Tim Hardaway can see a star when he sees one. During his 14-year NBA career, Hardaway, a Hall of Fame point guard, faced several of them, including Michael Jordan.

When he watches Stephen Curry and LeBron James face off again in the NBA playoffs, just one analogy comes to mind.

“Michael Jackson and Prince,” said Hardaway. “You have to see it. That is how famous they are. They have control over the audience.”

In the Western Conference semifinals, James of the Los Angeles Lakers and Curry of the Golden State Warriors have the focus of the basketball world. It’s hardly the largest platform, as when they met in four consecutive NBA finals from 2015 to 2018, when James was in Cleveland. However, in the NBA, any stage is the most important. Together and alone, they have created a league for a generation in which individual players can influence a club’s destiny and change the larger culture more than stars in other team sports.

A Curry-James playoff series is the basketball equivalent of the Rolling Stones and the Beatles performing together. Like Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier, but with a little more gray and a lot more mutual regard. In basketball terms, this is comparable to Magic Johnson vs. Larry Bird in the 1980s.

But this year’s contest is particularly important. James, 38, and Curry, 35, are reaching the conclusion of careers that have transformed basketball, with no apparent successors to carry on the legacy. Curry’s mastery of the three-point shot ushered in a new age of long-distance shooting as the key offensive assault at all levels of basketball. James, a muscular 6-foot-9 and 250-pounder, has been physically hard to replicate, but he transformed the way basketball players saw their own potential to bend teams to their will and build political and social capital for themselves off the court.

This year’s playoff game may be the final time spectators watch two basketball players of this caliber compete against one other in the playoffs, which may explain why ticket prices for a non-championship series are shattering records.

“What is it going to be like when those two guys — obviously two of the biggest names in the league, if not the biggest — are gone?” Stephen Curry’s father, Dell Curry, is a former NBA player. “I think the league is very healthy as far as star power, but who takes the lead in that role?”