The rivalry between the Lakers and Sixers is already so much fun

If you had told me last season that Lakers vs. 76ers had a chance to be a good rivalry, I probably would’ve laughed.

We had seen Joel Embiid play 31 of the best basketball games a rookie ever has, but then he missed the rest of the season. The Lakers were in shambles and in danger of losing their draft pick if the lottery balls didn’t bounce their way. A rivalry seemed silly at that point.

Yet here we are. These two teams have combined for two of the most fun games of the season so far. Last month, Embiid gave us a historic 46-point, 15-rebound stat line. And on Thursday night, we got a sick game winner from Brandon Ingram courtesy of Lonzo Ball.

But that wasn’t it. This game had so much to celebrate.

Where do we start? Ball nearly had a five-by-five! Ben Simmons notched his third triple-double this season! Ingram did this! Embiid was just straight up mean, per usual.

The game came down to the wire after a crazy fourth quarter comeback staged by Embiid and Richaun Holmes (!). Embiid was unstoppable in the post, doing things that no one else in the league even thinks about anymore.

Meanwhile, Holmes was just being a bully.

But the Lakers weren’t going down without a fight, though. Julius Randle seemed unstoppable at times in the fourth quarter, making play after play.

And it all came down to a sick game winner through the combined talents of the Lakers’ two future stars.

This was one of the best finishes of the season between two teams who don’t know exactly what they’re doing yet, and that’s what made it so beautiful.

Except for Holmes, the oldest player mentioned above is Embiid, who’s 23 years old. He’s eight months older than Julius Randle, who’s also just 23 years old. Simmons is 21, Ingram is 20, as is Ball. And there are still countless players like Dario Saric, Jordan Clarkson and Robert Covington who are on the rise.

These two squads are going to be around for years to come. Is it a rivalry just yet? Probably not. They’ve only faced off twice with these cores, and they won’t see each other this season unless they make the NBA Finals. I wouldn’t recommend getting your hopes up for that.

But the youth between these two teams is insane. We’re already seeing it flourish with the Sixers. It’s only a matter of time before the Lakers catch their stride and are one of the better teams in the Western Conference.

Even Magic Johnson knows what’s good.

The parallels are there. Simmons and Ingram went 1-2 in the 2016 NBA draft. Embiid already started a war of words with the Ball family. And, at the end of the day, it’s Los Angeles and Philadelphia — two of the oldest franchises in the league.

This may be a bunch of nothing, but it could be pretty fun a few years from now. If it is, we’ll remember this season as its starting point.