While most player feuds never make it past the cliches "leave it all on the floor" or "let your game do the talking," these are the ones that actually spilled out into noticeable quarrels, be it physical, verbal, or passive-aggressive.
1) Kobe Bryant vs. Shaquille O'Neal, 1996-2009(?)
When Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal both joined the Lakers in 1996, the former through a draft day trade, the latter through a blockbuster free agency signing, it was obvious to most to be the start of a dynasty. The signs were also there from the beginning that it was the inevitable start of the modern NBA's greatest player-based feud. O'Neal had left Orlando in a huff, reportedly at odds with fellow superstar Penny Hardaway, whom he perceived as receiving too much attention and credit. And Kobe entered the league as brash as any 18-year-old rookie could be, ready to immediately take the league by storm. Luckily the Lakers had Phil Jackson, probably the only man who could make things work with two megastars that both felt like they deserved to be the face of the franchise. By the time Jackson took over on the sidelines heading into the '99-'00 season, Kobe and Shaq were already reportedly at odds over Shaq's perceived notions of Kobe's "selfish" style of play. Jackson appeared to publicly deplore the burgeoning rivalry but privately beseech it by scrupulously challenging both players in the media and behind closed doors to create some competitive animosity.
Things worked out just fine for a while, with the Lakers winning the title in 2000, but the feud started to openly spill out before the '00-'01 season when Shaq showed up to camp out of shape, creating a power struggle over who should be the focal point of the offense. Even as the tension rose, the Lakers cruised to the 2001 and 2002 titles, but after a disappointing '02-'03 season ended with a second round loss, things started to come to a head. Bryant was facing rape charges in Colorado, forcing him to miss training camp, which gave Shaq, who was disillusioned to be entering a contract year without any discussions of a long-term deal, ample opportunity to snipe at his most famous teammate to the press. When the season ended with a Finals loss to Detroit and Shaq still not extended on his contract, it was obvious to Lakers management that they had to pick one superstar to keep. The younger Kobe was the obvious pick in retrospect, but it certainly wasn't so clear cut at the time. Shaq was traded to Miami, and a flood of stories and rumors regarding his acrimony with Kobe hit the presses. The most notable is the rumor that Kobe sold out Shaq to the Colorado police in a deposition, claiming that O'Neal regularly paid off mistresses to keep stories out of the papers, a statement that Shaq would later refer to as a major factor in his 2004 divorce. The pair remained cold but cordial in heavily hyped meetings between the Lakers and Heat over the next couple years, and eventually even chummy, especially when they shared the 2009 All-Star Game MVP award. Upon his retirement in 2011, Shaq still refused to admit that Kobe was his all-time greatest teammate, though for the first time he did express regret at not staying with the Lakers to the extent that they could have easily won several more titles if they had set aside their feud.
2) Jim Jackson vs. Jason Kidd, 1994-1996
Probably the most salacious example of an NBA feud over a woman came in the mid '90s, when Mavericks teammates Jackson and Kidd were both supposedly dating R&B superstar Toni Braxton. Jackson, who had been drafted fourth overall by Dallas in 1992, saw himself as the team's centerpiece after a breakout '93-'94 season. But when Kidd was drafted second overall in 1994 and Jackson missed most of the subsequent season with injuries, Kidd seemed to be passing him already in both offensive usage and popularity amongst fans. The '95-'96 season was expected to be a successful step forward for Dallas but instead it was an unmitigated disaster, as Jamal Mashburn (the third of the "Three J's" with Kidd and Jackson) missed most of the year with a knee injury, and Jackson and Kidd began regularly tossing verbal fusillade at each other in the locker room and in the press as the team limped to just 26 wins. With the two stars accusing each other of hampering the team by being an overzealous ball stopper, things boiled over completely early in the '96'-'97 season during a road trip when Braxton showed up to the team hotel to pick up Kidd for a date, but, through cryptic circumstances, left instead with Jackson. All three involved parties have denied any truth to the incident ever since (though Braxton was sheepishly coy about it at the time, perhaps sensing the tabloid fodder attention was helping her career), but it was around that time that Kidd began demanding that either he or Jackson get traded. Ownership obliged and then some, shipping Kidd to the Suns for a haul that included Sam Cassell and Michael Finley, and then just two months later packaging Jackson and Cassell together to New Jersey as part of a nine-player deal. While Jackson never blossomed into an All-Star level player, Kidd became one of the league's best players during his time with the Suns and Nets before returning to Dallas to win a championship in 2011.
