Few rivalries in NBA history match the Boston Celtics’ Bill Russell against the Los Angeles Lakers‘ Jerry West. Although West became “The Logo,” he went 0-6 against Russell in the Finals, remarkable given his dominance.
The one rivalry that made the NBA popular was Larry Bird vs. Magic Johnson, with the Celtics and Lakers meeting three times in four years, Magic holding a 2-1 edge.
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After them came the fierce Eastern Conference battles between the Detorit Pistons and Chicago Bulls, on which Isiah Thomas knocked out Michael Jordan three straight seasons before MJ finally got his revenge with a sweep in the 1991 ECF.
Shaq reminisced about those years and rivalries
Then dominance moved back to the Western Conference, and with Shaquille O’Neal in L.A. and Tim Duncan with the San Antonio Spurs, a new rivalry was born. Although that one wasn’t as highlighted back then, those were some great battles in retrospect. Duncan ended up 3-2 in the overall record, but interestingly, all five matchups happened in the first round.
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“’80s were tougher, more physical, but our era was the best basketball,” Shaq said. “Like I argue with Chuck and them all the time. They be trying to put this teams together as rivalries. We had real rivalries. Our rivalry was so bad. His [Mike Bibby] boys tried to jump me; it was serious. But to the point that’s how much we cared, that’s how much we wanted to win.”
The Kings were also one of the teams with whom the Lakers had great battles for three straight seasons, with two of those series even going to do-or-die games.
The Lakers had to fight hard to go through the Kings
Shaq was referring to Mike Bibby, who hosted the podcast, highlighting one of the better rivalries of that period. The Sacramento Kings and Shaq’s Lakers had multiple battles in the early 2000s, with Serbian duo Vlade Divac and Peja Stojakovic leading the Kings.
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The teams met in the playoffs for three consecutive seasons. First, the Kings shocked the Lakers in the opening round as the 8th seed, pushing the Lakers to win Game 5. The following season was a 4-0 sweep in the WCSF, and it all culminated in the epic 2002 Western Conference Finals, where the Lakers edged Sacramento 112-106 in Game 7.
That rivalry was one of the best of the time, and the fact that Shaq recalls it over 20 years later speaks for itself. Though the Lakers were always the favorites, they had to fight hard to go through Sacramento. The difficulty of that 2002 series is best reflected in Phil Jackson’s words about how tough of a test the Kings were.
“I played Shaq so many minutes out there, I thought he was gonna need a stretcher,” the 11-time coaching champion said. “We had to really squeeze everything out of this ballclub to win it. They did a great job.”
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Era of parity
Of course, there have been other great rivalries, but today, they are rare. Even though we shouldn’t forget the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2010s, led by LeBron James and Stephen Curry, meeting in the Finals four consecutive seasons. Despite the 3-1 overall record, suggesting it was easy, the Cavs’ 2016 comeback from 1-3 against a 73-9 team is historic.
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Today, we live in an era of parity, with seven different champions in the last seven seasons, far from the concept of true rivalries. At one point, it seemed a great rivalry could emerge between Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid after their intense MVP battle two seasons ago. Still, injuries have prevented that, at least for now.
We are far from the days when Kobe obsessively studied Allen Iverson just to get better than him in every aspect of the game. There are countless examples from that era, and we could talk about these rivalries endlessly, which only proves O’Neal has a point.
This story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Aug 29, 2025, where it first appeared in the Off The Court section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.