The rivalry between LeBron James and Steph Curry is undoubtedly the NBA's greatest of the last decade. The two superstars of the world's best basketball league came face to face with each other no less than four consecutive times in the NBA Finals from 2015 to 2018 and, in the past season, their teams faced each other in the Western Conference semifinals.
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In an interview featured in Sports Illustrated, the Golden State Warriors point guard gave readers a glimpse into the complex relationship between the two and revealed his version of the best starting five in NBA history, which did not include James.
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LeBron James and Steph Curry have a complex relationship, to say the least
(Photo: AP/Jeff Chiu)
"It's complex," Curry said. "Because you go from playing in the tournament and him coming to watch, to me coming in as a young rookie in the league and him giving me advice on how to get through some of the early struggles that I was gonna go through as a player, to the four Finals appearances in a row, playing against each other, to even last year playing in the playoffs again. He's a great dude, great friend, great competitor, and it's amazing to go back and look at where it all started."
Nevertheless, Curry left James off his perfect starting lineup. And while the Los Angeles Lakers legend and NBA's all-time leading scorer, was not included in Steph's lineup, three other Lakers stars made the cut.
The players chosen by Steph are Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan and Shaquille O'Neal.
The rivalry between Steph Curry and LeBron James began in 2015 when the Golden State Warriors first met LeBron's Cleveland Cavaliers in the playoff finals. The Warriors won the NBA championship for the third time in history after a 4-2 victory in the finals.
A year later, the two teams met again, and this time it was Cleveland that won the championship – its first ever – after coming back from a 3-1 deficit to win 4-3 in the series, making it the first team to achieve such a comeback.
The two also met in the following two years and, in both cases, Golden State came out victorious, winning 4-1 in the 2017 finals and sweeping 4-0 in the 2018 finals. Curry and LeBron went on to face each other in the most recent season, with LeBron's Los Angeles Lakers eliminating Golden State, which had won the championship in 2022 when they defeated the Boston Celtics. The Lakers won the series against Golden State 4-2 but were then swept in the Western Conference finals by Denver and Jokic, who went on to win the championship.