LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry pick one trait to pick apart

On By Littum

This era of NBA basketball has largely been defined by three players: the Los Angeles Lakers’ LeBron James, the Golden State Warriors’ Stephen Curry and the Phoenix Suns’ Kevin Durant. Only Curry has stayed with one team throughout his career, but matchups between the three — and with two of them on the same team — never lost their intensity when Durant and LeBron switched teams.

Now, on Christmas Day 2024, the James-Curry-Durant era is slowly coming to an end. LeBron has talked about retirement many times, Curry made his first comments on the matter recently, and Durant is not far behind. But all three are still elite on the floor, and they’ll get another chance to show it with all their teams playing on Christmas Day.

Ahead of their Christmas Day matchups — James and Curry against each other — the three sat down for an interview where they discussed which trait they’d like to take away from each other, via NBA:

James went with Durant’s pull-up hesi to the left. Durant has arguably the most lethal pull-up jumper in basketball history, and while LeBron has always been effective in that area, it doesn’t match what Durant is capable of.

From there, Durant took the famous quick release of Curry. The best 3-point shooter of all time is best known for the way he can shoot the ball with perfect form under any duress because of how quickly he is able to release the ball. Durant with that quick release would be almost comically unprotected.

Finally, Curry took all of LeBron’s IQ. James is undoubtedly one of the smartest players to ever play the game and is one of the best floor generals in league history. Curry can control a game with his off-ball movement and shooting, but hasn’t been able to completely control the pace of all 10 players like LeBron has.

The best thing about this interview is the amount of pure respect that these three players have for each other, even after over a decade of tough battles on the field.

Stephen Curry talks about working with LeBron James

The rivalry between LeBron James and Stephen Curry has been going on for nearly a decade. And now another chapter is set to take place when the Lakers and Warriors kick off on Christmas Day.

The majority of this rivalry took place when James was a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers and faced the Warriors in four consecutive NBA Finals from 2015 to 2018. But there have been some moments since LeBron joined the Lakers as well, including an incredibly tough second-round playoffs in 2023, where the Lakers swept Curry’s Warriors in six games.

The respect between the two has always been there, but became even more present this past summer when the two were teammates on Team USA and had exceptional chemistry together in leading the team to a gold medal at the Olympics. Of course, this led many to wonder if the two would ever team up on an NBA court, but Curry said it’s highly unlikely, though he didn’t necessarily say it wouldn’t happen.

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