Soccer has never drawn a bigger American audience than it has this summer, with plenty of NBA fans enjoying their introduction to the Beautiful Game.
The 2026 World Cup is in full swing across the United States, Canada and Mexico, and the buzz has pulled in even the most devoted American sports obsessors.
Lionel Messi is breaking records, the goals are flying in, and the sport the rest of the world calls football has never felt this big in North America.
If every NBA superstar had a soccer twin currently at the tournament, who would it be? Here is the closest match for each of the league’s defining names, from the old guard to the young stars of both sports.
NBA Superstars and their soccer twins
LeBron James & Lionel Messi
The easy one. Two athletes who have owned their sports for the better part of two decades and somehow still set the standard.
James, now 41, has held the Lakers together through an injury-hit season. Messi, at 39, is leading the World Cup in scoring and has just become its all-time leading scorer.
Messi’s claim to the GOAT throne is the more undisputed of the two, but make no mistake, these are the defining athletes of this generation.
Victor Wembanyama & Lamine Yamal
Generational talents who keep clearing every impossibly high bar set for them.
Yamal was tormenting defenders at Euro 2024 before he turned 18, and is now the heartbeat of both Barcelona and Spain. He’s also arguably the best player in the world.
You could claim the same about Wembanyama. In only his third NBA season, he was named Defensive Player of the Year and dragged the Spurs all the way to the Finals.
Neither has come close to a ceiling yet, and that should worry everyone else.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander & Ousmane Dembele
Two players who took the slow road to the summit.
Gilgeous-Alexander is a back-to-back NBA MVP, while Dembele won the 2025 Ballon d’Or after firing Paris Saint-Germain to the Champions League title.
Both are also impossible to shade onto one side — Dembele equally dangerous off either foot, Gilgeous-Alexander just as comfortable driving left or right.
The Frenchman carried far more hype early and took years to deliver on it. Gilgeous-Alexander flew under the radar. But they both arrived in the same place.
Stephen Curry & Cristiano Ronaldo
Forever cast as the 1B to a great rival’s 1A — Curry to LeBron James, Ronaldo to Messi — yet both changed their sports on their own terms.
Curry turned the three-pointer into the centerpiece of any basketball game, and nobody would shoot the way teams do now if not for him. Ronaldo set the standard of the modern forward with physical perfection and technical mastery.
Two obsessives, two global icons. They might not have mastered the game in the same way, but master it they did.
Luka Doncic & Neymar
Neymar was long tipped to inherit the throne from Messi, but injuries and the weight of expectation meant he never fully stepped out of the shadow.
Doncic, now leading the line in Los Angeles, is still chasing his first MVP and the mantle James will eventually hand over.
Both are pure theater — capable of moments only they could imagine, the kind that make you stop whatever you are doing to watch.
But Neymar was held back from his full potential by injuries and alleged attitude problems. It’s up to the much younger Doncic to make sure he fulfils his potential.
Nikola Jokic & Rodri
Watch either of their teams without them and the comparison makes itself. The Denver Nuggets and Man City both take a significant dip the moment their star man steps off the pitch/court.
Neither wins on athleticism. Jokic, a three-time MVP, controls a game’s tempo with passes nobody else sees; Rodri does the same from deep in midfield, dictating when his side speeds up and when it slows down.
Both make it look easy, almost dull, but everything runs through them.
Giannis Antetokounmpo & Erling Haaland
Physical forces of nature who win by being bigger, faster and stronger than everyone around them.
Critics call both one-dimensional — Antetokounmpo bullies his way to the rim, Haaland lives in the box and punishes anything that drops to him — but the simplicity is the point, because it works.
Off the field, both are light-hearted, quick with a joke, and great people to have around the dressing room. On it, they are about the last opponent anyone wants to face.
Jalen Brunson & Harry Kane
Brunson left Dallas to become the heartbeat of the New York Knicks, the player a whole system runs through, and this season he delivered the lot — Finals MVP as New York won its first championship in 53 years.
Kane’s story isn’t too different. Years at Tottenham, unable to get over the line and win a trophy, then a move to Bayern Munich to snatch the silverware that had always escaped him.
Two do-it-all, offensive juggernauts who can just as easily score every point or goal as they can get all their teammates involved.
Cade Cunningham & Michael Olise
A pure vibes match. Both are smooth, unhurried, and capable of looking like the best player out there on any given night.
Cunningham broke through as a genuine superstar this season, running the Detroit Pistons as a big, silky playmaker who can also pull up and score. Olise did the same at Bayern Munich — a graceful creator with end product, equally happy threading the pass or finishing the move.
Cool customers who make the hard stuff look effortless. And it wouldn’t be a shock to see either win the Ballon d’Or or MVP in the coming years.
Anthony Edwards & Kylian Mbappe
Freakish athletes built to be the next face of their sport.
Edwards was anointed the heir to James and Curry; Mbappé was crowned the successor to Messi and Ronaldo. Neither title is guaranteed anymore — the rise of Gilgeous-Alexander, Dembele, Wembanyama and Yamal means the crown is up for grabs.
But with that blend of power, speed and self-belief, nobody is writing off either man. Defenders certainly aren’t enjoying the assignment.
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