Stephen Curry and LeBron James have met on the NBA Finals stage during each of the last four seasons. While that streak will come to an end this year, Curry still has the utmost respect for LeBron’s place in the history of the sport. At an event in Oakland this week to promote his Facebook Watch Original Series, “Stephen vs. The Game,” Curry spoke on how he views the top-five NBA players of all-time while opting to leave himself off of the list.
Each of the players on Curry’s list certainly deserve to be in the conversation when you’re considering Michel Jordan, Wilt Chamberlain, Shaquille O’Neal, Magic Johnson and LeBron James. If championships are a differentiating criteria, however, it’s difficult to leave 11-time NBA champion Bill Russell off a list like this. It’s also interesting that Curry went with Shaq over Kobe in terms of who was the historically greater player on those Los Angeles Lakers title teams they led together. As the NBA’s all-time leading scorer, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar certainly has a case over O’Neal as well. But if you’re trying to win a game against the greatest of all-time, you could do much worse than taking the floor with this group that Curry put together.
LeBron, meanwhile, has never officially offered his top-five players of all-time. Back in 2014, James named his Mount Rushmore of NBA legends. Not quite a starting five, but at the time his quartet of superstars atop the basketball mountain included Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Oscar Robertson. A year earlier, LeBron had also put Julius “Dr. J” Erving in his top three alongside Mike and Larry. So maybe Dr. J would round out his top five, or maybe he’d round it out the same way Curry by putting himself on the list.
