In his 20th NBA season LeBron James has officially reached the ageist chapter of his hero’s journey. Since passing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to become the NBA’s all-time leading scorer, the 38-year-old hasn’t been able to take a dribble without being declared the oldest to do this or that, as his son literally waits in the wings to take up his father’s mantle. But nothing plagues the elder James quite like the Golden State Warriors, a royal pain that simply refuses to go away.
King James surely winced when the defending champions outlasted Sacramento in Game 7 of their playoff series to set up a showdown with his Lakers, which starts on Tuesday night. Already, fan conspiracy theorists are hinting at Adam Silver’s invisible hand. This heavyweight fight between sixth-seeded Golden State and the No 7 Lakers isn’t just mega for the Western Conference second round; it will hijack the NBA playoffs for the next two weeks. The legacies at stake alone are enormous.
Recall: in 2018 the Warriors swept James out of the NBA finals for the third time in his august career, sweet revenge that came just two years after James made the 73-9 Warriors a laughing stock for blowing a 3-1 finals lead while delivering on his championship promise to Cleveland. And even though both parties managed to summit the mountain again without getting in the other’s way – James won his fourth title in 2020 with the Lakers two years after his lowkey free-agent signing, while Golden State beat Boston in the NBA finals last year to keep the sun from setting on their dynasty – there was scant reason to believe the prevailing powers of the past 16 NBA seasons would be drawn into another battle royale.
Five months ago the Lakers were a 2-10 mess that featured Russell Westbrook and Patrick Beverley, two guards with shooting ranges as short as their tempers. Injury-prone forward Anthony Davis stumbled out of the gate with a bum foot. First-year coach Darvin Ham fumbled to close out games. All the while James carried the load, logging so many 40-minute games on a bad foot that people within the Lakers wondered if he was at risk of permanent rundown. In January, insiders were talking about the Lakers possibly trading James to the Warriors in the offseason.
Just as the Lakers seemed doomed to finish with their worst record since the last days of Kobe Bryant’s NBA career, GM Rob Pelinka shipped Beverley to Orlando and engineered a three-team trade for Westbrook that returned a bounty that included D’Angelo Russell, the No 2 overall pick in the 2015 draft. Over the course of 28 days in April, the revamped Lakers went from pinching themselves amid the possibility of finishing with a winning record, to pipping Minnesota in the play-in game for the seventh seed, to toughing out No2 Memphis in the first round. While the new supporting cast has gelled and Davis has bounced back with a fury not seen since his most outstanding player run in the 2012 NCAA tournament, James has been free to pick his spots to make his presence felt – a luxury players rarely enjoy during the playoffs.
The Warriors, too, looked cooked earlier this season – at Christmastime they sat 11th in the West. Stephen Curry had a shoulder injury, and Klay Thompson was a shadow of the offensive threat that had made the Splash Brothers so hard to stop. Worse, Draymond Green, the heart and soul of the team, had turned into a liability with his slacking offense and his shellacking of teammate Jordan Poole, a clutch contributor to last year’s title run. Or, to put another spin on it: Green had somehow become even more detrimental to the Warriors than when he swiped at James’s groin in Game 4 of the 2016 finals, triggering a one-game suspension and the beginning of Golden State’s meme-worthy collapse.
What’s more, Green nearly cost the Warriors again with his below-the-belt play against Sacramento – a squad that at least on paper was more talented and together than Golden State. And yet, through seven games, it was plain to see why Green remains such a spark for the Warriors’ fighting spirit. He was able to summon strong defense when the team needed it most and was also key in setting up Curry.
All series long the reigning finals MVP, who provided the exclamation point with a 50-point Game 7 at the Kings’ home gym, didn’t just prove once again why no team with him on it should ever be counted out. He also poured more jet fuel on the raging Goat debate. “There’s no debate,” Green told ESPN after Game 5. “He is the greatest … we all here in this world know, there’s no debate.”
That may be the lowest blow yet. Never mind that a championship would be gravy at this stage of James’s career. Eight straight finals appearances, along with four titles for three teams should have been enough to keep the Goat conversation confined to him, Kareem and Michael Jordan. But through no fault of his own, by playing on for so long, James leaves the door open for challengers to keep taking swings. Typically, the era-defining player steps away from the game knowing he’s not only vanquished his biggest rivals, but kept them down. When it was all said and done, Magic soared past Bird, Michael trumped Isiah, and Kobe triumphed over Shaq and Paul Pierce.
James got the last word on the Spurs’ Tim Duncan (the erstwhile best power forward ever), on the Cavs supporters who branded him a traitor for taking his talents to South Beach, on Spain and Argentina at the 2008 Olympics. And yet it’s Curry who keeps coming back for more like the Matrix’s Agent Smith.
If Curry manages to lead Golden State past James again on the way to a Warriors repeat, well, the discussion about him shifts again. He goes from being universally acknowledged as the game’s most formidable shooter to a difference maker on par with the late, great Bryant. Curry becomes the Rafa Nadal or Novak Djokovic to James’s Roger Federer – the cheeky younger rival who dwarfed the other’s staggering achievements. He sets himself for a stronger claim to the Goat title by adding a fifth championship to a playing style that has changed the way the game is played. But if Curry loses to Denver or Phoenix in the Conference finals? No big deal. The 35-year-old gets to try again next year.
Therein lies the trap for James. If he helps the Lakers beat the Warriors, well, that’s what he is supposed to do, even leading a seven seed. But if the Warriors beat him again, that’s four out of five and proof that James, despite his unimpeachable skill, couldn’t come close to getting over a hump against Golden State without Kyrie Irving, JR Smith or similar talent to push him over the top. It’s an unfair burden, one that James seemed fated to carry from the moment he was dubbed the Chosen One. Alas, for the greatest player of this time, it’s the one part of the game that never gets old.