3) Zach Randolph vs. Ruben Patterson, 2003
The Blazers of the early '00s were one of the most infamous teams in NBA history, nicknamed the "Jail Blazers" for their felonious collective habits. They included noted drug addict, food addict, and serial progenitor Shawn Kemp, the all-time technical foul king Rasheed Wallace, repeat marijuana-related law breaker Damon Stoudamire, animal abuser Qyntel Woods, and other general malcontents like Rod Strickland and Bonzi Wells. Things got so bad that at one point a local newspaper had a long-running section of its website dedicated to "Blazers and the law." In spite of all this almost comic absurdity, the team was so talented and well-coached that it was still successful year after year, until things finally started to completely unravel late in the '02-'03 season. The flash point is an identifiable but mysterious one-punch fight between Patterson and Randolph. Randolph was building a poor reputation on and off the court at the time for his vocational apathy and his predilection for driving under the influence. Patterson, meanwhile, already separate instances of domestic abuse, DUI, and assault arrests by then. He was also a registered sex offender, having pled guilty to sexual assault against his child's nanny. There was an incident between the two players late in the '02-'03 season during a team practice, and it's still unknown what the impetus was or what happened in the immediate build-up. This is due to reports being sketchy, at best, but the sequence of events seems to be that during a scrimmage Patterson engaged in an argument with Woods. Randolph came over to defend Woods, and sucker punched Patterson directly in the eye, leading to complete chaos. It may have been bad blood over other incidents, or it may have just been frustration and youthful angst boiling over, but either way it seemed to be a tipping point towards the collapse of the Blazers. Even though Randolph reportedly felt the need to hide out at teammate Dale Davis' house for several days, out of fear that Patterson would murder him in his home in vengeance, the pair not only remained teammates for the rest of the season as Portland stumbled to a first round playoff loss (Randolph was suspended just two games for the incident), but played for three more years together, as the Blazers slipped into consistent mediocrity. Their beef never seemed to surface again, at least in a manner that was not behind closed doors.
4) Larry Bird vs. Julius Erving, 1980-1985
Dr. J vs. Larry Bird was the subtitle of a revolutionary basketball video game from the '80s, but at the time it also could have doubled as a boxing poster tagline. It's notable that the game, produced in 1983 by EA, was not titled Bird vs. Magic. Though the cross-country rivalry that decade between Magic's Lakers and Bird's Celtics has endeared and defined the NBA like no other in league history, it was never played out on the knock-down-drag-out familiarity-breeds-contempt scale of Bird's Celtics vs. Erving's Sixers. Why? You can start with the fact that Bird and Erving played the same position, small forward, meaning they usually guarded each in their contests. And those contests were numerous, as the conference rivals played six times per regular season, and matched up in four out of six Conference Finals between 1980 and 1985. In contrast to the respectful and generally genial relationship that marked the Bird-Magic rivalry, Bird and Erving seemed to generally hate each other. Being the competitive jerk that he was, Bird certainly had to recognize Erving in the early '80s as the main person standing in his way of both individual dominance and team dominance. As for Erving, he seemed resentful towards the esteem that Bird received immediately upon his rookie year ascension in the league, tinged in large part by the player's respective skin colors. There was a cold and stoic distance between the two for years until things finally came to blows in a game during the '84-'85 season. Larry Legend was dominating Dr. J that night, and apparently his taunting struck a nerve in the normally unflappable Erving, who shoved his Celtics rival in the chest and suddenly found Bird's hands wrung around his neck. Documentation of the scene makes for a striking tableau, one that's still often used to illustrate the charged nature of '80s basketball's biggest rivalries (and can be purchased, often in framed format, all over the internet). A young Bill Simmons was in attendance at the Garden that night, and later pontificated that the fight was like watching Santa Claus battle the Easter Bunny. Philly and Boston met one more time in the Conference Finals that year, with Bird's Celtics prevailing to create an all-time 2-2 split in playoff series wins in the rivalry. Though their altercation was intense, neither player seemed to hint at any lingering animosity as a result of it, and both have since made several public statements since that they have no enmity towards each other. Erving famously specifically quipped in his autobiography that he never hated Bird, he just hated the Celtics.
