THE BEST OF HIS ERA: CURRY CARRIES ON WITH PLAYOFF JIMMY AS LEBRON FADES
We’ve reached the point when their careers should be compared, and as the Lakers are overwhelmed by Edwards, let’s celebrate Curry’s leadership and sport-changing lasers as the better brand
The basketball always swirls, generation to generation, spring to spring, trend to trend. We’re in an age when LeBron James is about to lose in the playoffs for the 18th time without an NBA title, while Steph Curry is targeting a fifth championship based on his leadership artistry. Historical comparisons never should involve Michael Jordan as much as how the two have performed in their era.
Curry is the king, changing the sport with his lasers and we-first showmanship more than James, remaining in the Bay Area without hopscotching around America to pursue more hardware. There he was Monday evening, hugging Jimmy Butler after he all but overcame last week’s near-broken back to score 14 points in the fourth quarter, with a game-saving rebound. A pulsating 109-106 victory sets up the Warriors to close out the series in Houston and should put them in the Western Conference semifinals.
“It means the world. I’d die for these guys. It’s so fun. I’ve got my joy back.” said Butler, who played 40 minutes. “A lot of pain. I'm not going to lie. My dog, Armando, has been working every minute and hour off the hour to make sure I was able to play. He's been doing it since I went down. The training staff here has been incredible. My teammates were incredible in making sure I was okay, checking in on me.”
Nothing is richer than Curry responding to Butler’s emotional needs after his turmoil in Miami. Imagine if they advance to the Finals. For once, he was not the hero. He likes it this way. “Sheer determination and will,” he said. “For him to gut through that first half and get the wheels going, then second half, both ends of the floor, it’s why he is who he is, why he means so much to us. We are still that team that is confident we can beat anybody,” he said. He also hugged Draymond Green, as partners in crime, and made sure he hugged Brandin Podziemski for scoring 26 points.
“Jimmy probably wasn’t 70 percent. We needed him to come up big. Playoff Jimmy saved our season,” said Green, who spent the night scuffling and pushing Tari Eason’s face to the floor. “This is what you live for. When you've been to the mountaintop, it’s a little tough for other things to excite you, except getting back to the mountaintop.”
“We had to have Jimmy. If this were the regular season, he'd probably miss another week or two. But it's the playoffs. He's Jimmy Butler,” coach Steve Kerr said. This is what he does. Jimmy was just amazing. The rebound at the end was just incredible, the elevation, the force. He’s Playoff Jimmy for a reason.”
The Warriors were supposed to play the Lakers next. Don’t expect it. LeBron ached for a young superstar, and the Lakers found one in Luka Doncic, who was gutted by a stomach bug in Game 3 against Minnesota, perhaps raising eyebrows in Dallas about his conditioning and injuries. In landing Doncic, the front office relinquished big man Anthony Davis, one of many reasons coach JJ Redick turned desperate and used the same five players in the second half Sunday.
After a loss that left the Lakers trailing 3-1 to the Timberwolves, a player who will replace James and Curry as a Face of the League, as much as LeBron hates the term because “why do you wanna be the face of a league when all the people that cover and talk about our game on a day-to-day basis s— on everybody. To have that responsibility is just weird. It's weird energy.” Like it or not, Anthony Edwards blew away James and Doncic with 43 points Sunday and said, “I feel they were gassed going down the stretch. So just keep trying to keep my foot on the pedal and keep going. Anytime I get open, shoot.”
“You could see it in his eyes that he was going to make plays,” Wolves coach Chris Finch said. “He was going to bring us home.”
The league is changing too quickly for James, whose team is overwhelmed by the pedal. He’ll likely play another season with son Bronny, though younger son Bryce will play collegiate ball at Arizona, but the old man won’t win another trophy in a Western Conference ruled by Edwards and the Oklahoma City Thunder. As Edwards said of teammate Jaden McDaniels, “Jaden never looks tired. He looks like he could play 48 minutes.” This while Edwards was saying of James shooting three-pointers in Game 3:
“He was shooting it from Yucatan. He was shooting it crazy.”
