The Last Splash
Curry joins LeBron, as 2010s greats whose run is over. Who will replace them at the top of the league? And who should you bet in the 2024 Finals?
With the NBA season looming, we proclaimed that the LeBron James era was over. James had a 15-year run at the top of the sport—but no more. After a first round exit, barely making the playoffs in the first place, and a 8-1 record against Djokic in the last two series: James is cooked. He can still contribute. But his days as a team-leading star are over.
The Last Splash
But James was not alone during his run. While James was accumulating four NBA championships, Curry was doing the same. In the 7 years from 2015 to 2022, it was Curry—not James—who was at the top of the NBA. Curry’s Warriors made the finals in every year from 2015 to 2019, winning 3 of 5 during that time period.
But since 2019, the Warriors have been a shadow of themselves. From 2020 to 2024, the Warriors have missed 3 of 5 playoffs.
In the last two years, Curry finished 8th and 9th in MVP voting. This year, he’s unlikely to get votes at all.
There is no shame in being a top 20 player in the league. One of the very best basketball players on the planet. Both Curry and James can relish in that. But if we have expectations about either of these players leading a championship team to the promised land in one final, glorious moment, we need to set those aside.
All things considered, Curry was an odd foil for LeBron—but perhaps emblematic of James’ entire career. While Curry was the most popular player in the league, his individual dominance never rose to the heights of his contemporaries. Kevin Durant, who Curry played alongside for three years, was—and remains—a better player.
In fact, Curry is perhaps best understood as the most successful of the many players—Kobe, Duncan, Nash, Garnett, Nowitzki—who rebuffed James’ continuous runs at greatness.
Age and Arbitrage
It seems like this year might have been a year for the ages. At least in the sense that Vegas was dramatically over-valuing aging stars across the board: Curry, James, Durant, Leonard, George, and Harden were all given much better odds than our numbers suggested.
At the beginning of the year, we had only Curry on our board. Yet even late into the cycle, the Suns, Lakers and Clippers were getting decent odds in Vegas.
What happened? And Will this continue?
Part of this is a reluctance of the NBA to pivot to new stars. In part, it hasn’t had time to because James and Curry were relevant in 2022 and 2023. But in part, it has had so much time. The Celtic’s Jayson Tatum and the Thunder’s SGA were obviously going to have good years heading into the season—only injury could have stopped that.
Maybe they will luck out from having these players meet in the finals. But one wonders what next season’s storylines looks like, if Jokic triumphs against all comers, and the NBA is left with washed up old guys, and young players who can’t beat Jokic?
Round 2 Betting Lines
That all said, we aren’t moving much off our positions from the mid-season, choosing to ride with Boston, Denver, and Oklahoma City. The odds on all of those teams are much shorter than they were at the halfway point. Where Boston and Denver were once 5-1, Denver is now 3-1 and Boston is now almost even money.
There might also still be some value in the Thunder to win the finals. Though they would be underdogs in the Conference Finals and Finals, if you give them a 45% chance of winning both those rounds, you probably like them at the +800 number they’re at now.