Top 10 Individual NBA Rivalries of All Time

This is a rivalry that sometimes gets skipped over, but that doesn’t make it any less present. Carter brought basketball to prominence in Toronto, but never ultimately delivered the goods. What’d he do then? He tanked his final season with the Raps and then ran out of Canada without looking back. That’ll get a fire blazing.

There’s no denying that Howard was at his best when he was playing under Van Gundy in Orlando. There’s also no escaping the fact that Dwight butted heads with the coach and took the first chance he had to get SVG away from the Magic, even if that ultimately didn’t keep Howard around.

Two bruising bigs from the 90s that had battles on the court obviously constitutes a solid rivalry. What’s more, these two appeared in the squared circle for the now defunct WCW in 1999. No other NBA rivals have that claim.

This rivalry hasn’t grown from any one moment and you could argue that fans and the media also perpetuate it more than it has played out on the floor. Regardless, Kobe and LeBron are linked in this era of the NBA and will always be compared as rivals.

The game’s best young, up-and-coming big men and the arguably the most talented big man ever faced off in big moments in the mid-90s. If that’s not an organic environment for a respectful rivalry, then we must have been watching different matchups between Shaq and Hakeem.

These two guys have been in the league together for quite some time and simply haven’t lost any love for each other. It’s not everyday that two all-time quality big men are in the league at the virtual same stages of their careers and competing with each other at the highest level, so it’s no surprise that Duncan and KG were after one another from Jump Street.

They were once holding trophies together in Los Angeles, but that soured extremely quickly and got ugly. Shaq and Kobe will forever be a part of the great “what ifs” in this league’s history, wondering how many titles they could’ve won had they been able to coexist. Instead, an all-time rivalry was born from their split.

Two old-time and all-time greats were always pitted against one another when the league was still not even remotely at the popularity that it’s now at. While Wilt may have the stats and the records to boast, Russell has 11 rings. It’s a rivalry and debate that still goes on today.

One of the things that makes Jordan the greatest of all-time was his ability to motivate himself. He created grudges, rivalries and slights to push himself to a new level of performance. Considering the result of that mentality, whoever Jordan was creating a rivalry with on any given night is a part of one of the best rivalries ever.

Magic-Bird is an iconic time in the NBA and the league wouldn’t be signing multi-billion dollar TV deals if it weren’t for these two guys starting their rivalry at the college ranks and carrying it throughout their entire NBA careers. They traded heavyweight blows for over a decade and the game of basketball was better for it.