Who better to lead the NBA into an era of positionless basketball than a point guard with the surest shot in league history and a near 7-footer with perimeter skills?
Stephen Curry and Anthony Davis are trend-setting talents, skilled to the point of redefining the expectations of and possibilities for players at their positions.
They’re also two of the headliners for opening night of the 2015-16 campaign, respectively leading the Golden State Warriors and New Orleans Pelicans into their Tuesday tilt
Their last head-to-head bout lacked substantive drama, as the Dubs swept the Pels in last season’s opening round of the playoffs.
Three of the four contests were decided by seven-plus points, but the exception was an instant classic.
It featured a 20-point fourth-quarter comeback, overtime, 29 points and 15 rebounds from Davis and Curry’s 40 points, three of which came on an impossible shot during the final seconds of regulation.
That was the highlight of the series. Otherwise, the proceedings played out like most meetings between No. 1 and No. 8 seeds—save for the video game-like stats Davis left in the box score each night: He averaged 31.5 points on 54 percent shooting with 11 rebounds and three blocks.
But what the contests lacked in surprise, they more than compensated for in significance. Golden State used the four games as a launching pad to snap a 40-year championship drought. New Orleans reassessed after the loss, axed then-skipper Monty Williams and handed the coaching reigns to Alvin Gentry, the offensive architect of the Warriors’ title team.
Hoop heads, however, saw the series as something else: the first of potentially several postseason battles between two of the game’s brightest stars.
No one had a better 2014-15 than Curry. He piloted Golden State to a league-leading (and franchise-record) 67 wins while collecting more All-Star votes and selling more jerseys than anyone. He earned MVP honors and led the champs in playoff points, assists, steals and player efficiency rating.
His popularity forced the sports information director at Davidson College, a school Curry last attended in 2009, to change his office phone number because too many people were calling in an attempt to reach Curry.
He’s a megastar in every sense, and yet, he’s not the player league executives would choose to build a franchise around. In an annual survey by NBA.com, 86.2 percent of general managers picked Davis.
Truth be told, there is no wrong answer to that hypothetical inquiry.
The stat sheet shows both phenoms should be held in similarly sky-high regard.
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