Steph recalls hanging out at LeBron’s house before Warriors-Cavs game originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
Steph Curry and LeBron James’ friendship dates back many years.
Before the two superstars went toe-to-toe in four consecutive NBA Finals series from 2015-2018, they had developed a friendship that began in 2009, Curry’s rookie season.
Curry revealed to his father, Dell, on the duo’s “Heat Check” podcast series, that the first time he returned to his hometown of Akron, Ohio after he was born, coincidentally was to hang out with James — another Akron native — the night before the Warriors faced off against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Nov. 17, 2009 at Quicken Loans Arena.
“I didn’t realize at the time my rookie year was the first time I went back,” Steph told Dell. “Day before we played Cleveland my rookie season I had met LeBron [James] the year before when he was watching our college games and all that. When we’re on the West Coast you only get one trip to Cleveland, so I’m in the hotel night before the game and he hit me and was like ‘You want to come to the house?’ And his house was in Akron.
“So I want to say, I didn’t even have an Uber account at the time, so I hopped in a taxi, head down to LeBron’s house, hung out with him that night. He had a little bowling alley in his basement. Did that. Bryce and Bronny were running around the house, little kids.”
A 21-year-old Curry, who had yet to develop into the superstar he is today, scored just 14 points with five rebounds and seven assists on 6-of-10 shooting from the field and 2 of 6 from 3-point range against Cleveland the next day. James, meanwhile, scored 31 points with five rebounds and 12 assists in the win over Golden State.
Curry and James didn’t know it yet, but that impromptu meeting — and the game that followed — was the start of a great friendship and one of the fiercest rivalries in NBA history.
“And that was the first time that I actually been back to Akron, and it’s cool because the connection between me and him, we didn’t know what was in store back in, that was ’09, six years later we would start a crazy rivalry in the Finals and all that,” Curry added. “But I’ve only been back twice now, but there still wasn’t any actual realization of the Akron connection at the time and then all of a sudden you get to the Finals in 2015 and that’s when it started to connect dots.”
Curry and the Warriors, of course, eventually would get the best of James and the Cavaliers in three of the four Finals matchups that followed.
But for one night on the court — and potentially at the bowling alley — it was all James and Cleveland.
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