When the 2024 NBA Finals tips off Thursday in Boston, two of the world’s most prominent Muslim athletes will be competing against each other on basketball’s biggest stage. It should be a major moment for sports fans in the ummah, with two certified All-Stars representing the faith in front of a global audience of millions.

Of the handful of known Muslim players in the NBA, Jaylen Brown of the Boston Celtics and Kyrie Irving of the Dallas Mavericks are the most popular and recognizable of the bunch. And by the end of their teams’ best-of-seven series, one of them will be standing at the pinnacle of their sport, immortalized in NBA history as a champion.

Brown, 27, is a three-time All-Star wing who’s fresh off winning the Eastern Conference finals MVP award. He averaged 29.8 points, 5 rebounds and 2 steals per game in the Celtics’ sweep of the Indiana Pacers; his overtime-forcing shot in the final seconds of the fourth quarter of Game 1 was the most memorable moment of the series. Brown is, by just about every measure and metric, the second-best player on the Celtics (behind All-NBA forward Jayson Tatum), but this past offseason it was Brown who signed the richest contract in NBA history: a five-year, $304 million extension keeping him with the team that drafted him third overall in 2016. This will be his second Finals appearance after helping the Celtics make the 2022 Finals, which they lost to the Golden State Warriors.

Irving, 32, already has one championship on his resume, which he won with the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2016. On that team, Irving was the widely-viewed second option behind LeBron James; in Dallas, he’s No. 2 behind league scoring leader Luka Doncic. Irving, an eight-time All-Star guard, averaged 27 points and 4.6 assists in the Mavericks’ Western Conference finals triumph over the Minnesota Timberwolves. In narrative terms, this postseason has been one of redemption for Irving; not long ago he was saddled with a reputation among fans and media as something between a malcontent and a locker-room cancer. After requesting a trade from Cleveland in 2017, he had two unsuccessful and drama-filled stints with the Celtics (Irving and Brown were teammates for two years) and Brooklyn Nets before landing in Dallas (via another trade request). Thanks to winning games and not making any negative headlines lately, Irving has managed to flip the script about himself as a player and person.

Tatum and Doncic are the marquee faces of this Finals matchup, but Brown and Irving could easily steal the show, and one of them could end up hoisting the Finals MVP trophy. If that happens, the winner would add his name to a list of Muslim NBA Finals MVPs that includes Hakeem Olajuwon (1994, 1995), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1971, 1985) and Shaquille O’Neal (2000, 2001, 2002).

Brown and Irving are among the Muslim athletes who have observed Ramadan during their season or while in training. This past March, in the middle of the Islamic holy month that includes fasting during daylight hours, Irving said to reporters, “Ramadan is a special time. You try not to think about the suffering too much and really focus on the journey with God and the path that you’re on and just stay focused on that.” For his part, Brown said about Ramadan this season, “It’s an amazing time of the year. It’s a bunch of people all over the world who participate, and I’m just one of those people who just kind of falls in line. It’s an amazing month to celebrate. It’s about your strength, your focus.”

Publicly, Irving has been a bit more open about his faith, outright acknowledging that he practices Islam:

Brown hasn’t yet said those words in front of cameras, but one telltale sign was revealed when his phone’s prayer-time adhan alert went off during a press conference:

The next four to seven games can go a long way in defining the careers of Jaylen Brown and Kyrie Irving. Legacies can be made in the NBA Finals, but at the same time, negative stigmas can be super-glued to a player’s name.

A second championship as a key contributor could put Irving on par with sharpshooting Hall of Fame guards like Joe Dumars and Ray Allen, as well as move him higher up on the list of the league’s all-time great “second stars,” alongside the likes of Klay Thompson and Kevin McHale. But should the Mavericks lose, Irving’s recently silenced critics will come roaring back onto your social media timeline, and Irving will have to hang onto the “can’t win without LeBron” weight around his resume.

For Brown, winning his first championship allows him to enter conversations with all-time great players, whether it’s his standing in Celtics’ history, or among the best players of the 2020s. If Boston loses, Brown’s historically high salary gets thrown under the spotlight of scrutiny, and an 0-2 Finals record draws criticisms that he simply can’t win when the lights are brightest.

Whichever way the series goes, one of the NBA’s most recognizable Muslim figures will be on the winner’s podium at the end, reaping the rewards of their hard work and representing positively for the ummah.