5) LeBron James vs. DeShawn Stevenson, 2008-2011
While Larry Bird and Julius Erving was a feud steeped in the competitive nature of two all-time legends, James and Stevenson was a decidedly more one-sided affair, at least in terms of actions backing up words. On one end you have James, whose ongoing career is already firmly planted as one of the five greatest of all-time, and on the other side is Stevenson, a solid defender but otherwise unspectacular role player who was out of the league at age 31 when his mouth started to far outpace his performance. But to Stevenson's credit, the "beef" between the players made headline news for a stretch, and he even managed to goad LeBron into actively participating on occasion. It really started and ended in earnest in 2008, when Stevenson's Wizards were facing the same Cavs team, led by James, that had eliminated them in the first round the year before. Looking to fire up the home fans, Stevenson began calling out LeBron in the media, labeling him as overrated. After taking the high road for a stretch, James finally responded in a postgame interview with an SAT style analogy, comparing himself to rap legend Jay-Z, and Stevenson to one-hit wonder extraordinaire Soulja Boy. In the third game of the series in Washington, with the Cavs up 2-0, Stevenson called on Soulja Boy to perform before the game to pump up the crowd, and for probably the first and only time in his career, went out and arguably outplayed LeBron, as the Wizards cruised to an easy win. Though he publicly deferred questions on the supposed individual rivalry, LeBron then asked Jay-Z to record a diss track towards Stevenson, which was played at a James-hosted party in D.C. Although Stevenson continued to play well and the series was competitive, James was ultimately too much and Cleveland put it away in six games. Things scaled down from there, as the Wizards slumped back to the bottom of the standings in '08-'09, but Stevenson was eventually traded to the Mavericks and in the 2011 Finals got one last chance to revive his "rivalry" with LeBron. Though he stated in interviews before the series that the rivalry was water under the bridge, Stevenson was up to his old antics during the contest, calling out James for looking "checked out" when the Heat fell behind in a blowout loss, and calling LeBron a "good actor" for his propensity for getting foul calls. This time, James chose not to engage in any way, especially as the Heat bowed out in six games. After the Hawks waived him following the '12-'13 season, Stevenson made headlines one last time when he campaigned on Twitter for LeBron to convince the Heat to sign him.
6) Dennis Rodman vs. Karl Malone, 1991-1998
NBA player rivalries have often come to blows on or off the court, but this is the only case, as far as we know, where it actually devolved into a professional wrestling match. Though Rodman and Malone's rivalry is best remembered for their contentious on-court clashes during the 1997 and 1998 NBA Finals, it was originally rooted in an incident years earlier involving Isiah Thomas. During a Pistons-Jazz game early in the '91-'92 season, Thomas was decimating John Stockton on the court, seemingly exacting direct revenge for his Dream Team roster slight. Malone decided to respond with a vicious elbow to Thomas' face as he was driving to the basket, and Thomas's then teammate Rodman was amongst the Detroit players that stormed towards Malone with intent of retaliation. While Rodman would catch more negative attention over the years for his outlandish personality and fashion choices, the elbow to Thomas' face became exhibit A in a long-running reputation trial for the Mailman quietly being one of the league's dirtiest players. The two players actually had strikingly similar backgrounds, coming from large, fatherless families in rural areas, scraping and clawing their way to professional stardom, and the two country boys eventually found common ground in a shared interest of professional wrestling. It was an appropriate venue for two players that famously once got entangled on the court during a Finals game in 1998, and just a month after those Finals ended, Rodman and Malone teamed up with wrestlers Hulk Hogan and Dallas Page respectively in a tag team match during the annual WCW "Bash at the Beach" event. While Thomas and many others still retain resentment towards Malone and his dirty play, Rodman recently invited his former rival to join him on one of his recent sojourns to play basketball in North Korea.
7) Bill Laimbeer vs. Robert Parish, 1987
We really could have just titled half this list "Bad Boy Pistons vs. the entire rest of the league" and called it a day, but Laimbeer versus Parish is especially notable. Nicknamed "The Chief" not just for his physical resemblance to the One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest character but also his similar serene nature, Parish played in arguably the most abrasive era of league history yet only once did he partake in an on-court confrontation. It comes as no surprise that the man who could push even The Chief over the edge was Laimbeer. The epitome of an on-court pest, Laimbeer took pride in his ability to crawl under the skin of opponents, employing every mental edge possible even if it raised risk of retaliation. Hell, by the time Parish clocked him during the 1987 Conference Finals, punching Laimbeer in the face had basically become a rite of passage for '80s centers. But the Parish sucker punch is still jarring even to this day. After Laimbeer had essentially clotheslined Larry Bird in game three of that series, the subsequent brawl got both Laimbeer and Bird ejected. This led to an easy Pistons victory in game four to even the series at 2-2. When the contest shifted back to the Boston Garden for game five, an errant Laimbeer elbow during a battle for a rebound had Parish seeing red. He immediately reciprocated, laying two tomahawk punches from behind on Laimbeer's skull, knocking the Pistons big man to the floor where he immediately cowered in the fetal position, much to the delight of the bloodthirsty partisan crowd. The incident would probably bring about a 25-game NBA suspension and possibly even assault-and-battery charges today, but Parish was somehow not even assessed a personal foul at the time, and the Celtics held on for a 108-107 victory. The league did step in and suspend Parish for game six, a Pistons win to force a decisive game seven, where Parish contributed a double-double to help lead Boston back to the NBA Finals. Though the pair would never skirmish on or off the court again, their brief scuffle remains emblematic of the rough-and-tumble Celtics-Pistons rivalry of the time.
8) Michael Jordan vs. Isiah Thomas, 1985-1992(?)
