10 NBA Superstars We Wish Played With LeBron James

Dwyane Wade. Anthony Davis. Kyrie Irving. Luka Dončić. Chris Bosh. 

LeBron James already had quite the rolodex of superstars-in-their-prime running mates. After joining the Philadelphia 76ers, he now adds Tyrese Maxey, Jaylen Brown and near-his-prime Joel Embiid to the catalog.  

And that could be it.

LeBron has indicated this latest decision will be his last. He could always back-track. Or the Sixers could add another superstar at some point over the next two seasons. But there is a real possibility his superstar-teammate CV has reached its conclusion.

That got us thinking: Which other A-listers do we most wish could have played alongside LeBron?

After hours upon hours of agonizing over this question (seriously), we've cobbled together the definitive top-10 wishlist.

Rankings do not take into account feasibility. LeBron had the option or outside chance to play with many of these names. But consideration is given to the prospective basketball fits, entertainment value and emotional components more than anything else. 

Former players are eligible for inclusion so long as they played at a superstar level following LeBron's entry into the league. Partnerships during the Olympics or All-Star games were thrown out the window. 

These are pairings we long to have seen for an entire NBA season. At least.

10. Cooper Flagg

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BuT CoOpEr FlAgG iSn'T a SuPeRsTaR.

Yet.

The last rookie to have as many points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks as Cooper Flagg was Michael Jordan. Flagg is on the superstar track. And he's close enough to actualizing the label that we can put him above more entrenched names who aren't as compelling.

Make no bones about it, Flagg's early trajectory is part of the appeal here. His all-around skill set is arguably the closest analog to LeBron's own outlook upon entering the NBA. Flagg has the clear edge as a defensive prospect. LeBron had him beat as a ball-handler and passer.

Picture Flagg honing his offensive craft under LeBron's tutelage. There may be a generational gap between them, but they could have related as red-carpet prospects who were shoehorned into primary ball-handling responsibilities from the jump of their careers.

For anyone who's still salty about this ever-so-slight deviation, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander can take Flagg's place. LeBron has never played with his brand of one-on-one scorer. Kyrie Irving and Dwyane Wade had their own brand of shiftiness, but both went about putting the ball in the hoop in different ways.

9. Damian Lillard

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Damian Lillard would do an excellent job of approximating the LeBron James-Stephen Curry experience we never got. His shooting knows no limits, and though he's not the same off-ball mover and shaker as Curry, he's comparably shifty when working with a live dribble.

The potential for crunch-time heroics here would have been off the charts during their heydays. Couple LeBron's get-to-the-hoop-at-will drives with Dame's knack for knocking down impossible jumpers, and their team probably wins 85 to 95 percent of all one-possession games inside the final two minutes.

You won't find a better locker-room culture cultivator on this list than Lillard, either. All of his teammates (non-LaMarcus Aldridge division) have always seemed like they'd follow him on a one-way trip to hell even if he didn't ask for their company.

That brand of leadership diverges from LeBron's approach. He's not a bad person to have at the helm, but he can be colder and more calculated.

His barely disguised displeasure with various situations over the years, as well as his open recruitments of others, let most other players around him know he viewed them as expendable to the championship cause. Dame's us-against-the-world touch would have provided a nice counterbalance to an at times cranky-seeming iron frist.

8. Kawhi Leonard

We know LeBron James wants to play with Kawhi Leonard. He and Anthony Davis tried recruiting the Fun Guy to Los Angeles as a free agent in 2019.

Technically, they succeeded. Except Kawhi chose the Clippers instead of the Lakers.

The basketball fit between these two is intuitive. Leonard can drive the offense as both an on- and off-ball scorer. LeBron does the same while adding generational table-setting. His durability would have offset any time Kawhi missed, too.

No matter when they linked up, Leonard's suffocating defense would provide LeBron with stopping power he's never played alongside. Jaylen Brown is probably the best perimeter pest of all the stars James has played beside, and they haven't actually played together yet.