“They’re big, they’re long, they’re athletic, they pressure the basketball, they make everything tough,” Redick said of the Wolves.
Whether Edwards wants to be The Face is inconsequential. The fans and endorsers and coverage will decide for him. It’s difficult not to watch him dominate, even when he says he doesn’t want the harshness of the duty. I’ve compared him to Jordan, who never would have grabbed his crotch in Los Angeles and made lewd comments. He’s only 23. He might have to grow into The Face.
“Well, I’m capable of being that guy. But I don’t want to be that guy, put it like that. I want to be the guy to just show up and hoop and just kill dudes and go home.”
He’s killing them. How cool if Curry faces Edwards in a battle of Faces in the next round. People will love the matchup. Commissioner Adam Silver can stop blabbing about media coverage, when he says, “They don’t spend enough time talking about why people love this game.” Much will depend on the health of Butler, who returned Monday night from what was called a pelvis contusion, and whether Green will avoid suspensions against the feisty Wolves.
In February, Curry told Green that the Warriors have one shot to win a title. That was before the front office acquired Butler, but the man is equipped with a timer. “How many more chances will we actually realistically have at chasing a championship?" Curry said. Coach Steve Kerr knows the nightly magic of Curry requires consistent prominence from Butler, who can’t afford another back crash to the floor. “You can just get him the ball, get spaced and when you have to have a bucket, everyone's tired and the game's on the line, Jimmy is, to me, as good an option as anybody in the entire league. I'm talking LeBron, Luka, Giannis (Antetokounmpo), I don't care, you name them, (Nikola) Jokic, the best players in the world. Jimmy is in that category.”
The other night, after Curry scored 36 points in a victory, Butler posted a cartoonish tribute of the man he describes as “Batman.” He is “Robin.” Curry was lit atop a building.
“Thanks batman and team. excluding Buddy,” the caption read. Said Butler: “The bat signal, it was my idea. But that's who he is, to me, to us, to y'all, to the world.”
“Elite,” Curry said. “I mean, you can call it whatever you want to. I just know that I need to play at a high level for us to win and so does he and so does Draymond and so does everybody. Whatever you want to call me, I’ll embrace it and hopefully it keeps happening. We all follow him just with that type of tenacity. You’re not going to be the guy to let him down. I think we all know we’re trying to win 14 more of these,” Curry said. “We need Jimmy to do that.”
Before the game, the league named Curry as the Twyman-Stokes Teammate of the Year — “based on selfless play, on- and off-court leadership as a mentor and role model to other NBA players, and commitment and dedication to his team.” He could be given the award every year. “Well, what makes Steph unique is just his blend of humanity and humor and confidence,” Kerr said. “He just sets a great tone every day. Loves practice. Loves the work. So you come in, and the vibe is where it should be day after day after day because of Steph.”
The league has been filled with postseason scuffles. Butler was bothered by Dillon Brooks. He preferred to talk about staying healthy. “I'm a big boy. I'm like 35 years of age now. I know how to handle those type of things. Get some more treatment, get some rest. Domino's, coffee, kids. That's the formula to success.” The Nuggets and Clippers brawled. Jaylen Brown of the Celtics said of the Orlando Magic, “There might be a fight break out or something because it's starting to feel like it's not even basketball, and the refs are not controlling their environment. So, it is what it is. If you want to fight it out, we can do that. We can fight to see who goes to the second round.” Curry doesn’t want to fight, though he did receive a technical for taunting Brooks. We know he’ll destroy your heart.
Twyman became a legal guardian of Stokes after a head injury paralyzed him. “Wikipedia those two guys,” assistant coach Terry Stotts said.
“I will definitely do that,” Curry said. It was cool because you're around a long time and understand building culture, being consistent, a consistent presence in the locker room, on and off the court, being somebody that people can reach out to appropriately for advice, build relationships, that type of thing, it's a really cool honor.”
At some point, Adam Silver will breathe easier. Stephen Curry has a way of easing us all about basketball, Playoff Jimmy, sports, officiating, The Faces and the world.
That’s why we watch him, as LeBron goes away.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.