A panel of ESPN NBA writers ranked LeBron James and Stephen Curry as the top players of this decade, with Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kawhi Leonard rounding out the rest of the top five:
We asked a panel of our NBA experts: Who was the player of the decade?
They ranked their top three picks in order and here are the results: https://t.co/xd8t9dCfKj pic.twitter.com/1LTDo42z1h
— ESPN (@espn) September 18, 2019
Either James or Curry have been part of six of the last 10 championship teams since 2010, and they took home five MVP awards (James won three, with Curry winning two). From team success to individual success, it is hard to find two other players that dominated the decade like LeBron and Steph.
The two players will forever be remembered as the stars of two of the most definitive dynasties in NBA history. James set the world alight when he joined the Miami Heat in the summer of 2010, and the “Big Three” would go on to bring a pair of championships to South Beach amidst four consecutive NBA Finals appearances.
Curry and the Warriors burst onto the scene in 2015, and they would go on to win three championships while reaching the Finals in five straight seasons.
In fact, the two superstars were the focal points of arguably the most momentous series in NBA history. James and the Cavaliers overcame a 1-3 deficit to defeat a Curry-led Warriors team that had won a record 73 games during the regular season. In turn, Golden State's defeat set up for Kevin Durant to head to the Bay Area, making the Warriors the new “villains” of the league.
Durant certainly has a claim of his own as an MVP and multiple-time champion, but James and Curry revolutionized the game in the 2010s while creating some of the most indelible moments in league history.
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