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SAN FRANCISCO -- Stephen Curry has his unanimous Most Valuable Player Award, the record-setting 73 regular-season wins he helped his team claim and an all-time best 402 3-point shots during that span.

Amazing.

So, perhaps just as much, is this: LeBron James, now entering his sixth consecutive NBA Finals, has never missed a single playoff game. Not one. Not ever. "That," Hall of Famer Gary Payton told me this week, "is a beast. That's the dedication he has."

For comparison's sake, Curry has missed six games to injury -- in these playoffs.

That's not to criticize Curry. Players get hurt. That's normal. That's life. That's basketball. LeBron knows this more than most. Last season, against the Warriors, his and Cleveland's title hopes were largely endangered because Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love went down to injuries.

So LeBron -- with all those miles and subsequent wear and tear -- had to try and do it himself. After logging 36.1 minutes per game in the regular season, he took on the Warriors alone and logged 45.7 minutes -- 45.7! -- and 35.8 points, 13.3 rebounds, 8.8 assists and 1.3 steals per game. In the Finals. Against the NBA's best defense.

That's the thing about LeBron, one of the many shades of gray that make it so hard for us to see his true colors. There is much to criticize, and praise, in a star who might be the most gifted basketball player we've ever seen. He is also one of its most divisive, in how we evaluate and categorize him. But what is beyond debate is that, for all the talk of great players' iron wills, LeBron James has done something as important, perhaps more difficult and wholly underrated: He's been the NBA's ironman.

Particularly in the postseason.

As ESPN's Tom Haberstroh recently noted, LeBron has played an NBA-leading 5,002 playoffs minutes heading into his sixth straight Finals appearance dating to the 2011 Finals. The second-most minutes go to former teammate Dwyane Wade, who has logged only 3,683 over that same span.

Again: Astounding.

There's more.

LeBron has averaged at least 40 playoffs minutes per game in nine of his 11 postseasons.

And if you include the regular season and the postseason, LeBron has played 530 games since he went to Miami in 2010, much more than any other player. That's 94 more games than Curry over the same span, the equivalent of an entire regular season and a couple of playoff series for good measure.

And that doesn't include LeBron's 199 minutes of Olympic basketball in 2012, or the 198 minutes he played in 2008. Also, by far, the most Olympics minutes logged by an American over that span.

What Curry has done this season is exceptional and worthy of praise. But let's also keep track of not just LeBron's uncanny gifts but his uncanny ability to deliver them, again and again and again, in the playoffs.

Always, when talking about LeBron's skill or Curry's recent accomplishments, follows this point: None of this -- not Curry nor the Warriors' great season, not LeBron's iron consistency -- add up to nearly as much without a championship to go with them. Fair enough. No argument here.

But, in looking at LeBron's history of playing through pain and avoiding or ignoring injury, there's one more important fact to weigh before the NBA Finals begin here on Thursday in the Bay Area.

LeBron James is as rested as he's ever been in his career.

So far this season, he has averaged fewer regular-season minutes per game (35.6) and fewer postseason minutes per game (37.9) than at any point since he arrived in the league. The player who is perhaps the most durable in the history of the game will enter the 2016 NBA Finals with a mettle rarely seen combined with a level of relative rest he's never had.

We don't give LeBron James enough credit for overcoming the pains, pitfalls and bad luck of age, fatigue and a long regular season and career.