Plopping these two together at any point over the past seven years would have offered a nice story-arc bookend as well. One of Kawhi's earliest claims to fame was his defense on LeBron in the 2013 and 2014 Finals. Many then thought he usurped James as the league's consensus best player after his 2019 title run with the Toronto Raptors.

When's the last time the league's top two players were on the same team? The 2019-20 Lakers might be the answer.

The big question: Would LeBron's demeanor coax Kawhi out of his public shell? Or would it have grated on him so hard that he fled the country sooner?

7. Anthony Edwards

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Anthony Edwards would have always been a candidate to make this list. He'd offer a peek into what it'd be like if LeBron James played alongside Donovan Mitchell and Dwyane Wade at the same time. 

Yet, Edwards' case graduated to a top-10 surety immediately after his recruiting pitch to LeBron on behalf of the Minnesota Timberwolves. Consider this from Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic:

"During one of several conversations he had with James, Edwards playfully told him if he didn't make a decision soon, he would tear off James' head, according to league sources briefed on the conversation. James laughed and asked Edwards what would happen if he chose another team. Edwards didn't hesitate, telling him that would be OK, because that just meant he could tear off James's head on the court when their two teams met."

Krawczynski repeatedly makes it clear that Edwards' comments were all in good fun. Even with that caveat, this is adjacent to the time Kobe Bryant tried selling Dwight Howard on a return to the Los Angeles Lakers by telling D12 he could teach him how to win.

As if we needed further proof that an Ant-LeBron pairing would have been a polarizing mix of personalities. Both do a good job of balancing their maniacal work ethic with a certain levity. But LeBron is in his dad-joke era, while Edwards is more of an edgelord, as he reiterated with his sales pitch.

Combining the two could result in a synergistic push-and-pull. Or it could have combusted. Either way, it'd be entertaining as hell.

6. Chris Paul

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Banana boat crew for life.

LeBron James teamed up with everyone on that infamous Bahamas vacation. Except Chris Paul.

Granted, LeBron didn't link up with Carmelo Anthony—who was on the trip but not the banana boat—until Melo was on his way out of the NBA. He still did it. And he joined forces with Dwyane Wade twice.

Peak CP3 and LeBron would have been a site to behold. With the exception of Kyrie Irving, none of the four-time champ's other big-name bros could break down defenders like apex Paul.

Even Kyrie never did so in a way that suggested he derived perverse pleasure from humiliating anyone in front of him. The share of CP3's shots that came at the rim post-2007 would have doubled if he didn't attack mismatches with the sole purpose of feeding meme culture.

Other than one fever-dream collaboration to come, a LeBron-Paul alliance would boast an all-time collective IQ. They are two of the greatest passers and half-court manipulators ever to grace the hardwood.

We also can't discount the potential for drama behind the scenes. Paul is notoriously grating. He didn't finish what turned out to be his final NBA season because of an unstoppable impulse to offer input. LeBron, meanwhile, prefers to rebel and communicate in thinly veiled terms.

This partnership would have been amazing on the court. It may have come to opposing tour de forces off it.

5. Kevin Durant

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The basketball fit for Kevin Durant and LeBron James is a no-notes theoretical. They complement one another perfectly. An inevitable lack of off-ball movement and creativity from at least one of them is the primary force driving this twosome outside the top four.

Never mind basketball, though. These two might be the most passive-aggressive superstar provocateurs of all time. But they carry out their subversive ventures in vastly different ways.

LeBron is liable to making veiled comments through the media and with subtweets. KD prefers to disseminate his most controversial thoughts using burner accounts, but also openly engages with trolls more. 

Does one approach rub off on the other? Are they a perfect complement? Or would this be an oil-and-water situation? Do they deploy their strategies together, in service of each other? Or are they more likely to target one another?

Regardless of how successful the basketball pairing would be/could have been, the scope and scale of the anonymous-sourced slop coming from this hypothetical locker room would demand its own wing in Springfield.

