These NBA conference finals won’t decide the next face of the league

These NBA conference finals are highlighted by four young players who are unique stars in their own right. Tyrese Haliburton, Jalen Brunson, Anthony Edwards and newly crowned MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander represent the future of the NBA. Each guard, all under 29, has shown “it” — whatever “it” is — over the past few years, especially in these playoffs. Whether scoring a bunch of points, clamping dudes down on defense or scoring game-winning baskets, the four stars remaining in the playoffs all look like future champions.

But as the NBA faces the not-so-distant retirements of LeBron James and Stephen Curry, they’re desperately searching for the next Guy in the league. Of Haliburton, Brunson, Edwards and Gilgeous-Alexander, neither jumps off the page as that Guy. They’ll all make All-Star games, appear in commercials and sell a bunch of jerseys, but being the so-called face of the league takes more than that.

James and Curry (and to a lesser extent, Kevin Durant) are more than great basketball players; they’re institutions. Curry is buddies with a former U.S. president, and James immediately increases the value of the team he plays for. Fans of the two can sometimes outnumber the home team’s fans when Curry and James come to town.

But while I don’t believe Haliburton has the star power to one day star in Space Jam 3 like Jordan and James, that doesn’t matter much now. These four men are all made-for-TV stars who each bring something different and entertaining to the table.

Haliburton is the male equivalent of WNBA star Caitlin Clark. He can push the tempo, come up in the clutch (Just ask the Milwaukee Bucks), find his teammates with dazzling passes, and can shoot the 3-pointer no matter how wonky his jumper looks.

Brunson is by far the most dependable late-game player in the league, highlighted by winning this season’s NBA Clutch Player of the Year award. Despite being just 6-foot-2, Brunson isn’t afraid to get physical with opponents. Once the fourth quarter starts in an important game, it’s suddenly Jalen Brunson Time.

Edwards’ brashness and seeming desire to push all the game’s legends into retirement – à la the pro wrestler Randy “The Legend Killer” Orton – is what makes him impossible to ignore. Edwards not only wants to take the final shot but also wants to defend against the final shot as well. If superstars were made in a lab, it would be in the mold of Edwards.

Gilgeous-Alexander is just silky smooth. His game is similar to a Ken Griffey Jr. swing in baseball, or a Barry Sanders run in football: fluid with no wasted motion. When Gilgeous-Alexander wants to get to a spot, he gets there. Very few players can break down a defense the way he does.

A championship will lift one of them into a new stratosphere, but that won’t mean they’re the next James, Curry or Michael Jordan.

And that’s OK.

Being the face of the league isn’t something that can be voted on or be quantified. What it basically means is, when you close your eyes and think about professional basketball, whose face comes to mind.

In the 1980s, that was the duo of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. That transitioned to Jordan toward the end of that decade and throughout the 1990s. James, dubbed “The Chosen One” while in high school, was next up, splitting most of the 2000s with Kobe Bryant. Fresh off a historic run at Davidson College, Curry and James shared most of the 2010s. But with James at 40 and Curry at 37, their reigns are on borrowed time.

As I said, there’s no real way to quantify what the title of face of the league means. However, there are at least three requirements for being the player people envision when they think of basketball.

Win

The simplest way to be the face of the league is just to win. James (4), Curry (4) and Durant (2) have a combined 10 championships between them. Bryant and Johnson won five each. Jordan won six. Allen Iverson (more on him below) was a cultural phenomenon, but only making one trip to the Finals and never winning a championship undercuts his ability to be that Guy.

Of the best crop of players under 30 — which includes the four players we’re discussing, plus Jayson Tatum, Luka Doncic, Victor Wembanyama, Ja Morant and Zion Williamson — only Tatum has won a ring. Until this season, only Tatum and Doncic had led a team to the Finals.

With all the parity in the NBA, it’s hard to make eight consecutive Finals appearances like James did from 2011 to 2018, or five straight like Curry did from 2015 to 2019. At the end of these playoffs, there will have been seven different champions in as many years, which has never happened in the NBA. There’s a tough road ahead for reaching the status of James or Curry without the hardware to back it up.

Marketability

Being marketable is pretty obvious. Can you sell shoes, apparel and other products? Do you have a personality that makes people gravitate to you? Can you host Saturday Night Live or walk the runway at Paris Fashion Week? 

Doncic’s playmaking style mimics that of Johnson’s, but he can’t touch the level of charisma that someone named “Magic” had. Doncic had two viral ads over the past few months — one for Jordan Brand, the other for Gatorade, which had a towel spell out the word “traitor,” possibly in reference to Dallas Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison — but neither commercial used Doncic’s voice in them.

Brunson and Gilgeous-Alexander both have AT&T commercials, but the seriousness of the former and smoothness of the latter doesn’t exactly show exciting personalities. Rarely, if ever, has the villain been the most popular player in the league, which limits Haliburton, who has haters in Milwaukee, New York City, Orlando and even in WWE. However, he is naturally charismatic. Edwards is a quote machine, plays with confidence and swagger, and has the entire Adidas and Coca-Cola marketing machine behind him, yet he fails the final requirement, which is…

Avoid controversy

And Edwards can’t get out of his own way. For as much star quality that he has, no amount of lipstick can be put on the pig that is multiple paternity allegations, pleas for women to get abortions and use of homophobic slurs. That doesn’t necessarily make Edwards a bad person, but when trying to advertise his game globally, it’s hard to have faith in someone who constantly shoots himself in the foot.

This is the problem Allen Iverson had.

For as great a talent that Iverson was, and for how much he represented a Black culture that had largely been ignored in this country, he couldn’t keep his name out of the newspapers. Iverson butted heads with coaches, moonlighted as a rapper who made sexist and homophobic songs, and faced misdemeanor charges for breaking into his cousin’s apartment with a gun while in search of his wife (the charges were later dropped). None of this stopped Iverson from being marketable, as he signed multiple multi-million-dollar deals with Reebok, appeared in the Bow Wow-led Like Mike movie, and most recently was featured in the Buffalo Bills’ schedule release video.

But Iverson wasn’t dependable; that’s not a knock on him, it’s a part of his persona. Edwards hasn’t done anything illegal, but “Send da video,” in reference to visual proof of an abortion, isn’t exactly a catchphrase you want to be known for.

(To be the face of the league, you also have to be American: Jokic, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Wembanyama are freakish athletes, but that cultural disconnect can mean something.)

If you consider all those factors, there is no clear next Guy in the NBA. The closest we had in years was Williamson, who, like James, was a well-known name even in high school. But Williamson’s inability to stay on the court has prevented his rise due mostly to injuries. Morant, too, has self-sabotaged his way to relative obscurity after earning multiple suspensions for gun-related incidents.

James and Curry have already been sent home packing from these playoffs. And their odds for winning another championship are pretty steep. But they still run this place: Curry and James still had the second and third-most jersey sales, respectively, this season. (Dončić was No. 1, but that likely had more to do with the shocking midseason trade to the Lakers and that he was traded to the Lakers.)

These playoffs won’t decide who’s next after that pair. But it will be amazing basketball, and that should be appreciated on its own.