Steph remembers being at LeBron’s house before the Warriors-Cavs game originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
Steph Curry and LeBron James’ friendship goes back many years.
Before the two superstars went head-to-head in four consecutive NBA Finals series between 2015 and 2018, they had developed a friendship that began in 2009, Curry’s rookie season.
Curry revealed to his father, Dell, about the duo”“Heat Check” Podcast Seriesthat the first time he returned to his hometown of Akron, Ohio after his birth, it happened to be to hang out with James, another Akron native, the night before the Warriors faced the Cleveland Cavaliers on November 17 2009. at Quicken Loans Arena.
“I didn’t realize at the time that my rookie year was my first time coming back,” Steph told Dell. “The day before we played Cleveland my rookie season, I met LeBron (James) the year before when I was watching our college games and stuff. When we’re on the west coast, you only have one trip to Cleveland, so I’m at the hotel the night before the game and he hit me and said, ‘Do you want to come to the house?’ And his house was in Akron.
“I mean I didn’t even have an Uber account at the time, so I got in a cab, drove to LeBron’s house and hung out with him that night. He had a little bowling alley in his basement. He did that. Bryce and Bronny were running around the house, little kids.”
Curry, 21, who had not yet become the superstar he is today, scored just 14 points with five rebounds and seven assists on 6 of 10 field goals and 2 of 6 on three-pointers. Cleveland the next day. James, for his part, scored 31 points with five rebounds and 12 assists in the victory over Golden State.
Curry and James didn’t know it yet, but that impromptu meeting (and the game that followed) was the beginning of a great friendship and one of the fiercest rivalries in NBA history.
“And that was the first time I came back to Akron, and it’s cool because the connection between him and I, we didn’t know what was coming in 2009, six years later, we would start this crazy rivalry in the Finals and everything,” Curry added . “But I’ve only been back twice, but I still didn’t realize the Akron connection at that time and all of a sudden you get to the Finals in 2015 and that’s when he started connecting the dots.”
Curry and the Warriors, of course, would eventually get the better of James and the Cavaliers in three of the four final matchups that followed.
But for one night on the field, and potentially in the bowling alley, it was all James and Cleveland.