Let’s take a look at some of the top rivalries which happened between the legends at the NBA All-Star games over the decades.
Image Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports
The NBA All-Star game has witnessed some of the greatest players to play together in the history of the game. The competition has been fierce between the two conferences over the past decades, which has given us some of the best moments and rivalries of the All-Star weekend.
Allen Iverson made his All-Star debut in 2000 and played for the eastern conference. The West defeated the eastern conference by 137-126, spoiling Iverson’s All-Star debut. The star took revenge in 2002 by leading a 20 point comeback, winning 111-110 and was named the All-Star MVP. However, A.I. lost the next three consecutive All-Star games and was looking for vengeance which led to a half-time rant in the East locker room.
Steven Van Gundy, was coaching team East and shared this incident on a podcast and said, “AI’s coming in at halftime. He goes, “And you all aren’t tired of this? About how the West is better than us and we all a bunch of… He goes, I’m tired of the West. We got to go out!”
Allen Iverson’s words motivated the East as they won the next two quarters by a margin of four points and the game by 125-115. He won his second All-Star MVP award and recorded a double-double of 15 point and 10 assists.
The student and the master had a couple of memorable All-Star battles during the 1998 and 2003 All-Star game. During the 1998 All-Star game, Kobe was heard saying, “I got Mike” couple of times to show his competitiveness. While resting, Michael Jordan was also recorded saying, “He just wanna get to the offensive end and go 1-on-1.” He further on added and said “I am gonna make his a** work down here.”
At the end of the game, Jordan and Bryant shared few words, Jordan said, “I’ll see ya down the road” to which Kobe replied, “Cool” and walked off.
The pair met again in the 2003 All-Star game, Michael Jordan’s last All-Star game. They went back and forth during the game and took jabs at each other. However, Kobe had the last laugh as he made 2/2 free-throws at the end of the game and later on went on to win the game in OT. The Eastern conference’s head coach, Isaiah Thomas, asked Kobe to miss both those free-throws but he swished both of them down.
“Next play, they call a timeout. Kobe gets fouled in the corner, so I called him over. I said, ‘Hey, you know this is Jordan’s last All-Star game. You know, it’d be nice to let him go out on top.’ He looked me dead in my eyes and said, ‘Oh, he got to earn it,’ and walked to the line. It was nothing but net. We went into overtime, and they beat us.”
