Enemies Week: All 29 Other NBA Teams Hate-Ranked

Let’s be petty.

Rights to Ricky Sanchez Enemies Week is brought to you by Kinetic Skateboarding! Not only the Ricky's approved skate shop, but the best place to get Chucks, Vans, any apparel. Use code "DAVESILVER" for 9.1% off your order.

---

Even with the Sixers' biggest villains mostly coming from within these days, there's still plenty of hate from us here at the Rights to Ricky Sanchez to go around for the rest of the league. Enemies Week continues below with RTRS' ranking of the 29 other NBA teams, from least-Sixers-hated to most-Sixers-hated, with a special assist from GOAT FOTB Jason Lipshutz. And before you ask: Yes, the Sixers would have been number one if they'd counted. 

29. Houston Rockets

Come on, how can we not love the Rockets? They are by every measure an Ally of the Process. From Daryl Morey's tutelage of Sam Hinkie, to their acquisition of Robert Covington and Morey becoming a friend of the podcast, the Rockets have long been our friends. -- SIXERSADAM

28. Portland Trail Blazers

Wow, look at all the guards. There must be a rule against having so many guards. -- SPIKE ESKIN

27. Memphis Grizzlies

To be honest, Zach Randolph turning his career around on his fourth NBA team as part of the "grit-n-grind" Grizzlies is one of my favorite non-Philly sports stories of the past decade. Ja Morant seems cool, too. -- JASON LIPSHUTZ

26. Golden State Warriors

Without Durant, it seems like the worst case scenario for the Warriors is a super team nobody actually hates. -- S.E.

25. San Antonio Spurs

I get feeling a little besieged by decades of smart media types being lubed up by The Spurs Way, but... when you're good for that long, you get as much lube as you want. -- MIKE LEVIN

24. Charlotte Hornets

You could get mad at them for the number of times they almost beat us -- I certainly do -- but I don't think we've actually lost to the Hornets since the days of Muggsy Bogues and Larry Johnson, so. -- ANDREW UNTERBERGER

23. Oklahoma City Thunder

A cautionary tale for our current Sixers: what if you accrue a bunch of high draft picks, the guys you draft turn out to be legitimate stars, and you still can't conjure a championship? Although a Durant-Westbrook-Harden nucleus couldn't give Oklahoma City a parade, the Paul-Gallinari-Dort dynasty gave Philly something even better: No. 21 on a top-20 protected pick. -- J.L.

22. New Orleans Pelicans

Perhaps this is personal, but after the disastrous management we've seen in Philadelphia, I'm rooting for the Pelicans to succeed given their similarities to previous Sixers teams that gave us hope. They have a bevy of young pieces and draft picks, and are trying to figure out how it all fits together. Hopefully they do a better job than the Sixers did. -- S.A.

21. Chicago Bulls

Did you know that the Sixers have only played the Bulls three times since the Process started? We beat them to start the first Hinkie season 3-0, then Jimmy Butler dropped 50 on us, then Furkan Korkmaz went Full Kork on 'em last year. We’ll see ‘em again in 2023. -- A.U.

20. Toronto Raptors

Even after The Shot in Game 7 it seems almost impossible to really hate the Raptors. -- S.E.

19. Cleveland Cavaliers

Didn't love them winning the 2016 championship, but the Sixers-Maddest I can remember getting at the Cavs is when they hexed Nerlens so he missed an open-court dunk against them (and then every other dunk the rest of his career.) Now they have Andre Drummond, lol. -- A.U.

18. Phoenix Suns

I was torn on where to land here: the Suns have handed the Sixers quite a few upset defeats in recent years, and they did take Mikal Bridges away from Philadelphia. At the same time, they're a very fun team who don't pose a real threat to the Sixers in any way. They play twice a year, Devin Booker averages 40 points per game in those contests, and then we await the next meeting. Plus, they get bonus points from me for formerly employing Isaiah Canaan and currently employing Dario Saric.

17. Sacramento Kings

Aside from their harboring of the Traitor Bjelica, the Kings are the gift that keeps on giving for the Sixers; even the year where they pissed me off by somehow almost making the playoffs just tanked their pick for the Celtics. -- A.U.

16. Denver Nuggets

I got as pissed off as the Jokic > Embiid claims as anyone before this postseason, but that's a dead argument now, and gotta love the continued thriving of Former Sixer Jerami Grant and Future Sixer Jamal Murray. Also, altitude isn't real. -- A.U.

15. Indiana Pacers

It is so beautifully fitting that the Pacers landed smack in the middle of these hate rankings, nothing I can say would be as apt as that. -- M.L.

14. Washington Wizards

It's hard to differentiate "I think this team is stupid, and I root for stupid teams to fail" with actual disdain for an organization. But Washington beat us in the inaugural Bus The Process, Andrew Sharp is a fan, and the current Wizards are a bitttttt too much like looking in the mirror for our Post-Process Sixers Shitshow for my taste. -- M.L.

