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Once you experience the thrill of victory, it becomes irresistible.

For the ultra-competitive, like Stephen Curry, once you taste it, it's why you keep playing the game. Winning a fifth NBA ring is what keeps him going,

he said to Monte Poole and Dalton Johnson on NBC Sports’ Bay Area’s “Dubs Talk.”

"Honestly, it's the only thing I'm really playing for at this point. It's the only thing that matters in the sense of accomplishment...

"I still love to play the game. I still love to come to work every day. Basketball is still fun for me. The challenge of trying to figure out how to win on a nightly basis, I still get up for it."

Curry's comments echo those of LeBron James, who came home with a gold medal from the Paris Olympics with talks about how winning fired him up.

"It felt damn good, it felt great, to play meaningful basketball, to play for the highest level..." LeBron said of Paris on Lakers Media Day. "That fire and desire was brought back to me."

Both Curry's Warriors (10-3) and LeBron's Lakers (10-4) are off to fast starts, although both players and teams face questions of sustainability — can these older teams play at this level in April and May? And, ideally, June?

To prove that they can play at that level again, and to get that feeling one more time, is why LeBron and Curry are still going at it as hard as they are. Winning is addictive like that.