wecastonlineLeBron James will turn 40 in December. Stephen Curry is 36. Kevin Durant will turn 36 and Jimmy Butler will turn 35 by the time training camps start in the fall.
They have been stars of the playoffs for years, players who come up biggest at the biggest times.
But not this year. The next wave isn’t waiting its turn anymore. They’re here — a bunch of 20somethings, with one of them set to be the best player on the team that will be crowned the best in the NBA about a month from now.
It’ll be either Boston, Dallas, Indiana or Minnesota as the last team standing when the NBA Finals end next month. The best players on those teams — Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown for the Celtics, Luka Doncic for the Mavericks, Tyrese Haliburton for the Pacers and Anthony Edwards for the Timberwolves — are all in their 20s.
Brown is 27. Tatum is 26. Doncic is 25. Haliburton is 24. Edwards is only 22. James, Curry, Durant and Butler are still considered greats, but some of the NBA’s star torches sure seem like they’ve already been passed down to the next generation.
“They have no fear,” Dallas guard Kyrie Irving said of the young stars. “They don’t see the O.G. superstars as guys that they look up to as much anymore. They want to kill our records. They want to kill us every time they get on the court. That was the first thing I noticed about Luka, that he just had no fear going against the best in the world. He always walks around like he’s the best player in the world. I think that’s the confidence of a champion. That’s where it starts.”
Out of the 21 regular starters used in the playoffs by the four teams left, only six have turned 30: Boston has 37-year-old Al Horford and 33-year-old Jrue Holiday, the Mavericks have the 32-year-old Irving, the Timberwolves have 36-year-old Mike Conley and 31-year-old Rudy Gobert, and the Pacers have 30-year-old Pascal Siakam.
“Thanks for calling me old,” Siakam said to Haliburton on Sunday, after Haliburton tried explaining how the Pacers have a bunch of players who are basically new to this stage and one in Siakam who has a championship from his time in Toronto.
