The NBA Finals begins tonight, featuring teams led by two of the best players in the game. We’ve got the all-around dominance of LeBron James, in his prime at age 27, to go against the young superstar Kevin Durant, always a great shooter and emerging as one of the league’s best at age 23.

So, who would you take for the next five years to build your team around? Many people might confuse team and individual here — Durant has younger star teammates in Russell Westbrook, James Harden and Serge Ibaka, and so Oklahoma City would appear to be better off, though impending free agency moves could change that.

But if you could start a team (or rebuild, say, the Denver Nuggets) with the 27-year old James or the 23-year old Durant, and the goal was to compete for the next five years with the greatest chance of winning multiple titles, who do you want?

There’s probably not a bad answer here. I would opt for James, because while he may have peaked over the last two years, his remaining best is probably still going to be at or near the top of the league for a few more years. Many of the players similar to James were still good through their early 30′s, even if the overall numbers dipped ever slightly. He can also guard four positions and will likely defend Durant more than the opposite in this series.

Durant, though, should close what remaining gap there is over that stretch. Some believe that he already has. You can’t just project Durant to keep climbing, but it is more likely than not that his greatest season is still to come some time in the next five years.

I tried to look back for other potential pairings where a 27-year old star player was slightly better in win shares over a 23-year old prodigy. There are not very many cases that are close. I had to expand it to players within a year of each other at those ages to just get to seven. Here are other “in his prime star” vs. “great young star” scenarios at the guard/forward positions where the 27-year old had win shares greater than 13.0, and had between 1.5 and 4.0 more win shares than a 23-year old. (LeBron’s win shares, pro-rated to a 82-game season, was 2.8 higher than Durant, and both were top three in the league).

I list the 27-year old first in each case. In parentheses, I list the next five years win shares for each.

  1. 2006 Kobe Bryant vs. 2005 Gilbert Arenas. (Kobe = 59.2, Arenas= 27.0)
  2. 2006 Shawn Marion vs. 2005 Dwyane Wade. (Marion = 35.2, Wade= 54.2)
  3. 2004 Kevin Garnett vs. 2003 Tracy McGrady. (Garnett = 61.7, McGrady= 38.9)
  4. 1990 John Stockton vs. 1990 Kevin Johnson. (Stockton = 65.1, KJ= 41.5)
  5. 1987 Magic Johnson vs. 1987 Charles Barkley. (Magic = 58.9, Sir Charles= 75.8)
  6. 1984 Adrian Dantley vs. 1983 Magic Johnson. (Dantley = 47.9, Magic= 61.8)
  7. 1984 Larry Bird vs. 1985 Terry Cummings. (Bird = 62.2, Cummings= 37.8)

The breakdown was four in favor of the 27-year old stars, three in favor of the 23-year old stars. Hardly anything decisive. Arenas was the only one in the group to have fewer than 35.0 WS over the next five years. It should be fun to see how this one shakes out over the next five years, and tonight’s Game One may just be a preview of battles to come.

[photo via US Presswire]