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The NBA Playoffs have given us enticing battles throughout the history of the competition. Basketball fans have witnessed Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell battle in the NBA Finals. They have also experienced Magic Johnson and Larry Bird or even LeBron James against Kevin Durant duel in various best-of-seven series to decide an NBA season.
However, there have been a lot of interesting match-ups that basketball fans never got to see in the NBA Playoffs. Kobe Bryant versus LeBron James was probably the hottest topic in basketball at the end of the 2000s and early 2010s, but what other match-ups did we miss?
In this list, we will talk about great players who played at the same time and also the ones whose careers did not overlap but played in similar eras and had several NBA Playoff appearances between them.
Without further ado, let us take a look at five such match-ups most fans would have loved to see in the NBA Playoffs.
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#5 Charles Barkley vs Tim Duncan - 8 regular-season duels, no NBA Playoff meetings
Even though Tim Duncan entered the NBA in 1997 when Charles Barkley was past his prime, the pair did play against each other in the regular season. With Barkley playing for the Houston Rockets at the time, the pair of legendary Power Forwards competed in the same division.
In their regular-season match-ups, Barkley had the upper hand individually, but Duncan and the San Antonio Spurs got six wins in the eight games in which the two players met.
Though both the Spurs and the Rockets made the NBA Playoff bracket in the 1997-98 and 1998-99 seasons, the duels between Duncan and Bradley did not spill over to the postseason. That was because a couple of first-round exits for the Rockets meant that Barkley could never battle the younger Duncan in the biggest stage.
Barkley retired from the NBA after playing 20 games of the 1999-2000 season, which marked the end of an era in the Power Forward position and a missed chance for NBA fans of an enticing playoff match-up.
Duncan and his polished fundamentals were already on full display at that time, allowing him to take the Spurs to their first title in 1999 while grabbing the Finals MVP trophy after a tremendous NBA Playoff run.
In their regular-season match-ups, Barkley averaged 17 points and 11.8 rebounds per game on 47% shooting while Duncan had similar stats - 16 points, 10 rebounds and four assists per game - while shooting 46% from the field.
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#4 Michael Jordan vs Hakeem Olajuwon - 23 regular-season duels, no NBA Playoff meetings
They won eight NBA titles and as many NBA Finals MVPs in the 1990s, but there wasn't a single NBA Playoff match-up between the GOAT Michael Jordan and Hakeem Olajuwon, arguably the greatest ever center to set foot on an NBA court .
After Jordan and the Chicago Bulls dominated the NBA Playoff stage by winning three straight championships from 1991 to 1993, Jordan left the NBA to play baseball. Olajuwon and the Rockets then emerged as 1994 NBA Champions, with the legendary center dominating the NBA Playoff picture.
Jordan returned to the NBA for the end of the 1994-95 season, but he could not get past the second round of the playoffs as the Bulls lost to the Shaquille O'Neal-led Orlando Magic in a six-game series. Shaq and the Magic, however, were swept in the Finals by Olajuwon and his crew as the Rockets won their second title in a row.
While the Bulls added Dennis Rodman for the 1995-96 season and dominated the league, Olajuwon and the Rockets fell to the Seattle Supersonics in the second round of the NBA Playoffs. That meant that a likely Finals match-up between the Bulls and the Rockets did not happen.
As the two players played in different conferences, the only way they could have met in an NBA Playoff was in the Finals. Though that did not happen, it does not mean that they were not close to meeting each other at this stage of the competition.
In 1997, the Rockets had traded for Charles Barkley and reached the Western Conference Finals but lost in six games to the Utah Jazz on John Stockton's buzzer-beater in the last game. That prevented the Rockets from facing the Bulls in the deciding round of the NBA Playoff scene.
Both Jordan and Olajuwon entered the NBA in 1984. Houston took Olajuwon (then known as Akeem) with the first pick of the 1984 draft while Chicago selected Jordan with the third pick (yes, the Portland Trail Blazers had the second pick, and they chose Center Sam Bowie from Kentucky).
From the moment these two legends entered the league until their respective retirements (Olajuwon in 2002 and Jordan in 2003), they played nine NBA Finals and 324 NBA Playoff games. But they did not feature in a single minute of NBA Playoff action against each other.
