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LeBron James and Steph Curry are just messing with us, don’t you think?
The NBA playoffs are maddening, with upsets that are nullifying the seeding. But the Lakers and Warriors are waging their own West Coast version of “Gotcha” by merely trying to make the playoffs while getting their injured players all healed up.
Curry played 56 of the 82 regular season games, LeBron played just 55. Both entered the playoffs with plenty of gas left in the tank, and it is obvious that just getting into the postseason is what matters.
First of all, let’s talk about their ages. James, 38, says he is in his “20th season and counting” and has slowed down just enough to prove he is human. He has already changed the game, the first super star who is a better athlete than basketball player. And we know how good of a hooper he is at 6-9, 250 pounds.
Curry, the 35-year-old wunderkind from Davidson who was not offered a scholarship by a single ACC school, is also a great athlete but a far better basketball player and clearly the best shooter in the history of the game.
So the seventh-seeded Lakers beat second-seeded Memphis with right-hand-hampered Ja Morant in six games, wrapping up their first-round series with a 20-point blowout of the Grizzlies. LeBron paces himself now, but he still played 31 of 48 minutes of the deciding game with 22 points, 5 rebounds and 6 assists. Now that MJ’s long retired, some big kids want to Be Like LeBron.
More basketball players from middle school to the NBA want to Shoot Like Steph, who had a seventh-game playoff record 50 points and took 38 of his team’s 100 shots in Game 7 in the sixth-seeded Warriors blowout of the No. 3 Kings on the road. Whereas coaches have complained that young players care more about shooting 3s than anything else, Curry is helping them justify that.
We may never see another shooter like Curry, who has changed the game into where NBA teams make taking 40 3-pointers a part of their plan. That’s because the players obviously practice perfecting the long ball more than ever. Regardless of the comparative stats, the pros and to an extent the colleges have gone from a two-point inside-outside game to lineups where four, if not five, of the guys on the floor can knock down 3’s. That’s Curry’s influence. And when Stephen drains them up from all places and with all body gyrations, it is worth the hefty price of admission.
NBA teams both draft to get marksmen but also help average shooters improve so they can play more minutes. James and Curry won’t go on forever (I don’t think), but both will leave legacies that are even more style than substance.
They face each other in the second round, which will be great viewing but too bad one of them will be ousted.
Featured image via Associated Press/José Luis Villegas
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