Talk:List of NBA rivalries

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Historic Rivalries

Other than Celtics-Lakers, what other rivalries would be considered historic (i.e. lasting throughout most of or a significant portion of the league's lifetime)? Celtics-Hawks, not added here yet, would be another. Just thinking about having a seperate portion for historic rivalries just to seperate the shorter-lived and more recent rivalries from the most enduring ones.

DaDoc540 (talk) 20:56, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"It Ain't a Rivalry!"

I think it is time to remove certain rivalries from this page and delete the corresponding pages for them. If Cavs-Wizards is not a rivalry, then what is Lakers-Kings? Other than a few soundbites from the Lakers, a couple of scuffles, and three series all in favor of one team, is this really a rivalry worth mentioning on the rivalries page? (Of course, Lakers-Kings might still be mentioned on the respective team pages, more so for the Kings, but not outside of that.)

DaDoc540 (talk) 20:56, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Cavs-Wizards

Charles Barkley once said that it "ain't a rivalry" unless the other team (the underdog) wins. Ironically, Sir Charles just inserted himself into this recently when he called the Wizards the "stupidest team" for taunting Lebron James.

Now that the teams meet yet again, and thanks to recent comments by DeShawn Stevenson, Cavs-Wizards (unless the Wizards win it all first or take the lead in the overall playoff series score, Cavs are first, much like Celtics-Hawks and Lakers-Kings) is a rivalry. However, we will need many sources, especially about what happened between Lebron and both DeShawn and Agent Zero.

Here is specifically what we sources for:

2006 NBA Playoffs, First Round: Lebron James hits GW FGs in Games 3 and 5. Gilbert Arenas hits OT-forcing long 3 pt FG in Game 6. James tells Arenas, about to shoot two potential GW FTs, something resembling, "If you miss these, it's over." Arenas misses both FTs, and Damon Jones hits the series-winning FG.
2008: Lebron misses a 3 pt FG at the end of a Cavs-Wizards game in Washington and loses. DeShawn Stevenson calls James, "Overrated". James compares himself to Jay-Z and Stevenson to Soulja Boy.
Following up on the James-Stevenson taunting, Arenas writes in his blog that he and his teammates would like to face the Cavs and expect to win, mentioning the Cavs' near-.500 record after the Ben Wallace trade and the belief that it is difficult for any team to beat another team in the playoffs for three consecutive times. (I personally think Agent Zero chose not state the obvious: the Wizards probably do not want to face division rival Orlando Magic, do not want to face the Pistons, and certainly do not want to face the Celtics in the first round.)
Charles Barkley calls the Wizards the "stupidest team" for the recent back and forth between the teams, believing that Lebron will do to the Wizards what he did to the Raptors in Toronto when a Raptor fan taunted James (could use a source on this too).

DaDoc540 (talk) 02:41, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Major Rivalries to add:

Philadelpha 76ers vs. Los Angeles Lakers: The Sixers and the Lakers clashed in the Finals three times in the 1980s (1980, 1982, and 1983), with the Lakers winning the first two meetings and the Sixers sweeping in 1983.

New York Knickerbockers vs. Minneapolis Lakers & Los Angeles Lakers: There existed a rivalry between the New York Knickerbockers and the Lakers (during both the Minneapolis and the Los Angeles eras). The Minneapolis Lakers and the New York Knicks met in the 1952 and 1953 Finals with the Lakers winning both confrontations.

By the time the Lakers moved to the Great Western Forum in Inglewood, California, the Knicks-Lakers rivalry took on different meanings: East vs. West, Broadway vs. Hollywood. In 1970, 1972, and 1973, the New York Knicks and Los Angeles Lakers met in the Finals. The Knicks won in 1970 (which featured Willis Reed's inspirational joining with his Knick teammates despite injury) and 1973, while the Lakers won in 1972 (the same year they posted a then-record in regular season wins-losses: 69-13).

DaDoc540 21:26, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

More Rivalries

Being the only two teams to remain in their original cities, the Boston Celtics and New York Knickerbockers often consider each other rivals. Whichever team was in Philadelphia (Warriors or 76ers) also engaged in such rivalries.

