The 2022-23 NBA season is a mere few games away from getting over. Nikola Jokic and his Nuggets booked an NBA Finals berth by eliminating LeBron James and the Lakers. On the other hand, Jimmy Butler and his Heat are one win away from doing the same as well. From fans dreaming of a potential Lakers-Celtics Finals to us getting a Heat-Nuggets matchup is a big change of pace. JJ Redick talked about the same on his podcast, and called it the NBA’s LeBron and Stephen Curry problem.
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LBJ and his Lakers eliminated Stephen Curry in the 2nd round and then got swept by the Nuggets. An NBA Finals without Steph and Bron has happened only once in the last 12 years, with this year being the second time. JJ and Gilbert Arenas talked about the league’s future and discussed Nikola Jokic and his game.
JJ Redick feels the NBA has a LeBron James and Stephen Curry problem
It was 2011 when LeBron James started an impressive streak. Going to his first NBA Finals with the Miami Heat, LBJ went on to get to the stage for eight consecutive years. However, he wasn’t the only one during that time who was on an impressive streak. Stephen Curry made his first NBA Finals in 2015 and then went on to get there for five straight years till 2019.
During all of this time, we saw Steph and LeBron grow huge fan bases and, in turn, become the bread-winning crowd pullers for the NBA. However, Bron is 38 now, and Steph is 35. Steph has a few good years left in his tank, but LBJ recently talked about retiring. While we all assume that it’s not going to happen, this was the first ever time Bron had mentioned retirement like that.
This got JJ Redick and Gilbert Arenas talking about the NBA’s LeBron and Steph problem. When these two stars retire, there will be a huge vacuum left in their cities, and viewers will be left confused. They talked about how the NBA will have to get stars back in cities like Los Angeles or San Francisco, but at the same time, who would replace these two? Nikola Jokic? Arenas talked about the same and said,
“No one wants to see great teams play. They want to see great players. For the consumer, Jokic’s game is not s**y. It’s s**y for basketball players, like what’s he’s doing is unreal. But if you’re not like Giannis or Ja Morant, jumping at the rim. No matter how you sell them, unless he’s in Boston, New York, LA, no one’s going to be paying attention to their game.”
As appalling as it sounds, Arenas is right.
What will the NBA have to do?
There is a questions fans have been avoiding for a few years now. What will they do once LeBron James retires, or what will they do when Stephen Curry retires? No one exactly knows how it’s going to go, but surely, there would be a huge hole left to fill.
While the NBA has stars, what one needs to realize is that stars in small cities make news. But if you put the same stars in a big city, they make the headlines. In order to minimize the impact of these two legends, and the likes of Kevin Durant retiring, the league will have to get stars back in the big cities.
Doing so won’t be easy, but I’m sure Adam Silver and his think tank would be debating this problem for quite some time, and would think of some solution.
