Kobe Bryant: Friendly Rivalry with Carmelo Anthony Is Good for NBA

If there's one thing missing from today's NBA, it's good rivalries. Star players have become too friendly with each other, which causes there to be a lack of tension when two elite teams go head-to-head.

That's why it was nice to see Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant and New York Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony send a couple verbal jabs at each other following LA's win on Thursday night.

Even though they remain friends, they genuinely want to beat each other. That adds another level of intrigue when they face off. In this day and age, when superstars would rather team up to create powerhouse franchises than battle each other for titles, it's a refreshing change of pace.

Greg Beacham passed along these quotes:

“I enjoy going against Melo, because I always win,” Bryant said with a grin. (…)

“Kobe be lying. Kobe ain’t hurt,” Anthony said with a laugh. “I know him.”

Bryant and Anthony are two of the league's biggest scoring threats, and they went shot for shot many times while Anthony was with the Denver Nuggets. That's how a rivalry develops. Watching another guy constantly knock down big shots causes there to be some hostility.

That's especially true for two guys who love to win as much as they do. If there were more players who had a similar respectful, yet competitive, feud with each other, the NBA would be a lot better, and more teams would be contenders since super teams would have never become popular.

It was rivalries like Magic Johnson versus Larry Bird and Bill Russell versus Wilt Chamberlain that helped the NBA become the worldwide product it is today.

There are no clashes remotely close to those in today's game. The only chance NBA fans have of getting anything like that nowadays will come in a few more seasons when most of the superstars have landed with one of the elite teams. While there will only be about five teams with any chance of winning the title, there should be some fierce rivalries between them.

Otherwise, we're going to be stuck in the current era of indifference where it seems like players are more worried about making friends than being the ultimate competitor.

And that's just not nearly as interesting for the diehard NBA audience.