Given an improbable choice, which golden hoop phenom would you prefer: Kevin Durant or Kawhi Leonard?

Like an eclipse of the moon, the N.B.A. playoffs this season offer an unusual crossing of shadows. Two of the league’s five best players can become free agents on July 1, and no one other than an agent or a favorite uncle has a clue where they might wash ashore.

Most attention has focused on Durant, that preternaturally talented seven-foot forward possessed of a feathery touch and a hawk’s eye for a cutting teammate. He has won consecutive championships with the Golden State Warriors, and the chatter is that he might decamp to the Knicks and try to reanimate a long ago flatlined team.

The encoded assumption is that Durant would be the pick of a fine free-agent litter.

Now, Leonard has shouldered his way into that conversation. He had already tossed up an improbable falling-out-of-bounds, game-winning shot; snared one-handed rebounds; and wrapped Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Milwaukee Bucks’ transcendent star, in an iron-claw defensive embrace. Then, on Thursday night, limping and no longer airborne, he unpacked his every move, scoring 35 points on an assortment of floaters and jumpers and put-backs. He also dished nine assists and pulled down seven rebounds to give the Toronto Raptors a three-games-to-two lead in their Eastern Conference finals series.