Five years later, we may finally get LeBron vs. Durant Round 2

On June 12, 2012, the basketball world settled in for round one of what everyone assumed would be the start of a legendary duel. LeBron James led the Miami Heat against young Kevin Durant and the Oklahoma City Thunder. The future looked certain. LeBron and Durant would spend the next decade sparring for titles as Oklahoma City and Miami sported the best basketball teams in the world. Five years later and we may finally get the Durant vs. LeBron rematch, however the circumstances are far from what we imagined.

LeBron James has never truly had a rival. There has never been one player that he consistently battled with, on the biggest stages, with championships on the line. He never had a Bird to his Magic or a Wilt to his Russell. LeBron himself has said on multiple occasions that he doesn’t have a rival.

“I don't think we have a rival in our game today,” said James in January when asked if the Warriors were his rival.

“I've thought about it. There is no real rivalries. It's the truth. No rivalries,” he said in 2013.

“I would say that I don't really have an individual rivalry,” he said in a different 2013 interview.

Paul George likely got closest. Even then, his Pacers were undone by infighting, injuries and the league’s seismic shift to small ball before that rivalry could spread its wings. George continues to battle and push LeBron in both the regular season and playoffs, but the massive stakes – like a trip to the NBA Finals – aren’t on the line. Does it count as a rivalry when one team barely made the playoffs?

Without another player to compare him against, the fans and media have had to create foes for him. His rivals became entire teams, such as the “Big Three” Celtics, the Spurs or the Warriors. If that didn’t work, such as when Miami lost to Dallas in the 2011 NBA Finals, his rival became conceptual: LeBron vs. “the clutch.” We even made him rivals with his teammates; remember all the talk about whether the Heat were Lebron or Dwyane Wade’s team? Since another player didn’t step up to fill the void, we tried to force LeBron to have a rival.

Kevin Durant was supposed to be that rival. Rewind back to the spotlight of the 2012 NBA Finals and the media was more than happy to remind you of it.

“The two stars could become today's Larry Bird and Magic Johnson,” reads an article in The Atlantic.

“Durant is going to come back in 2013 with one player and one goal in mind, and that's getting the better of LeBron and winning a ring next year,” says a Bleacher Report article just after the 2012 Finals ended.

The stage was set for the Larry O’Brien Trophy to go through one of these guys for the foreseeable future. The Heat were coming off their second of what would become four straight NBA Finals appearances. On the other side, a young Thunder team defeated the defending champion Dallas Mavericks, the Los Angeles Lakers (winners of the title just two years prior) and the Tim Duncan-led Spurs. The script couldn’t have been written any better, with the young Thunder defeating the “old guard” of the Western Conference and announcing their arrival as an elite team. Sadly, while LeBron kept up his half of the bargain with six straight Finals appearances, the Thunder immediately began dismantling the team.

The first dominoes fell during the 2012 offseason. James Harden and Oklahoma City couldn’t come to terms on a contract extension. The Thunder’s rationale was simple: as a small market team, they couldn’t pay the luxury tax, a penalty for teams that spend more than the NBA’s soft salary cap. If Harden wouldn’t sign for a reasonable number, then trading him avoids losing a player of his caliber for nothing. In hindsight, the Thunder likely could have avoided most, if not all, of the luxury tax payments had they kept Harden. Instead, Harden was shipped to the Houston Rockets and became one of the league’s best players.

Even after trading Harden, Oklahoma City was still in a good place. In the two seasons after trading him away, the team racked up 119 regular season wins while finishing first and second in the Western Conference. The team couldn’t get over the hump in the playoffs however, being upset by the Grizzlies in 2013 and then losing to the eventual champion Spurs in 2014. Injuries to Kevin Durant robbed the team of contending during the 2014-15 season. To top it off, a new juggernaut was rising in Golden State, presenting yet another obstacle for a return trip to the Finals.

