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The Los Angeles Lakers possess the second-most championships in NBA history, which makes them a huge target for other franchises gunning for their own postseason success.
While in the process of winning 16 titles, the Lakers made plenty of rivals along the way due to frequent conflicts in the playoffs and multiple Finals appearances against the same teams.
Here are five of the Lakers' top rivals ranked.
The Lakers' history with the San Antonio Spurs dominated most of the 2000's, which saw (in particular during the first half of the decade) the two teams trade off winning the Western Conference and the NBA Finals.
While Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal had to get through the West and Gregg Popovich's team, featuring big names like Tim Duncan, David Robinson, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker, the Lakers ended up winning three straight titles in 2000-02. However, it was punctuated by a pair of Spurs championships in 1999 and 2003.
L.A. would win the Western Conference and lose the Finals in 2004 and see the Spurs win again in 2005 and 2007.
The Lakers may have earned the last laugh before the Spurs won it all in 2014 when the Purple and Gold closed out the 2000's with a Finals win, but the two teams' clashes were primetime television for a decade.
The Lakers' history with the Detroit Pistons was best known as Isiah Thomas and Detroit getting passed the torch of the dynasty team from the Lakers when they met in back-to-back Finals to close the 1980's.
After the Lakers won in 1988, the Pistons won two consecutive titles before Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls finally rose to the challenge (only to beat the Lakers in 1991).
The Pistons would later beat the O'Neal and Bryant three-peat Lakers in 2004. A team predicated by defense and starless-ness, Detroit defeated the L.A. franchise who wwas two years removed from winning three consecutive championships.
The Lakers and Knicks have a long history dating back to the 1950s, and their most recent history is less than eventful. The two metropolitan teams on both coasts of the U.S. met five times overall in the NBA Finals — twice in the '50s and three more times in the seminal clashes in the early 1970s.
The Knicks dashed the Lakers and Elgin Baylor's title hopes in 1970, when a team with multiple future Hall of Famers like Willis Reed and Walt Frazier won in dramatic fashion at Madison Square Garden in Game 7. The Lakers got their revenge two years later, as Wilt Chamberlain and Jerry West won their first titles as members of the Lakers (Chamberlain won with Philadelphia).
Unfortunately, Baylor retired abruptly at the very beginning of the 1971-72 season, making him one of the greatest to play the game and fail to earn a ring before the likes of Charles Barkley, Karl Malone and John Stockton entered the fray.
The Philadelphia 76ers, previously the Syracuse Nationals, met the Lakers (twice as Minneapolis) in the NBA Finals on six separate occasions, with the Lakers owning a 5-1 record in the championship series.
Most recently, the Lakers — guided by O'Neal and Bryant — took down Allen Iverson and the Sixers in the 2001 Finals, which was briefly derailed when AI led Philly to an upset Game 1 win in L.A.
They first met in 1950, the NBA's official inaugural Finals after the BAA, which saw the Lakers win their second overall championship and first title in the NBA era.
The Sixers and Lakers gave fans indelible moments, particularly in the Finals when Julius Erving and Moses Malone matched up against Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. When the Purple and Gold weren't fighting Larry Bird and the Celtics in the Finals, more often than not in the 1980's they had to get through Philly.
The Lakers and Celtics do not play in the same division or conference, but all you need to know is “17 vs. 16.”
The Celtics have been able to boast about the number of rings for decades, although it has now slimmed down to a one-championship advantage. The Lakers have caught up since the 1980s, winning five to Boston's one since that decade of glory.
Bird and Magic may have revitalized the United States' love for professional basketball, as interest was waning in the sport right before the two one-time college rivals battled against each other three times in the '80s.
Before Bird and Magic though, the Celtics and Lakers had a rich history of meeting in the NBA Finals. However, it took until L.A.'s 1985 title victory to finally secure a win in the championship series against Boston after an 0-8 record.
Since that ninth clash between the Lakers and Celtics, the two teams have met in the Finals three more times, with L.A. favored 2-1 (making the all-time Finals record for the Lakers 3-9).
A dozen matchups in the Finals during the history of the NBA — twice as many as the next most matchups, the Lakers and Sixers — cements the rivalry with the Celtics not only clearly the biggest in franchise history but quite possibly the biggest in the history of the sport.
