October 11, 2025

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Legends Still Reigning: LeBron, Curry and KD

By Anthony Price 

Lebron James wearing a Los Angeles Dodges hat

​NBA Hall of Famer Larry Bird once said, “Once you are labeled the best, you want to stay up there, and you can't do it by loafing around. If I don't keep changing, I'm history.” 
 
Lebron James, Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant must have taken those words to heart. For two decades, they’ve rewritten not only their own games but the game itself—stacking up ten championships between them and reshaping how basketball is played and watched. 

Once, they were the hunters chasing Michael Jordan. Now they’re the standards the rising stars measure themselves against. 
 
They may be graying at the temples, but don’t be fooled—these veterans are still running circles around the game’s younger players. And while they know their reign won’t last forever, they’re making sure the throne isn’t easily taken. 

Basketball Gods 
 
Today’s game is fast, physical, and often played above the rim. The best players don’t just play basketball—they levitate, like modern-day gods of the court. 
 
There have been basketball gods before. Bird once learned that the hard way. After Michael Jordan scored a record 63 points against the Celtics in a double-overtime game at the Boston Garden on April 20, 1986, Bird simply said, “It’s just God disguised as Michael Jordan.”   
 
Today, Minnesota Timberwolves’ Anthony Edwards is auditioning to be a basketball god. When in flight, he seems to defy gravity without a booster rocket, and seconds later, he hanging from the rim as if it’s a trophy he just claimed. 
 
While Edwards basks in the moment, someone else is peeling himself off the floor—another mortal sacrificed to the basketball gods, their fate sealed in a viral Internet meme, forever immortalized with a chorus of oohs and ahhs. 

It’s just God disguised as Michael Jordan.

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The Past  
 
The game didn’t start with Edwards. Let’s rewind—or scroll back, for the tech-savvy crowd. 
 
The National Basketball Association, or NBA, is 79 years old—not exactly ancient but not young—a reminder that age and youth can coexist to create the kind of living art that people will pay to see.  

The league was born in 1946, when the Basketball Association of America merged with the National Basketball League, and it’s been home to the world’s best ballers ever since—players who entertain millions and get paid like kings. 
 
It wasn’t always that way. Long before basketball came with Brinks trucks’ money, NBA players worked a job in the offseason like everyone else. While they didn’t get the “bag” as today’s stars say. What they got was the love of the game. 
 
These were the men of the 1950s and ‘60s who played hurt, wrapped what ailed them and played the game. Legends like Bob Pettit, George Mikan and Bill Sharman set the standard, passing the ball—literally and figuratively—to Elgin Baylor, Bill Russell and Jerry West who carried the game into a new era. 

Bill Russell, Boston Celtics

Greatness isn’t a single moment. 

The Standard
 
The game’s greatest are enshrined in the basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts—names like Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, Larry Bird, and Michael Jordan.
 
Greatness isn’t a single moment. It’s a standard of continued excellence measured over a long period of time. Celtics great Robert Parish set that bar high—1,611 games, more than any player in NBA history. Lebron James is in reach at second with 1,562 games.  
 
Basketball always pushes forward but never forgets its past. That’s how we measure how far a player has gone. 
 
Right now, three future Hall of Famers are still defining that standard: LeBron ”The King” James,  Stephen Curry “Chef Curry,” and Kevin Durant “KD.” Cool nicknames are mandatory. 

In a league–and culture–that lauds youth, these young-at-heart veterans are still among the best—even as unruly gray creep into their beards like weeds in a summer garden. James is 41, Curry, 37, and KD, 37. That’s middle-aged for regular folks. In the NBA, it’s supposed to be ancient.
 
But they’re not just hanging on. They’ve redefined the positions they play. Lebron is the ultimate point-forward. KD, a long-limbed 7-footer who can dribble and shoot from anywhere, goes by the nickname “Easy Money Sniper” for good reason. And Curry? He makes long-distance three-pointers from the half-court logo and beyond. Physics holds its breath when the ball leaves his hands. 

New Season: 2025-26 
 
As another NBA season approaches, let’s not take for granted the greatness we’re about to witness from James, Curry and Durant. 

Too often, we wait until a player is walking out of the arena for the last time to let them know how much they are appreciated. No one plays forever—just ask baseball great Leroy Satchel Paige, who became the first Black pitcher in the American League at 42 in 1948, and then retired at 47. 
 
And yet, in ESPN’s 2025 NBA Rank, Durant sits at 9, Lebron at 8 and Curry at 7—still among the best players on Earth. 

Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant and LeBron James at the Paris Olympics.

Kevin Durant watches.

​Durant, a two-time NBA champion, is one of the most decorated international stars and the only player with an MVP in the World Cup, the Olympics and the NBA. He’s the first male athlete in a team sport to win four Olympic gold medals. 
 
James is entering a record 23rd season. Already the game’s greatest scorer, his total—42,184 points—ticks like a taxi meter that never stops. 
 
And Curry? The babyfaced assassin has made 4,058 three-pointers, the most in history. No lead is safe when he’s on the floor. And when he makes the “nighty night” pose, game over!
 
Curry and Lebron have each won four championships. The first one to five gets to retire on a mountaintop. 

Physics holds its breath when the ball leaves his hands. 

Stephen Curry, Paris Olympics.

The End Is Coming 
 
Like iconic brands etched in our minds, the Big Three—James, Curry & Durant—are more than players. They’re benchmarks.
 
Their games are timeless because they studied the greats like historians studying ancient Greece. Their knowledge of the past propels them forward, and their relentless work ethic keeps them on top even as time tries to catch up. 
 
The future belongs to Anthony Edwards, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Victor Wembanyama and Luka Dončić—and to some kid somewhere who’s too young to drive but is already studying their every move. 
 
For now, though, the Big Three remain the standards. So give them your full attention and love every minute of their games this season. 
 
Basketball entertains—but it also teaches. And its greatest lesson is simple: no one plays forever. 

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Anthony Price is an entrepreneur, author and publisher of CT Hoops Magazine. Jump Ball Journal is basketball beyond the score.