Even after all of that, last season showcased what a healthy Thunder team could do. The team finished third in the Western Conference and made their fourth Conference Finals appearance in six seasons. They had the 73-win Warriors on the ropes with a 3-1 series lead. What followed would have been the biggest collapse in modern NBA history if the Warriors didn’t give up their own 3-1 lead in the NBA Finals. Another opportunity squandered. Durant joined the Warriors a month later, leaving Thunder fans to wonder what could have been.

Five years after their first Finals meeting, a rematch seems inevitable. The Cavaliers and Warriors are a combined 16-0 in the playoffs. Cleveland is a combined 5-2 against its possible Conference Finals opponents in Washington and Boston. Golden State is a combined 4-3 against the Rockets and Spurs, however one of those losses came on a night when Golden State didn’t play any of their four All-Stars. If they meet with a title on the line it will be a match up five years in the making. The jerseys have changed, but during those moments when Druant and LeBron match up we will all be left wondering what this rivalry could have been.

funny what can happen in 5 years. 5 years ago i was a giant lebron hater and KD was my favorite player. this year its the complete opposite. lebron has silenced all critics, is likable like he's never been before and this year he is a giant underdog despite arguably being the greatest player of all time. meanwhile, KD pulled the softest move in NBA history and is riding the coattails of players better and more successful than him to a free championship.

LeBron doesn't have a rival because the Eastern Conference consistently blows and offers next to no resistance to whatever team he's on. Full credit to his talent, but it's kind of a disservice to us as viewers and to LeBron's legacy that no one has really stepped up to challenge him. The West has kind of cannibalized itself enough in his era to not allow for enough rematches to really develop a Finals rivalry, either. I guess if GS gets there again, we can try to make one out of Durant. I'm not even sure Durant is the best player on his team, though.

In a weird way, I think I'd actually have more respect for LeBron if I got to watch him go toe-to-toe with, struggle against, and barely best a proper rival. I'm not sure we can really say that's happened all that much yet. It's perhaps unfair to discredit LeBron for this, but there just hasn't been that classic battle yet. His performance against Curry and GS last year is arguably as close as we've come, but even that is cheapened a bit because Curry is such a different style of player and they were kinda just trying to outscore each other.

I'm biased as a Spurs fan, but Leonard is arguably the best fit as a LeBron "rival". He's physically gifted enough to match up with James, and if they can get there, Leonard will get that defensive assignment for some real mano y mano shit. However, SA would have to get past GS, and Leonard is on a bum ankle, so that's looking fairly unlikely right now. In a perfect world, Kawhi's ankle heals, the Spurs best GS with classic Popovich "greater than the sum of its parts" basketball, and LeBron and Leonard battle it out all finals with LeBron bringing it down the court down a point with seconds ticking down in game 7 and Leonard guarding him.

Naw, go spurs/boston

May? You could have written this article 6 months ago and had approximately the same likelihood of occurrence. Yes NBA Basketball is almost interesting for its 2 week period a year; but we're still not there yet (though admittedly the beating 72-10 thing was novel last year).

It's not LeBron v Durant. Durant joined the best team in the league. That's a false narrative. He's not on the level of LeBron. Great player but will never be talked about like the greatest like LeBron deserves.

@notnert427: I'm not sure what you mean. He had tough Celtics teams to play (and get beaten by) early on (to the point where many thought he fled town to beat them, not something I agreed with), a team that still really challenged them after he went to Miami. He lost in the Finals more than once to the Spurs and they also lost to Dallas. He hasn't had a cakewalk. He's had to beat fantastic teams and hall of famers. LeBron doesn't have a "rival" that bests him because he's maybe the best player of all time. Jordan didn't have that either by your talk here besides early when he struggled against the Pistons and Celtics in a similar way LeBron struggled earlier in his career. Even at that time, Jordan came in dropping more than 60 points in a losing playoff game to the Celtics. At that time Bird was a better player but it was clear where it was going.

