Lakers-Kings rivalry

The Lakers-Kings Rivalry describes the rivalry between two National Basketball Association teams, the Los Angeles Lakers and the Sacramento Kings. Their often tense meetings have inspired a rivalry between the teams as well as their respective fans.

The rivalry is recent, having started in 2000, as both teams rose to prominence, but has taken on a number of different dimensions, such as Northern California vs. Southern California, state capital vs. largest city. Shaquille O'Neal infamously called the Sacramento Kings team the "Sacramento Queens" as an insult, and Lakers coach Phil Jackson called the city a "Cow Town", to which Kings fans responded by clanging cow bells at home games. During the Lakers' 2002 championship parade, O'Neal said "Sacramento will never be the capital of California. Los Angeles is the new capital of California." The rivalry is less tense now since Shaquille O'Neal was traded to Miami as well as the Kings decline in status as a major NBA power.

2002 Western Conference Finals

On the court, the games between the two teams were definitely intense, culminating in the 2002 NBA Western Conference Finals, which featured Robert Horry's famous last-second three-pointer to beat the Kings in Game 4, a 1 point Kings win off a Bibby field goal with 8 seconds left in Game 5, a controversial Game 6 where the Lakers shot 27 fourth quarter free-throws resulting in a narrow Laker win, and finally a Game 7 with 19 lead changes and 16 ties producing a Lakers overtime win on the road. Many consider the series to be among the most exciting and entertaining in recent NBA history.

Former NBA referee Tim Donaghy has contended that the two of the three referees for Game 6 of the series called fouls in favor of the Lakers in order to send the series to a deciding seventh game. He claims these two officials believed it was in the best interest of the NBA to have the Western Conference Finals extend to seven games, and they officiated accordingly. NBA commissioner David Stern has denied the allegations.

2003 Pre-season Fight

In a game between the Kings and Lakers in the 2003 pre-season, a fight broke out on-court in the 1st quarter 2 minutes into the game between Kings guard Doug Christie and Lakers forward Rick Fox. After being separated, the two were ejected from the game, to their teams' respective locker rooms. Rick Fox jogged around to confront Doug Christie again as Christie was leaving the court. The two players fought at the locker room alley that involved both Kings and Lakers bench. The altercation resulted in Fox being suspended 6 games and Christie suspended 2 games. Also in a game between the two, on December 12th 2005, Mike Bibby and Kobe Bryant had a physical confrontation when Mike Bibby walked into Bryant as they went to their respective locker rooms. Bryant laughed and continued to walk. In a 2007 regular-season game a pushing fight escalated between Corliss Williamson and Ronny Turiaf; nothing serious happened but they were separated by their teammates.

Modern Culture

*At a "Raw" show in 2003, The Rock got what is known as "heat" when he was singing a song about leaving Sacramento. The last words of the song were "I'll be sure to come back when the Lakers beat the Kings in May." Ironically, the Kings never played the Lakers that year in the Playoffs as neither the Lakers or Kings advanced beyond the conference semi-finals.
*During an episode of "King of the Hill" Jason says, "The only reason you watch basketball is because you like watchin' The Kings and Lakers fight."
*In Chuck Klosterman's book "Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs", he dedicates a page to the 2002 Western Conference Finals. In an ironic twist, the page, which covers the officiating of Game 6 of the series, comes prior to a chapter dedicated to the Celtics-Lakers rivalry. In June of 2008, while the Celtics and Lakers were about to meet in the 2008 NBA Finals, Donaghy's allegations about that game being fixed took light in the media for several days.

Dormancy

The rivalry can now be considered dormant. This was a result of personnel changes and the fall of the Kings as an NBA powerhouse. Shaquille O'Neal has since been traded to Miami and then Phoenix. Rick Fox has retired. Chris Webber is now retired, and Vlade Divac retired after briefly playing for the Lakers in the 2004-2005 season. The Lakers failed to make the playoffs the year following the O'Neal trade. Key players in the rivalry for the Kings, such as Doug Christie, Atlanta Hawk's Mike Bibby and Peja Stojakovic are no longer with the team.

Head to head

The results in brackets concern the play-off games.

Los Angeles Lakers
*1949-50 to 1959-60 as
*1960-61 to present as Los Angeles LakersSacramento Kings
*1949-50 to 1956-57 as Rochester Royals
*1957-58 to 1971-72 as Cincinnati Royals
*1972-73 to 1974-75 as Kansas City Omaha Kings
*1975-76 to 1985 as Kansas City Kings
*1985 to Present as Sacramento Kings

tatistics

References

*http://www.nba.com/playoffs2002/west_finals.html
*http://www.sptimes.com/2002/10/29/Sports/Fox__Christie_to_begi.shtml
*http://www.latimes.com/sports/basketball/nba/lakers/la-sp-lakers30nov30,1,4039417.story?coll=la-headlines-sports -