Throughout sports, rivalries make so many games that much more anticipated and intense. Even with nothing on the line, facing off with a rival raises the stakes. The Los Angeles Lakers have had plenty of rivals throughout their history with some going on for years and others just starting to grow in recent times.
The biggest one for the Lakers will always be the Boston Celtics, which stretches back to the 1960s, but others have popped up over time as well. The Sacramento Kings became a fierce rival in the early 2000s with many altercations and fights happening during that time while the San Antonio Spurs also were a rival at that time as the two regularly battled in the playoffs with the winner often going on to win the NBA Championship.
With the 2023-24 schedule now released, the NBA is again doing its annual ‘Rivalry Week,’ which will take place from Jan. 23-27. All nationally televised games will feature some sort of rivalry game and the Lakers will appear twice that week, facing off with the Los Angeles Clippers and Golden State Warriors, via NBA PR:
Classic and budding rivalries between teams and players will take center stage for the second annual NBA Rivals Week.
Rivalries will be the focus of all 11 nationally televised games across four networks over five days from Jan. 23-27. pic.twitter.com/mmZClxnmAv
— NBA Communications (@NBAPR) August 17, 2023
The Clippers and Warriors are two of the more recent Lakers rivals, but there is no doubt that games with these two teams have been more fierce over the past few seasons. The Lakers and Clippers is usually referred to as the ‘Battle of L.A’ and the rivalry really picked up in 2019 when Kawhi Leonard spurned the Lakers to join the Clippers, bringing Paul George with him.
While the Clippers have actually dominated this rivalry as of late, winning 11 straight games, the Lakers still have a championship in this era, which the Clippers do not and the rafters inside the Crypto.com Arena are a reminder of who runs the city. Recent championship success is not something the Lakers can lord over the Warriors, however.
Golden State has been the standard of the NBA over nearly the last decade with four NBA Championships since 2015. But the longstanding rivalry between LeBron James and Warriors superstar Stephen Curry has transferred over to spark a rivalry between these two squads. Additionally, the Lakers defeated the Warriors in the first Play-In Game in 2021 and eliminated Golden State in the second round of last season’s playoffs as well.
With the slate of games that week also featuring the likes of Celtics-Heat, Suns-Mavericks and Warriors-Kings, there will definitely be a ton of anticipated games to tune in for.
Darvin Ham looking forward to Lakers depth coming together
The other important thing is for the Lakers to come out on top in these contests and the team certainly has the talent to be one of the best in the league this year. Head coach Darvin Ham loves the amount of depth the Lakers have assembled and is looking forward to bringing everything together once the season begins.
Ham believes the Lakers are close to a championship team with their combination of returning players and new additions, and preached the importance of the team coming together and being willing to sacrifice as vital on their quest to hoisting the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
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