Your Guide to the NBA's (Lesser-Known) Early-Season Rivalry Games
Throughout the NBA's regular season, there are plenty of rivalry and revenge games: LeBron James' opening-night faceoff with Kyrie Irving, Paul George's return to Indiana, Chris Paul's return to Los Angeles, the first matchup between Markelle Fultz and Lonzo Ball—you've heard about all of them already.
But littered throughout the schedule are other games with this sort of intrigue, games that for varying reasons fly under the radar nationally but are arguably even more compelling. With the Golden State Warriors' dominance over the league not expected to end anytime soon, it's important to find little moments throughout the year that hold drama, and this year's schedule does not disappoint.
Here is a slate of early-season matchups that have every bit of the bad blood of the more high-profile rivalry games.
Friday, October 20: Cleveland Cavaliers at Milwaukee Bucks
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Giannis Antetokounmpo scored 25 and 28 points in back-to-back Bucks losses to the Cavs last December. Despite the losing efforts, those games helped cement him in the minds of fans as one of the NBA's next-generation superstars.
After the game, though, sources close to LeBron James told ESPN.com's Dave McMenamin that James privately wondered why Antetokounmpo only played at that level against the elite teams. When asked if the Bucks could be a threat to the Cavs in the Eastern Conference, James responded: "How far down the line? How far we talkin'?" Kyrie Irving followed that up by implying the Cavs would sweep the Bucks in a playoff series.
Irving isn't in Cleveland anymore, but the LeBron-Giannis matchup remains appointment television. James is still the best player in the league, and at 22 years old, Antetokounmpo will only get better for the foreseeable future. He's one of the few players with the talent to supplant James sooner or later. James knows that, and he's not here for the comparisons. Both of them will be out to prove a point.
Friday, October 20: Boston Celtics at Philadelphia 76ers
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A fun matchup by any measure: the new-look Celtics with Kyrie Irving against an up-and-coming Sixers team with Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid. It will also be the first meeting between No. 1 pick Markelle Fultz and No. 3 pick Jayson Tatum.
Whichever player has the better game will determine once and for all whether the Celtics or Sixers won their predraft pick swap this year. That's the rule.
Thursday, October 26: Atlanta Hawks at Chicago Bulls
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The stakes have never been higher for teams looking to bottom out. On paper, the Bulls and Hawks look to be arguably the two worst teams in the entire league, and the 2018 draft is loaded with potentially franchise-changing prospects that include Michael Porter Jr., Marvin Bagley III and Luka Doncic.
This is also the last year in which the team with the worst overall record has a 25 percent chance at landing the No. 1 overall pick in the lottery. (Odds will flatten out beginning with the 2019 draft, thanks to lottery reform by the NBA's board of governors.) All of that adds up to a must-lose game for both sides that could have huge implications later on in the fight for the most pingpong balls.
Thursday, October 26: New Orleans Pelicans at Sacramento Kings
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It's only been eight months since the DeMarcus Cousins trade, but it feels like a lifetime in NBA years. With all the fireworks this summer, it's easy to forget the way the Cousins trade shook up the league at the time, not just because of the awkward timing (the agreement came minutes after the end of All-Star Game in New Orleans) but also because in the weeks leading up to it, with both Cousins and the Kings saying they were committed to each other long-term.
After the trade, Cousins called out the Kings for their "dishonesty" and labeled them "cowards."
This game will be Cousins' first time playing in Sacramento since the trade. In his six-plus years with the Kings, Cousins forged a deep connection with the people of Sacramento that still doesn't get nearly enough publicity. Fans there, by and large, still love him for the work he did in the community and for his genuine desire to stay there for his whole career.
At the same time, there's no love lost between Cousins and the Kings organization for the way the trade went down and for the all-consuming effect he had on their culture when he was there, for better or worse.
Cousins will be highly motivated against his former team. Expect him to receive far more cheers than boos from the crowd in Sacramento, but he'll likely have some headline-making words for the Kings front office. And how will the Kings handle his return? Will there be a tribute video?
This is one of just two nationally televised Kings games this season. There will never be more attention on them than there will be on this night.
