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Who is the Houston Rockets biggest rival at the moment?


Utah Jazz - Played them in the playoffs in 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 losing both series. Losing one with game 7 at home and losing one without a top 2 Center in the league playing.


LA Lakers - A team the Rockets have always matched up well against and the team that is the favorite to win the west. A great matchup between the old rivalry of T-mac vs Kobe and a good battle up front as well.


Dallas Mavericks - A team that has won 51+ games for 7yrs in a row and that beat the Rockets in 2005 in 7 games. An inter state rival who got to the finals in 2006.


San Antonio Spurs - The team of the decade thus far. Has won 3 titles and been to the conference finals 2 other times. Another interstate rival that Houston would like to end once and for all.


New Orleans Hornets - The team of the future. A team that certainly plays the Rockets tough and a team that is on par with the Rockets talent wise.


Phoenix Suns - A team that was always a bad matchup for the Rockets because of their speed. But now with Shaq in the mix and the team being older a team that would create a good matchup against the Rockets. Whose Frontcourt would prevail is the question?


With that in mind, not sure if I missed a team or not, but who is the Rockets biggest rival? How would you rank them in order of those teams?

I still think the Hornets are overrated and say

Tier 1: Lakers / Jazz.
Tier 2: Spurs / Hornets
Tier 4 or 5: Suns / Mavs

Blazers are gonna be better this year and could easily be tier 2 or 3.

i'd say the jazz. the last 2 playoffs have left a bitter taste in all rockets fans' mouths. hopefully this year, like artest said, were gonna take some salt outta salt lake city. dallas isnt really considered a rival anymore since i think were better than them talent wise, and san antonio is still very good but aging. lakers and hornets are close since no is young, athletic, and quick. lal are pretty much kobe and 4 other guys. sun yue looks like he could be pretty good. you always have to fear the paul-chandler connection too. so my vote is utah.

Hornets is just over hyped
Mavs - we only played them once in playoff
Suns - that was in the 90s
Spurs - they are getting older
Lakers - they are the team to beat in the West, but not really our rivalry since we are only good on paper and not good enough to face them
Jazz - 90s and now, got to be them

It is The Utah Jazz BY FARRRR!!

Yea it's easily the Jazz. Like Max said, they were a rival in the 90's and they beat us the last 2 years in a row. I still remember '97 though I won't go into further detail about that blasphemy here.

Not to mention the amount of hate exchanged on both sides from the fans on this here fantastic website. The amount of homerism on both sides is quite extraordinary and certainly worthy of praise.

I'd be happy with any playoff success at this point, sadly, but if we could beat any team I don't see how anyone that's a Rockets fan could want to beat anyone more than the Jazz.

Utah for sure , then the Mavs , then the Spurs then NO, then the Lakers.

Definetly the Jazz, they've been a bane (pain) in the ass the last couple of years for us.

Jazz...then the Texas teams.

Laker games are big b/c they are the Lakers and not because they are a rivalry. Laker games are big in every city they play.

Jazz pretty easily, because they are just a bunch of huge douche nozzels!

Everybody likes to say the Jazz because of how they beat us in the 1st round two years in a row, but I will have to say the Hornets. They are the team who we are going to compete with for first place in the Southwest division.

I'd like to encourage everyone to be nice to the Mavs. Poor guys. Picking on them right now is like hitting a drunken hobo over the head with a wrought-iron skillet.

Could anyone else see Dirk and Josh Howard recreating Brian and Stewie's song-and-dance train scene from Family Guy?

Poor Mavs fans? Such fans don't exist!
I want our team to punish the Mavs with no mercy!

Don't worry, I'm revelling in their misery. Note my method of "accidentally" slapping them in the face as I rise to their defense with arms flailing.

The Mavs are a little underrated right now imo.
Besides Kidd they are the same team that went to the finals , imo they are better than the Suns.

I don't have any problems with Mav fans, they aren't so bad, its those damn Jazz fans (Baton***,vain***, and many others)

definitely jazz, i hope we face them in the playoffs just to shut them out, and when the rockets have 3 wins in the series, we'd play the elimination game without artest so we can prove that we could have beat them last year

You left out an option for "biggest Rockets rival". You left out "health".

After health, THEN we can talk about Utah.

I understand all the (extremely valid) points being raised about Utah being our biggest rival, but living here in the D/FW area, the only team in the league that I hope we blow out EVERY TIME we play them is the freaking Mavericks.

So for me, it's Mavericks. The Jazz are a close second.

Followed by the Spurs, Lakers, Hornets, and Suns.

So far Injuries 1,Rockets 0.
Maybe the new plan is to get them out of the way early