So some of my friends and are in a heated debate about who the Rockets biggest rivals are? One of my friends says the Spurs. I disagree. We had some good match ups and we smoked them that year David got Dream's MVP but I think they are one of our normal in state rivals, but not our real rivals. The Spurs have been good for a long time recently and we really have not had a squad that could hang with them until now, if you can even say that about our current team. A buddy and I think our real rivals are the Jazz. We battled with them in the 90's s and we still have a hatred for them now, and more so since they beat us this series. You can also say the Mavs because Houston hates everything related to Lil D. Who do you think are the rockets biggest rivals?
i believe it all three of them cuz jazz beat them in the playoff n mavs also beat them in the playoff n the spurs wanna beat the rox and the rox wanna beat the spurs
Let's not talk about rivals, before Rockets can compete for a conference final. We are just one among many fighting for playoff spots, not the one who's trying different plays and players to see what can be done in playoffs. Until we can fight for something serious, there is no need to talk about biggest rival. If you really want to count, I think teams like Lakers, New Orleans, Clippers are the ones we are fighting for playoff spots with.
We had the 5th best record in the NBA. I don't think that qualifies as "fighting for playoff spots". Although admittedly there is a large gap in the talent between the top 3-4 teams and the rest of the NBA, including us.
That's this year. We don't even know what direction the Rockets is going in next season. Who will be the coach, what players we are going to get, and what style we are going to play, whether Yao and TMac will be healthy and recover from this painful loss mentally. There are so many questions open right now, while the West is getting tougher and tougher. I wouldn't be that optimistic about 5th best record next season, if we don't get some serious upgrades.
a rivalry would involve the rockets winning against the other team. Dallas and San Antonio don't qualify, if we are talking the last 10 years. Therefore Utah is it. However, San Antonio in the 90s was our biggest rival along with the suns and jazz
The fact that there are more votes for the Mavs shows how much more the board is slanted towards the newer-Rockets fans.
I'm not a new Rockets fan and the Mavs got my vote. The Spurs were our 90's rivals, but then proceeded to hand us our collective ass for about 8 years straight. You have to win some games against a team before it can be considered a rivalry. Dallas fits that description much more closely in the past 3 years or so. Anyway, my point is that the poll didn't ask for an all-time rival, and lately the team that we've traded painful wins/losses with has been Dallas.
It's kind of hard to define cause we've had some tough games against all 3 teams. However I would rank it this way in terms of all-time. 1) Jazz - Who can forget the Stockton 3? Too many bad memories and now this years almost makes you sick to your stomach. 2) Spurs - Hakeem punked Robinson in 95 and 10 years later T-Mac dropped 13 in 35 on them so pretty bad blood. 3) Mavericks - Recently acquired rivalry because Dallas sucked for the last 2 decades. Probably started in that game were both Dirk and T-Mac scored something like 50 points going back at each other. 2005 Playoffs where T-Mac raped them for 2 games then we just folded like a lawn chair an let them take the series in game seven by 40 points. I'm glad they choked this year so Dallas is still ringless.
Ourselves, including the management, the coaches, the players and our dear one dimentional fans here.
you got to get some big wins to go w the big loses before you consider it a rivalry. rockets biggest enemies right now, mavs and jazz.