Friday, November 3: Cleveland Cavaliers at Washington Wizards
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Last season's Cavs-Wizards game in Washington on Feb. 6 was one of the most entertaining regular-season games in recent memory, featuring a banked-in LeBron step-back three-pointer off an unreal Kevin Love full-court outlet pass to force overtime. That game also ended with a 41-point effort from Bradley Beal, a career-high 17 assists from James and a 39-point performance from Love.
This early-season rematch is a potential Eastern Conference Finals preview, albeit one with the Wizards missing Markieff Morris and the Cavs without Isaiah Thomas.
What really puts this matchup over the top, though, is the added presence of Jae Crowder, one of the primary instigators in last January's Celtics-Wizards "funeral game." There's a non-zero chance he'll poke John Wall in the nose again.
Friday, November 3: Brooklyn Nets at Los Angeles Lakers
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The night the Lakers drafted D'Angelo Russell with the No. 2 overall pick in 2015, Magic Johnson called him a "future superstar." Two years later, in one of his first high-profile moves as Lakers president, Magic traded Russell to the Nets as a sweetener to get them to take Timofey Mozgov's awful contract and to clear the way for the Lakers to draft Lonzo Ball. In the following days, Magic took shots at Russell's leadership ability.
Russell, for his part, has taken the high road about his polarizing two-season tenure with the Lakers, which will be best remembered for the Snapchat incident with Nick Young. But between the trade, Magic's comments, the outsized hype surrounding Ball and Russell's desire to prove to his new team that he's worth building around, he's going to be out for blood in his return to Staples Center in early November. It's the kind of thing that makes a game between two sure-to-be-terrible teams worth tuning in for.
Sunday, November 5: Oklahoma City Thunder at Portland Trail Blazers
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Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum spent most of the offseason engaged in a very public recruitment effort to convince Carmelo Anthony to waive his no-trade clause and join the Blazers. Anthony reportedly had no interest in coming to Portland and eventually approved a trade to Oklahoma City to team up with Paul George and Russell Westbrook.
Lillard always gets up against the top-tier competition as it is, and he's never shied away from taking perceived slights personally. He and McCollum will be motivated to show Anthony why he should have taken their overtures seriously, and they'll be backed by a rabid Portland crowd that's well aware Anthony didn't want them.
Wednesday, November 22: Los Angeles Lakers at Sacramento Kings
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De'Aaron Fox got the better of Lonzo Ball in the Sweet 16 matchup between Kentucky and UCLA in March, scoring 39 points to Lonzo's 10. Ball later sat out the Lakers' matchup with the Kings in summer league, leading Fox to tweet (and immediately delete) an emoji reply. Ball also sat out their preseason matchup, leading to more Twitter speculation that he's ducking a rematch with Fox.
Their first NBA regular-season meeting will be on ESPN. If Fox gets the better of Ball and the national conversation turns against Lonzo, expect LaVar Ball to "set the record straight" with some headline-making quotes.
Monday, November 27: Detroit Pistons at Boston Celtics
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Much has been made of the Celtics roster turnover this summer after their first Eastern Conference Finals appearance since 2012. (Only four players from last year's team have returned.) Understandably, most of the attention has been on Danny Ainge's trade to send Isaiah Thomas and Jae Crowder to Cleveland in the Kyrie Irving deal, but the loss of Avery Bradley should not be ignored, either.
Bradley quietly made himself into one of the best perimeter defenders in the league over the past several seasons. He's also an improved outside shooter (39 percent from three last season).
The trade to Detroit was necessary for the Celtics to make room for Gordon Hayward, but Bradley's production at both ends of the floor will be difficult to replace. He returns to Boston in late November with the Pistons, and you can bet he'll want to lock down Irving.
Monday, November 27: Cleveland Cavaliers at Philadelphia 76ers
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The last time LeBron James was set to hit free agency, Joel Embiid was fresh off being drafted No. 3 overall by the Sixers in 2014, and he immediately began putting the full-court press on James to come to Philadelphia.
Since then, Embiid's stature on social media has grown considerably, as has the appeal of the Sixers as a basketball situation for a hypothetical star free agent. With as much smoke as there's been about the potential of James' second Cleveland departure next summer, expect Embiid to go hard on Twitter and in interviews leading up to their Nov. 27 matchup, telling James why he should #TrustTheProcess.
And when Embiid does tweet something, expect a reporter to ask James about it, which will lead to an annoyed response and maybe even a passive-aggressive social media post of his own.
