LeBron James says he envisioned the NBA Final between Miami Heat and the Oklahoma City Thunder
Sir Charles Barkley once said that if Kevin Durant is to become the best player on the planet he would have to kill LeBron James first.
In the next two weeks it will become very clear whether the legendary centre was right.
James and Durant take on each other for the first game of NBA Finals on Tuesday night and the outcome of that series may very well decide the legacy of these two gifted players.
LeBron has been at this stage two times before, both of them unsuccessful, but the King is probably playing the best basketball career right now. He single handedly led the Heat in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals against
the Boston Celtics and then in the series decider, put up his fifth above 30 points – 10 rebounds night in the playoffs to earn his team a second consecutive trip to the NBA Finals.
He and KD also share a bond a few people know about. In the last extended off season, James invited Durant for one week of workout which they branded the ‘h**l week’. The two stars trained and conditioned together and when asked
about that link in the press conference after Game -7 James revealed that he saw the matchup coming;
“I envisioned it every day we worked out,” James said. “I understood what his passion was. I understood what his drive was. We pushed each other every single day.”
LeBron and KD are two of the best NBA has seen in the last decade.
While James is touted by many as the most complete player ever to set foot in the league, Durant is a class of his own. The man who is the face of the Thunder has established himself as the most potent offensive player in the league.
He won the scoring title for a third time running this season and has emerged out to be best closer in this year’s playoffs.
James knows KD has a drive to succeed and that drive comes from the very source, which pushed himself to get even better this season;
“He was a little upset about the series in Dallas, where they got eliminated by Dallas,” James added while talking about the interaction he had with KD in the offseason, “and I was as well. So we pushed each other each and every
day.”
The two icons of the modern NBA era will now take on each other in what is being billed as the ‘people’s final’. It’s MVP vs. the MVP runner up and a contest between the best all round player of his generation versus the best offensive
one. Whoever wins it, can write the history with his own pen.
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