13. Dallas Mavericks

Tons of residual affection from the Dirk Days, but they've handed the Sixers some of their most annoying recent losses, Kristaps is sketchy for a variety of reasons, and Luka has really been shooting up my Players I Sixers-Hate For Reasons I Can't Possibly Justify rankings. -- A.U.

12. New York Knicks

I don't really hate the Knicks, but it does seem like every game against them the next few years is gonna be a visit from the Ghost of Shitty Franchise Future for the Sixers -- lord help us if we actually lose any of 'em. -- A.U.

11. Los Angeles Clippers

In theory, the Clippers should be considered a friendly foe: they found themselves stuck with their core, and instead of being content with playoff exits, they blew up their roster against the advice of many. They spent years accumulating draft picks and creating financial flexibility in the hopes of landing franchise-altering talent. And then they did it! However... for their swindling of the Sixers in February of 2019 with the Tobias Harris trade cannot be ignored. Not only did they net two first- and second-round picks, but they also acquired Landry Shamet, all the while putting the Sixers in a position where they had to pay Harris a whopping $180 million. That is not an easily-forgivable act. -- S.A.

10. Atlanta Hawks

It's been nearly six years since the starting five of the 2014-15 Atlanta Hawks -- DeMarre Carroll, Al Horford, Kyle Korver, Paul Millsap and Jeff Teague, legends all -- were all named "Player of the Month," and it'll take another six years to get over it. During the early Process years, the Balanced Hawks were heralded as the right way to construct a basketball franchise, even while they had zero actual chance of beating LeBron or winning a title. -- J.L.

9. Minnesota Timberwolves

The Trap-Door Sixers, the Timberwolves exist in a particularly listless alternate reality in which Philly ends up with Wiggins and Towns instead of Embiid and Simmons, but still somehow gets spurned by Jimmy Butler. Minnesota is too sad to produce real animosity, although wasting prime Dario and RoCo years is enough to crack the top 10. -- J.L.

8. Brooklyn Nets

Every Sixers showdown with the Nets since they got smart-bad has been a "Why Aren't We Winning This Game by 20??" crisis waiting to happen -- now that they have KD and Kyrie, they'll be equally annoying for different reasons. -- A.U.

7. Detroit Pistons

Owner who makes his money gouging prisoners and their families with exorbitant charges via his telecommunications company exploiting mass incarceration to enrich himself. And a lesser penalty but one still worth remarking on: keeping Luke Kennard from us. -- M.L.

6. Orlando Magic

Yes, we get it: Markelle Fultz is just a year away from being a year away from being back to his old self. -- S.E.

5. Milwaukee Bucks

I obviously don't hate the Bucks as much as I hate the Sixers, but if you're going to be a big bad wolf all season, at least blow somebody's house down in the playoffs eventually, not just the Hornets on a Valentine's Day game that only gets broadcast on the radio. The Bucks have blown their own house down for multiple seasons now -- and thanks mostly to Budenholzer's stubbornness, are now fairly close to blowing themselves right out of having a franchise player at all. Also: residual Malcolm Brogdon ROY bitterness. -- M.L.

4. Los Angeles Lakers

The scars of the 2001 Finals do not fade quickly -- the Sixers really could have won Game 2 or Game 3! -- and despite Alyssa's valiant efforts to make a bandwagon-friendly Evil Empire seem worthy of admiration, the Lakers will forever be a loathsome public team. It just stumbled ass-backwards into another title, after years of mismanagement, because LeBron wanted to make movies and Anthony Davis wanted to hock a loogie at New Orleans basketball fans. That said, I absolutely rooted for them to beat Jimmy Butler in the Finals, so congrats, and thank you, Lakers. -- J.L.

3. Utah Jazz

Officer Donovan's cornball attempts to cast Ben Simmons' rookie of the year candidacy into question remain an embarrassing low not just for Enemies of the Process, but for all of professional basketball, and his strained relationship with the uniquely unlikeable Rudy Gobert actually is the IRL version of the BS "Can Ben and Joel Co-Exist Without Getting Along?" narrative. Honestly, if Mike Conley's shot had gone in to win that series against Denver, it would have hurt me nearly as bad as the Kawhi quadruple-doink. -- A.U.

2. Miami Heat

It's like seeing your ex in a good relationship on Facebook but they're both assholes. -- S.E.

1. Boston Celtics

I would be shocked if this was not unanimous. Do I even need to explain? It's Boston. They're the Celtics. It's Bill Russell. It's Larry Bird. It's Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett. It's Game 7 Rondo. It's Brandon Bass long twos in the playoffs. It's Danny Ainge. It's their version of Al Horford and it's our version of Al Horford. It's the Markelle Fultz for Jayson Tatum trade. It's Marcus Smart. It's the Ben Simmons one-point game, it's the Confetti Game, and it's the stunning 4-1 series defeat that Mike still thinks the Sixers had a chance of winning. It's this year's sweep. It's the Boston Celtics. -- S.A.