A brief history of the Phoenix Suns and Los Angeles Lakers rivalry
By Adam Maynes
The rich get richer, but both become poor
Lakers brass heeded Kobe’s call and built a championship team around him, making it difficult for Phoenix to overcome, winning each of the next three regular season series’ 3-1 before the two teams met in the 2010 Western Conference Finals.
The Suns weren’t supposed to be there while the Lakers were marching towards their third consecutive NBA Finals appearance.
The two teams held court, each winning two games at home leading to game 5 back in Los Angeles.
A close game throughout, the final seconds have long been frozen in the minds of Suns fans.
Kobe Bryant took a rushed 3-point attempt from the right arc which air-balled and was caught by the athlete formally known as Ron Artest. He put it in at the buzzer to seal the victory and end Phoenix’s hopes at overtime.
The fact that Kobe Bryant’s foot was out of bounds before he took the shot was never reviewed.
L.A. won game six in Phoenix taking the series, ending the Suns’ most recent playoff run and the two team’s most recent playoff matchup (their 12th playoff series overall).
Since then the two teams have remained relatively even, the Lakers eventually falling apart as Phoenix has intentionally tanked, and while L.A. made the playoffs in 2011-13, they were never championship threats and too have missed out on the postseason since 2014, like Phoenix, their longest drought in franchise history.
Only in 2014-15 has one team been obviously superior than the other with the Suns sweeping the season series for the third time in their history.
Since the 2010-11 series, other than the 2014-15 season, the series has remained tied at 14 wins each (heading into 2018-19).
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The 2018-19 season though begins a new era for the two franchises as Phoenix is on the rise with star Devin Booker, scorer T.J. Warren, and newcomers Deandre Ayton and Josh Jackson.
The Lakers have LeBron James for the near future, but are in a rebuilding mode themselves hoping that James can be the centerpiece of a new era of Western Conference dominance.
How this all plays out remains to be seen, but if both team’s plans shake out as expected, then in five seasons when fans look back to review this era, odds are it will have been one of two evenly matched franchises fighting one another on their way to their championship dreams.