Throughout the 2000s, the Los Angeles Lakers had a few different rivals.
Some like the Portland Trail Blazers and Sacramento Kings might have been fiercer at their peak, but no team gave Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal more troubles throughout the decade than Tim Duncan and the San Antonio Spurs.
The two teams were the standard-bearers of the Western Conference, appearing in nine of 10 NBA Finals that decade. They won seven championships between them with the Lakers grabbing four while the Spurs took three of their own and more often than not, they had to go through the other to obtain their ultimate goal.