a co-star.

If the Oklahoma City Thunder ever transition from the future to the present, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander could make the leap from being your NBA influencer’s favourite player to anyone outside of Canada or Oklahoma recognizing him. Maybe next year.

Nikola Jokic? If anyone actually watched the Denver Nuggets, the two-time MVP and part-time basketball magician would already be a folk hero, but alas…

Devin Booker? He’s a great player and has loads of charisma but it’s starting look like he’s going be on teams that just fall short. Excellent car collection though.

Ja Morant? He’s got to stay out of trouble and help the Grizzlies win more than a playoff round if he ever wants to sell anything more than his signature sneakers.

Kevin Durant? Kawhi Leonard? Paul George? (Often) Hurt, hurt and hurt, respectively.

Anyone else? Not really. A league built on star power hasn’t actually done a great job building up stars. Or at least the shadow cast the by the league’s living legends is almost too big to escape.

Whatever the reason, the Warriors and Lakers are the biggest story in the NBA right now, in part because the pickings are otherwise slim.

So Green is exactly right when he says:

“… stop trying to turn the page on us so fast. Stop trying to turn the page on ‘Bron so fast. We get so caught up in ‘what’s the next thing’ that we don’t appreciate the current, and then we get to the next thing and we’re looking back [saying] ‘man, I wish we still had that, I wish we could still see this. So for me, and our guys, we’re going to appreciate this every step of the way.”

That said, he’s dead wrong in saying that anyone with a nickel to make off the NBA is ‘trying’ to turn the page on the Warriors or LeBron, but especially the Warriors and LeBron.

That they were a combined 10 games over .500 this season and finished sixth and seventh, respectively, in a fairly watered-down conference only meant that people with a vested interest in people’s vested interest were flipping through pages of the ‘what the hell do we do now?’ binder as furiously as possible when – for long stretches of the season – it looked like one of James or Curry or both wouldn’t make it out of the play-in tournament.

No that they have, the pages won’t be turned, they’ll be framed and lit ever-so-perfectly so as to preserve the moment for a long as possible. The only outcome the conspiracy theorists have to worry about is the league doing everything they can to make sure the series goes the full seven games. If they could make it best-of-77, they would.

Short of a Lakers-Knicks Finals, pitting the league’s largest markets, a Warriors-Lakers in the second round is the purest box office high the league can ever get. This season has been marked by parity, leaguewide and – unusually for the NBA - the playoffs have reflected it so far.

But big stars playing for historic teams with national followings – even in the second round – is the next best thing.

It will be the fifth time a James-led team meets the Curry-era Warriors, the other four times it was in four consecutive the NBA Finals, from 2015 through 2018. The Warriors won three times, with James leading the Cavs to the title in 2016 after being down 3-1. James (who also won two titles with Miami) led the Lakers to a championship in 2020 while the Warriors were lottery bound after season-ending injuries to Curry and Thompson, while the Warriors won their fourth championship last season while the Lakers missed the post-season due to injuries, terrible roster management and Russell Westbrook.

The main figures in the main series are pushing the limits of their basketball mortality.

James is doing things at age 38 that no one in the sport has ever done, and with Davis finding his groove and staying largely healthy, James has a co-star as good or better than anyone he’s ever played with.

Curry is just over a month past his 35th birthday but remains one of the most defining offensive players in NBA history. His 50-point explosion in Game 7 against the Kings was his career playoff high and set a league record for scoring in an elimination game. He averaged 33.7 points on 62.1 per cent True Shooting against the Kings.

Green remains as savvy and combustible as ever at age 33, and while Thompson, 33, isn’t quite lethal weapon he was before missing two seasons to ACL and Achilles injuries, but set a career mark with 301 made threes this past season and became just the third player in NBA history to make at least four threes a game (4.4) and shoot better than 40 per cent (41.2), joining Curry and Damian Lillard.

So yeah, still good.

“You’re talking about some of the ultimate competitors, LeBron, Steph, Klay [Thompson], myself, Loon [Warriors centre Kevon Looney], to have these opportunities, you don’t take them for granted,” said Green. “I think who you are as a professional show during these times. Here we are, eight years later form the first time we met in a playoff series and still playing at that level. That’s special. It says a lot about who you are a pro and how serious you take this.

“[we have] an appreciation for the game and the stage, for the lights … that feeling that you get playing in these types of environments, it can’t be replicated. It’s goose bumps man. You prepare for these moments.”

And enjoy them when they come along.