#3 Michael Jordan vs Kobe Bryant - 8 regular-season duels, no NBA Playoff meetings
This one could easily have been #1 in this list. But when these two legends were in the NBA, their two teams were in very different situations, and their match-up just would not have been what was expected if they saw each other in the NBA Playoff.
When Kobe Bryant entered the NBA in 1996, Jordan and the Bulls were going for NBA Playoff runs that resulted in championships while the LA Lakers were still figuring out how to be competitive.
With Kobe Bryant in the West and MJ in the East, the only possible match-up between the duo was a Lakers-Bulls Finals.
LA made the NBA Playoff picture in 1996, 1997 and 1998, but they could not get out of the West. With the Bulls reaching the Finals in each of those years, the closest we got to seeing MJ vs Kobe Bryant was in the 1998 NBA Playoff stage when the Lakers fell in the WCF against the Utah Jazz.
After Jordan retired in 1999 and returned to the league in 2001, the LA Lakers were then the NBA Champions. With Jordan in the East again, the Finals were the only possible stage where they could have met, but Jordan's Washington Wizards did not enter the NBA Playoff bracket in the two years His Airness played there.
Against his mentor, the late Kobe Bryant averaged 22.8 points, 4.4 rebounds and 3.9 assists on 46% shooting and 55% from three. Jordan, on the other hand, had averages of 24.5, 4.3 rebounds and 3.6 assists on 43% shooting.
Bryant's team won five of the eight duels against Jordan's while the former also had a 55-point night against MJ in 2003.
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#2 Bill Russell vs Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - No matchups against each other, Russell retired months before Abdul-Jabbar's debut
11-time champion Bill Russell and six-time champion Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, two of the five greatest Centers and legends in NBA Playoff history, were 167 days from being in the league at the same time.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, a High School and College phenomenon who was then known as Lew Alcindor, made his NBA debut with the Milwaukee Bucks on 18 October 1969, five months and 18 days after Russell had retired after winning his 11th NBA title in a seven-game series against Wilt Chamberlain and the Lakers.
A 22-year-old Kareem-Abdul Jabbar entered the league and averaged 29 points and 15 rebounds per game in his first year, helping the Bucks enter their first NBA Playoff in history.
In 1971, Abdul-Jabbar impressed again with 32 points and 16 rebounds per game. Alongside Oscar Robertson, the Bucks harbored title hopes and capped off a tremendous NBA Playoff run by beating the Wilt Chamberlain-led Lakers in the Conference Finals and sweeping the Baltimore Bullets in the Finals.
Russell's career ended when he was 35 years old. Still, we can wonder what would have happened if the legendary 11-time champion stayed in the league for a little longer and possibly played against a young Abdul-Jabbar in the NBA .
With 17 titles and 11 MVPs between them, greatness would not have been in short supply in a hypothetical NBA Playoff series between the two legends.
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#1 Kobe Bryant vs LeBron James - 22 regular-season duels, no NBA Playoff meetings
Kobe Bryant against LeBron James, possibly the most anticipated NBA Finals match-up of the modern NBA era, ranks #1 in this list of dream duels that never happened in the NBA Playoffs.
With Bryant and the Lakers in the West and LeBron James in Cleveland, a season-deciding seven-game series between them was expected each year from 2008 to 2010. As both teams made great impressions during the regular seasons of those campaigns, the two best players at that time meeting in the Finals was a very likely proposition.
Bryant and the Phil Jackson-coached Lakers made it to The Finals three straight years from 2008 to 2010, but LeBron and the Cavs could not hold their end of the bargain.
Cleveland fell to the Big-Three Boston Celtics in the second round in both 2008 and 2010. The Celtics lost to the Orlando Magic in the 2009 NBA Playoffs. But, LeBron James and the Cavs lost to the Dwight Howard-commanded Magic to miss out on a golden chance of meeting Bryant and the Lakers.
Those years will always remain missed opportunities in terms of witnessing one of the greatest NBA Playoff match-ups of all time. That was because during that period, Bryant and James won three regular-season MVPs (Bryant in 2008 and James in 2009 and 2010) and were clearly the two best players in The Association.
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Also read: NBA Trade Rumors: New York Knicks willing to move everyone besides RJ Barrett and Mitchell Robinson.
