Devin Booker thinks that rivalries in the NBA are very much a thing of the past and he has explained why.
The Showtime Lakers against the Celtics back in the day was definitely a rivalry.
Teams like the Warriors and Kings have an almost modern-day rivalry, but Booker explains why no real rivalries exist in the modern-day NBA.
“I’d say there’s no real rivalries because of grassroots basketball,” Booker told JJ Redick on The Old Man & The Three. “A lot of these guys we’ve known for a really long time and I think people just realize that it’s not that deep half the time. People always say they’re not really about to fight on the court, they’re really not about to do that. That’s a half-a-million-dollar fight like nobody should do that. I haven’t heard too many times that crazy lines were crossed on the court but it has happened and I’ve seen people handle it behind the scenes in the correct way like it should.”
Redick was quick to point out that one of Booker’s own teammates, Drew Eubanks, recently got into a fist fight with Pistons center Isaiah Stewart.
“It happened to one of your teammates,” Redick said to Booker.
To which Booker answered, “Oh yeah that was crazy, but you never see that happen, you can’t even do it in the tunnel now, you still get suspended.”
Although he thinks rivalries are kind of dead, it doesn’t stop Book from trash talking up a storm on the court.
“I don’t know where it came from,” Booker said. “I just started doing it. Trash-talking is a lifestyle. In the environments I grew up in, it is something I have been doing since I could say hi. I have been doing since I was little, in everything we did. Not just basketball. There is an art to it.”
Some of his most famous trash-talk run ins on the court have happened between him and Mavs superstar Luka Doncic.
Doncic recently opened up about where his relationship stands with Suns star Booker.