In the 1990s, there were various Western Conference rivalries among title contenders: the Houston Rockets, Phoenix Suns, San Antonio Spurs, Seattle Supersonics, and Utah Jazz.

More recently, anytime two Texas teams faced each other (particularly the Mavs-Spurs playoff matchups of 2001 and 2003 and the Mavs-Rockets matchup in 2005), the matchup was known as the Texas Shootout.

I am surprised no one has mentioned Lakers-Blazers yet. If Lakers-Kings is on here, then Lakers-Blazers counts as well. DaDoc540 23:20, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with DaDoc540 Blazers/Lakers has been a great, heated rivalry since 1977 after the Blazers swept the Lakers in the west finals. Every year these teams split the season series. even if both teams aren't that good each team gets up for these games and plays some of their best basketball of the year. MrM 10:08, 17 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Update: The Atlanta Hawks with Dominique Wilkins and Boston Celtics with Larry Bird met three times in the NBA postseason: 1982 in a best-of-three-games first round (Boston won 2-1), 1986 in the Eastern Conference Semifinals (Boston won 4-1), and 1988 in a memorable shootout between Wilkins and Bird during the Eastern Conference Semifinals (Boston won 4-3). DaDoc540 06:55, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yo, nobodys mentioned da Wizards vs. Cavaliers rivalr. I mean dude das a cold rivalry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.109.75.130 (talk) 23:07, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Split Artcile

Does anyone else think this aricle should be broken up into seperate articles for every rivalry or team? As it is now, I think it's hard to read and strangely organized. I think each team should have an article listing their rivalries with other teams all in one article. It could also be put on the team's main article or atlaest linked to. Bryan the Magnificent 07:51, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just to clerify exactly what I mean, each team would have a section entitled Rivalries on their main page. It would mainly be from that team's perspective. Another article written from another team's perspective about the same rivalry would be on that team's page. So the Lakers would have an article on the Laker/Celtic rivalry explaining things that happened to the Lakers (for the most part). The Celtics would have a section about the same rivalry but it would tell about the Celtic players and Celtic related things more than the Lakers article would.

OR

Have a new page created called something like "Rivalries of (Team)" or "(Team) rivalries)" and put a link to the new article on the team's main entry.

Another thing we could do is have a Rivalry section in the Division and Conference articles. It would list only the rivalries among teams in that division or conference.

Bryan the Magnificent 21:45, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The common procedure is to create subpages while still mentioning all the information in the main article. Quadzilla99 18:35, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I looked at other "Rivalries" pages and found them to be cleaner and more brief. This page could use some major fixing up, such as removing rivalries that aren't as established (the Bulls/Jazz rivalry only lasted two years, if it existed) and shortening descriptions to put the major information on seperate pages, such as the Bulls-Pistons Rivalry page.

DaDoc540 04:17, 24 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Phoenix Suns/Portland Trail Blazers Rivalry?

I'm not sure if it's a notable rivalry for the NBA. I mean, the Phoenix Suns believe that they've been a major rival to the organization ever since the 1980's, but I rarely hear about this rivalry at all. So, can anyone help me out on whether it's a notable rivalry for the NBA or not? If so, thanks. - AGreatPhoenixSunsFan (talk) 10:25, 28 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Your comments seem to echo several others on this page. A question should be asked before putting a supposed rivalry on this page: would the average NON-viewing NBA "fan" likely tune in to watch the matchup? The Suns and Trail Blazers play in the same division so it's hard not to think the fans of both markets wouldn't label a matchup between the two as a rivalry, but in all likelihood, would garner little interest from fans outside of those markets, let alone people that generally don't watch the NBA unless it's playoff time or a bona fide rivalry. Another good question to ask is: would fans in a different region watch this game/series? Perhaps one way we could go about establishing this would be to get a hold of some TV ratings. Zepppep34 (talk) 11:45, 17 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Cavs/Wizards

The crab dribble needs to be mentioned here somewhere. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.88.32.67 (talk) 21:20, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]