For a long time we all assumed it was Jordan's cult of personality that prevented Thomas from being included on the 1992 U.S. Olympic roster, but more recent evidence has shown that it was a group decision that Isiah's inclusion was de trop. Nicknamed the "Baby-Faced Assassin" for his jocular off-court nature and paradoxical cut-throat on-court mien, Thomas fomented plenty of life-long enemies in the late '80s, chief amongst them Jordan. It started in the 1985 All-Star Game, when Thomas, supposedly resentful towards the youthful Jordan being feted in his first All-Star appearance, seemed reluctant to pass the ball to the young Bulls star. Then after Thomas' Pistons had defeated Jordan's Bulls in three consecutive playoff series, the star point guard led a petulant boycott of the handshake line after Chicago finally broke through with a Conference Finals victory over Detroit in 1991. It's not clear whether that incident was a final straw or even a mitigating factor in the decision, but ultimately Thomas was left off the Dream Team roster announced later that summer. Though Jordan is still the lightning rod for the fallout of that verdict, many of the other Dream Team members have backed it up over the years, including Chuck Daly, who coached both the Olympic team and Thomas' Pistons. The Pistons and Bulls were slated to meet in the second round of the playoffs in 1992, but Detroit was instead upended in the first round by the Knicks. They missed the playoffs completely the next season, and by the summer of 1994 both Jordan and Thomas were retired. Twenty-some years after he famously refused to shake Jordan's hands, Thomas finally expressed regret over the incident, as Jordan has continually refused to comment on it.
9) Alonzo Mourning vs. Larry Johnson, 1991-2000
Like Kobe and Shaq, this is a rivalry that was spawned when the two players were teammates, then boiled over when they became rivals on opposing teams. But unlike the Shaq-Kobe cold war, this feud flared into actual fisticuffs, leading to the infamous image of Jeff Van Gundy grabbing on to Mourning's leg like a koala bear, trying in vain to curb the altercation. Years before that incident in the 1998 playoffs, Mourning and Johnson were high-profile teammates on the Hornets, expected to blossom into the league's top front court tandem. But instead of developing as teammates the stars instead attempted to individually stockpile stats and accolades in a competition to be the franchise's crown jewel. Johnson, the top pick in 1991, would especially taunt Mourning, the second pick in 1992, by flaunting his Rookie of the Year award as Mourning finished second in voting in his season behind O'Neal. When his rookie contract expired in 1995, Mourning felt the Hornets low-balled him with a new salary and bolted as a free agent for Miami. One year later, Charlotte traded Johnson to the Knicks in an attempt to rebuild, and the New York-Miami rivalry had its on-court animosity nucleus. When the teams met in a first round series in 1998, Mourning and Johnson clamored intensely under the basket leading up to their skirmish late in game four that ended with Van Gundy's leg ride. Both were suspended for game five of the series, and without Mourning the second-seeded Heat were over-matched and went down in an upset. Their rivalry eventually softened when Mourning was diagnosed with a rare kidney disease in 2000 and Johnson was one of the most vocal supporters of his recovery, sounding almost sentimental in wishing for Mourning to return healthy so they could battle some more.
10) Charles Oakley vs. everyone, 1985-indefinite
You know you've reached a certain level of infamy when you throw a basketball off an opponent's head during a pregame shoot-around and most people react with a shoulder shrug. Maybe it's because that wasn't even Oakley's most violent incident of that season, as just weeks before he had punched the Clippers' Jeff McInnis in the back of the head during a game, supposedly due to a contentious love triangle. Such is the life of Oak, who early in his career with the Bulls was one of the NBA's last great enforcers, a role that the league was in the midst of proscribing in the late '80s. During subsequent stops with the Knicks and Raptors, he remained a menacing presence on and off the court, even as he reached middle age. He was 37 years old when he treated Tyrone Hill's head like a backboard in the aforementioned incident before a Raptors-Sixers game. Oakley was suspended for one game and fined $10,000, but apparently it was a result of a much larger gambling debt that Hill owed him. Why someone would ever be dumb enough to owe Oakley money, or fight with him over a woman, is beyond us, but his rivalry with fellow noted agitator Charles Barkley seems to run much deeper. Though Oak may have recognized a kindred spirit in Barkley's temperament, he apparently took serious discord with The Round Mound of Rebound's big mouth. The two famously sparred during a preseason game in 1996, when Oakley, seemingly apropos of nothing, grabbed Barkley by the lapel and tossed him to the floor. Barkley bounced up and shoved Oakley, who responded with an attempted hay-maker. Apparently the feud didn't end there, as three years later Oakley supposedly slapped Barkley during an intense negotiating session of the 1998 collective bargaining agreement. Though he's now 55 years old and has been retired since 2004, Oakley is still finding feud partners around the league, most recently with Knicks owner James Dolan, who had Oakley arrested and forcibly removed from Madison Square Garden during a game for supposed "abusive" behavior.