Devin Booker offers reasoning why the NBA lacks rivalries
Over the last several seasons, NBA’s most storied rivalries–the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics; the New York Knicks and the Miami Heat; the Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers; the Chicago Bulls and Detroit Pistons–have faded away for various reasons.
There have also been famous individual rivalries throughout the league’s history, such as Larry Bird vs. Magic Johnson (the biggest reason why the Lakers-Celtics rivalry grew as big as it did); Michael Jordan vs. Isiah Thomas; Bill Russell vs. Wilt Chamberlain; and LeBron James vs. Stephen Curry. But those also haven’t carried over–there aren’t many (super)star NBA players that dislike each other outside of Luka Doncic and Devin Booker.
From a team perspective, the best rivalry in today’s NBA is arguably the Heat and Celtics, two Eastern Conference foes who have met in the Eastern Conference Finals in three of the last four seasons. But it does not carry the same vigor as the aforementioned battles.
Booker offered his reasoning as to why rivalries have not presented the same juice in today’s NBA as they used to.
“I’d say there’s no real rivalries because of grassroots basketball. A lot of these guys we’ve known for a really long time and I think people just realize that it’s not that deep half the time,” he said. “People always say they’re not really about to fight on the court, they’re really not about to do that. That’s a half-a-million-dollar fight like nobody should do that.
“I haven’t heard too many times that crazy lines were crossed on the court but it has happened and I’ve seen people handle it behind the scenes in the correct way like it should.”
In the age of social media, where current NBA stars have more accessibility to build relationships with one another, the degree of animosity hasn’t carried over. It’s not a bad thing, but true NBA rivalries are what the NBA great and fun.
Even geographically, the Sacramento Kings and Golden State Warriors have not always been good at the same time; the Lakers and Clippers never had any stakes before Kawhi Leonard and Paul George showed up in 2019; the Knicks and Nets … come on.
Outside of Miami and Boston (if you consider that a rivalry, do you think any rivalries will emerge? Let us know in the comments!
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