Beyond this, you can have rivals cross conferences anyways. The Cavs and Warriors are a rivalry right now.

Durant, Westbrook, and Harden will all go down as hall of famers and LeBron smashed all three on the same team in the Finals. LeBron doesn't have "rivals" by your definition because he smashes them. If he had healthy team mates he might have one that first series against the Warriors too. I think you are trying to force the narrative over appreciating how good LeBron is. I have mentioned it some, but basketball is a team game and the most key thing to remember is the team. When any great player tries to go it actually alone they don't win.

Right now I do think Kawhi is better than Durant so if you want to put forth one guy to challenge him it's Kawhi but I don't believe in the rest of the Spurs team vs the Cavs.

If you only care about the Finals sure. But crazy things can happen. There's been lots of great basketball to watch.

Well, LeBron with the Cavs the first go-round was basically Russell Westbrook/OKC now. I'm not even counting that as James being bested because he was doing virtually everything he could (with the exception of his defense, which was sub-par back then) to carry that team way further than it should have reasonably gone. I totally get why LeBron left for Miami (even though "The Decision" was insufferably akin to a high school athlete hat-picking ceremony on steroids). He deserved a better surrounding cast, and got one. That said. LeBron has had an absolute cakewalk to the Finals for the better part of a decade now. It's about to be seven straight unless something crazy happens, and that's fucking ridiculous. There are two ways to look at that. Either LeBron is an unstoppable force, or the competition isn't there. I think it's a mix of both.

The Jordan debate is one where I'm going to fall on the MJ side. Michael consistently wowed me in ways LeBron only has in spurts. I think the NBA in Jordan's era had far more quality teams and players as well. I mean, he was facing the Pistons, Lakers, Suns, Magic, Knicks, Rockets, Blazers, Pacers, Jazz, etc. Guys like Thomas, Dumars, Johnson, Barkley, Shaq, Ewing, Olajuwon, Drexler, Miller, Stockton, Malone, etc. I can't put LeBron's competition anywhere near that level. I mean, shit, can anyone really throw guys like Pierce, Allen, or Garnett up against the names above? There has been a bit of a resurgence of late with some young stars emerging, but it's mostly been on the West (save a few guys like Wall/Thomas), and we haven't really seen LeBron play enough against any of them, save maybe GS. The one OKC series isn't that much of a feather in the "smashed rivals" cap because Harden and Westbrook are light years better now than they were then. I think LeBron is more physically gifted than Jordan, and he's still got time to surpass MJ, but we're not there yet.

As for Leonard, he's just scratching the surface of his ability. I wouldn't be surprised if he's mentioned among James and Jordan by the time he's done. However, the depth of the West and an untimely injury is probably going to rob us of seeing Kawhi/LeBron match up again, and that would be the kind of thing where LeBron could help cement his legacy. Besting GS again would be a nice boost for James as well, but that history still needs to be written. As it stands, LeBron's '16 Finals is the biggest "legend" moment James has had. I'll need to see at least one more of those before his time is done before I'm ready to seriously consider him as the all-time best. It's a discussion worth keeping an eye on and having, but he ain't it yet in my book.

(As an aside, I still love the fact that a bunch of Cleveland fans have bought, burned, and then re-bought LeBron jerseys.)

@artisanbreads: My point isn't that we are finally getting the rivalry as much as a retrospective on where we thought these two were going. No one has ever been able to consistently challenge LeBron and Durant and the Thunder seemed like the perfect foil. It was more about just commenting on how even though we are finally getting another LeBron vs. Durant clash in the Finals it ultimately doesn't have the same gravity as it would have if the Thunder stayed together and consistently clashed with LeBron.

The other thing I wanted to do was just for personal reasons. Generally when I write about basketball I am very numbers oriented. I want to know eFG%, on/off splits, ortg, dtrg and so on. I wanted to try to do something else less focused on stats.