Sacramento Kings: Can They Restore a Rivalry with the L.A. Lakers?

The Sacramento Kings will open the 2011-12 season tonight at home versus Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol and the Los Angeles Lakers. 

It will be the first of three meetings between the two Pacific Division teams this season.

The Lakers fell to the Chicago Bulls 88-97 yesterday as reigning MVP Derrick Rose hit the game-winning floater. With such a heartbreaking loss, you know L.A. is going to give an A+ effort versus the Kings as they try to avoid starting the campaign 0-2.  

This could be the season that the Lakers and Kings renew a heated rivalry, something that these two California teams haven't had since the early 2000s.  

The rivalry began during the first round of the 2000 playoffs, where Chris Webber's 44-38 Kings faced Shaq and Kobe's 67-15 Lakers. The eighth-seeded Kings surprisingly took the top-seeded Lakers all the way to five games—back when best-of-five series still existed— but L.A. would wind up winning and also went on to capture their first of three straight titles.

Sacramento and Los Angeles would meet in the postseason the following season as well, this time in the Western Conference semifinals. Unlike the previous season, the Kings failed to pick up a win in the series and were swept 4-0 by the purple-and-gold.

In '02, the two teams squared off in the Conference Finals. The Kings, who had posted the league's best record in the regular-season (61-21), were obviously serious title contenders. However, their championship dreams would be ended once again by Los Angeles in a rather exciting seven game series. 

During a a preseason game between the two teams a few months later, Sacramento's Doug Christie and L.A.'s Rick Fox got into a fight on the court as well as in the tunnel leading to the locker room after both players were ejected.  

The Lakers-Kings rivalry was certainly anything but entertaining. It’s possible that the two teams could meet in the playoffs this season, with the Lakers as the top seed and the Kings sneaking in with the No. 8 seed in the West.

Kobe and Co. could be title contenders this year, especially if they find a way to acquire Dwight Howard from Orlando. And the Kings are an up and coming team that features scoring weapons like DeMarcus Cousins, Tyreke Evans, Marcus Thornton and famous rookie guard Jimmer Fredette.

Will the rivalry be renewed? We’ll see.