4. Tim Duncan

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Look, we can't lie to you: A LeBron James-Tim Duncan collaboration is most intriguing because of the stark contrast in how they operated. 

Duncan embodied restrained megastardom. He did not publicly agitate. He did not apply overt or implicit pressure on his front office. He probably still hasn't heard of social media.

LeBron, on the other end, has embraced the spectacle of his megastardom. His play style is the intersection of flash and substance. His off-court approach can be passive-aggressive. He podcasts. He tweets. And subtweets. 

Apart from watching how this two-man game would evolve, the disparity in their personalities both on and off the floor would have been an absolute, anarchic joy to watch. 

3. Victor Wembanyama

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Putting Victor Wembanyama and LeBron James on the same team would have a cascading effect on the rest of the league. The San Antonio Spurs would enter next year as heavy title favorites. De'Aaron Fox's name would never leave the trade machine. League Pass would expand to markets outside our solar system. 

Anyone who doesn't want to see how a Wemby-Bron pairing fares should be tried for crimes against generational awesomeness and curiosity.

These are two of the hardest-working superstars in the game today. They want you to know it, too. Had LeBron chosen the Spurs, they'd already have a viral video of them working together out at 4 a.m., mean-mugged in an empty gymnasium excavated in the middle of a mountain specifically for the moment, alongside Tibetan monks.

To that end, LeBron clearly cared about the optics of his decision. The Sixers are a fascinating destination for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which is that the 41-year-old clearly wanted to join a ready-made contender while skirting the dreaded "ring-chaser" label. 

LeBron would not have avoided that label had he teamed up with Wemby. Let the record reflect that those accusations would have been stupid.

Sure, the Spurs just made the Finals without him. But a dearth of crunch-time game management did them in against the Knicks. LeBron would have added that in spades while arming San Antonio with the optimal mentor for Dylan Harper and Stephon Castle.

Plus, as dominant as Wemby already is, there's something to be said for a four-time MVP on his way out hitching his sunset to the up-and-comer with the best chance of challenging LeBron and Michael Jordan for the greatest-of-all-time throne.

2. Nikola Jokić

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LeBron James and Nikola Jokić would have formed perhaps the highest-IQ twosome in NBA history. There is no reality in which their hardwood marriage wouldn't have resulted in offensive nirvana.

Imagine LeBron being on the receiving end of Jokić's half-court sorcery in the Aaron Gordon role. Or even the Jamal Murray role. Think of how many outlet passes he'd catch, rather than throw, for a change.

Then, think about LeBron chucking outlet passes to a scampering Jokić. Or hitting him on the roll. Or dishing him entry passes. Or—fine, you get the point. 

This theoretical pairing gets a rankings boost because LeBron apparently considered the Denver Nuggets when weighing his options this summer. Basketball sickos were smitten by even the loosest link between the two. And, of course, at the thought of Jokić showing LeBron the horse-racing ropes (reins?). 

1. Stephen Curry

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LeBron James could have turned the Stephen Curry partnership into a reality this summer. He chose the proximity to championship contention over tugging at millennial heartstrings and basketball libidos.

It is a respectable decision. It also doesn't make his latest free-agency dangling the dream only to yank it away any less painful.

Steph is a superstar teammate unlike any other LeBron has operated alongside. None of his other marquee running mates could work defenses into implosion with their off-ball movement. 

LeBron-led teams have received criticism in the past for a lack of motion when he dominates the rock. We know that wouldn't be an issue with Steph. He is more synonymous with "gravity" than Sandra Bullock, the kind of superstar for whom you shape-shift, largely because he's so adaptable himself.

There is not a more emotional what-could-have-been on this list. These two dueled in the Finals. They won gold medals together. They both golf now. Above all, they are the faces for an entire generation or three of NBA fans. 

Watching them (potentially) ride off into the sunset together would have left us punch-drunk. 

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Dan Favale is a National NBA Writer for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Bluesky (@danfavale), and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, co-hosted by Bleacher Report's Grant Hughes.