The days when these two generational stars would square off in high-stakes playoff series every postseason seemed like they had been forever consigned to the past.

That is, until both teams stumbled on the NBA’s answer to a time machine.

At this season’s trade deadline, the Lakers and Warriors swung trades that shifted not only this season but, potentially, the arc of NBA history. First, Los Angeles pulled off the out-of-nowhere blockbuster trade for Luka Doncic. Then, Golden State acquired six-time All-Star Jimmy Butler III.

Those moves have done more than just revitalize James and Curry. They have turned the NBA clock back all the way to 2015, when Steph and LeBron were the most feared players in the entire league.

The Warriors have won seven of their last nine games to ignite a frantic charge up the Western Conference standings. The Lakers, meanwhile, have won 12 of their last 14.

Though they are currently the No. 7 and No. 2 seeds in the conference, respectively, they are suddenly the No. 1 teams that nobody in the NBA wants to play.

“That should build your belief,” Lakers coach JJ Redick told his team after they routed the Denver Nuggets, on a night when Doncic and James combined for 57 points and 12 assists. “It built my belief in what we can accomplish.”

The midseason trade is a tricky science in the NBA. Get it right—as the Houston Rockets did when they traded for Clyde Drexler in 1995—and it can spur a team to a championship. But even the biggest names are no guarantee of success. When the Phoenix Suns traded for Kevin Durant in 2023, a team that had flamed out in the conference semifinals a year earlier ended up…in the exact same spot.

Jimmy Butler celebrates with Stephen Curry. Photo: Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images

In the cases of the Warriors and Lakers, though, each team scoured the league for just the player it needed to solve specific problems. The Warriors already had Curry and his nightly barrage of 3-pointers, but struggled to generate offense in other ways. Enter Butler, the anti-Curry, who prefers to bludgeon his way to the rim.

“He’s like the exact opposite player of me, which is kind of funny,” Curry said. “He got to the free-throw line a lot. He’s dominating the paint, I’m dominating the outside…It has the potential to be really, really fun.”

James, meanwhile, had been called on to serve as both the Lakers’ de facto point guard and a primary scoring option, a tough ask for a player who turned 40 in December. Then Doncic—perhaps the most devastating pick-and-roll player in all of basketball—fell into Los Angeles’ lap.

Each of these new additions has put up fine numbers of their own. Their real effect, though, can be seen in how they have made their aging teammates play with a new lease on life.

With Doncic in the fold, James has bumped up his shooting percentage—helped by slamming down the full-court passes that Doncic delivers. Playing alongside Butler, meanwhile, Curry is averaging nearly eight more points a game, up to 30.6, while going from 43% shooting to 51%.

When James and Curry last faced off in a playoff series two seasons ago, it seemed to mark the end of their era of NBA dominance. The Lakers won that series, but after they were swept by Denver in the conference finals, James hinted that he was considering retirement. “Going forward with the game of basketball,” he said, “I’ve got a lot to think about.”

Luka Doncic reacts after a pass to LeBron James. Photo: Harry How/Getty Images

A new crop of star players—including a young supernova in Dallas named Luka Doncic—had sprung up in the Western Conference, making it increasingly difficult to see how these lions in winter could summon another charge at a championship.

Now, all of a sudden, the landscape looks entirely different. This year, the top of the conference standings are full of young teams like Houston and Memphis, who haven’t tasted real playoff success. The Oklahoma City Thunder have been dominant all season—but their core of players has won only a single playoff series, compared with James’s and Curry’s eight combined titles.

Nobody can claim that James and Curry are quite the players they were a decade ago, when they first clashed in the NBA Finals. But that may be the scariest thing for the rest of the basketball world: Now that their new teammates have arrived, they don’t need to be.