In a guest appearance on ‘The Old Man & The Three,’ Suns star Devin Booker gave an interesting take on why team rivalries have been ruined in the modern NBA. According to Booker, players just no longer feel that it’s worth it to start some beef over a game on the court.
“I’d say there’s no real rivalries because of grassroots basketball,” said Booker to Redick. “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. People always say ‘they not about to fight on the court,’ yeah that’s a half-a-million-dollar fight — like, nobody should do that! I haven’t heard it too many times where crazy lines were crossed on the court… but it’s usually not that deep.”
Booker is no stranger to trash talk himself and his supposed rivalry with Luka Doncic is a fan-favorite in the NBA community. But according to Booker, there are no real feelings of animosity between players — at least not like there used to be.
Back in the day, the league was overflowing with intense rivalries between players and teams all across the association. In the 80s, the rivalry between Magic Johnson and Larry Bird is credited for reviving the NBA during a struggling period.
In the years that followed, the league saw many other intense rivalries, including between Michael Jordan and Isiah Thomas, Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal, and (the most recent) LeBron James and Stephen Curry.
For most of the NBA’s history, these games used to be among the most aggressive and emotional of the season and the rivalry matchups were among the most highly anticipated from the fans. Today, however, players are more keen to be buddies than enemies and it’s fair to say the culture has completely changed around the topic.
No More Rivalries In The Modern NBA
In today’s player empowerment era, competitors no longer have anything to gain from acting tough with the other side. While it was abnormal for players to connect as friends in years past, it’s often that we see the game’s top performers hanging out in the offseason or even during a random weekend.
The truth is, the players just aren’t willing to risk their health or their salary to feed into a rivalry. With players making upwards of $200+ million today, they have far too much to lose by getting caught up in narrative storylines and many have given up altogether on trying to add extra weight to any regular season game.
For even the NBA’s longest-standing rivalries, the energy isn’t the same as it once was. In Los Angeles, for example, the Clippers and Lakers should despise each other but both sides have shown little thought toward the other and Clippers coach Tyronn Lue went so far as to deny the rivalry even existed.
LeBron James and Stephen Curry may be the only pair of players who can call themselves rivals in today’s NBA but there is more mutual respect between them than there is hate, like existed between Magic and Bird.
In short, NBA culture today is more about self-preservation than anything else and it means that the intense hatred that used to exist between teams is just no longer there on the same level. Love it or hate it, that’s the way that players prefer it nowadays and it’s unlikely to change anytime soon.
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