San Antonio has won four championships since 1999, the Lakers have won three, and the winner of the Western Conference finals has a chance to gain something else.
"If we win it and you want to call us team of the decade, you're my man," Kobe Bryant said.
The Lakers and Spurs begin another playoff series tonight at Staples Center, their sixth meeting in the last 10 seasons, part of a rivalry in which familiarity breeds mild contempt and, often, an NBA title.
The players have mutual respect for one another -- "They're all nice guys. They're not trash talkers by any means," Bryant said -- but the coaches have taken turns slinging the zing.
Lakers Coach Phil Jackson was generally credited with starting it several years back when he dismissed San Antonio as a land of conventioneers and tourists, but Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich appeared to grab the last laugh by comparing the breakup of the Lakers in 2004 to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Jackson, never one to shy away from zinging the opponents (or his own players), once referred to Spurs forward Bruce Bowen as "Edward Scissorhands" because of his rough defense. Earlier this season, Jackson said Manu Ginobili traveled every time he drove to the basket, a so-called "European walk."
Not to be forgotten, Popovich had a problem with the Lakers' acquisition of Pau Gasol in February.
"What they did in Memphis is beyond comprehension," he told reporters shortly after Gasol arrived from the Grizzlies. "I just wish I had been on a trade committee that oversees NBA trades. I'd like to elect myself to that committee. I would have voted no to the L.A. trade."
Fast forward to Tuesday, and the Spurs were already a step behind the Lakers.
The Spurs planned to fly Monday night from New Orleans to Los Angeles after eliminating the Hornets, 91-82, but they ended up spending the night on the team plane as it sat near the airport tarmac in New Orleans because of mechanical problems.
The Spurs were more or less stuck because they could not find hotel rooms in New Orleans because of local conventions. The Spurs did not practice Tuesday and held media interviews in a ballroom at a swank Santa Monica hotel.
"We got to the plane at about midnight or something like that. Mechanical problem and no mechanic. Then no plane. Then no hotel," Popovich said. "Called about 15 or 20 places and couldn't go anywhere so we spent the evening in the tarmac on the plane. . . . It reminded me of Division III basketball."
