Yea, it's always been like that. Doesn't seem fair but I guess it's a way to provide more pressure for the top teams. There's definitely a RL precedent for it too as in the ACC, a lot of basketball teams/fan bases would consider North Carolina or Duke to be their primary rival but no one (as far as I know) considers like Wake Forest or Clemson to be their main rival.
Growing up a Phx Suns fan I can totally relate. We (fans and players) used to get so pumped when we'd face the Lakers, but the Lakers were pretty outspoken about not considering the Suns a rival (mostly because they owned us and the "rivalry" was one sided)
That started to change in the late 80's and by the early 90's it was a full fledged rivalry with lots of hate and trash talking. I still remember in 93 when the Suns won 62 games and were the favorites to win it all. We had the Lakers in the 1st round (best of 5 series back then). One of the Sports radio guys in L.A. said "The Suns will fold like tortillas"...and the Lakers will win the series.
Fans and radio personalities in Phx shot back trash talking the Lakers who were average at best that season....Lakers came to Phoenix and won the 1st two games of the series obviously justifying many of the L.A. peoples comments...In the press conference following Game two a clearly agitated Suns Coach Paul Westphal said:
"we're going to go to L.A. and win both games, and then we'll back to Phoenix and win game 5, and everyone will say what a great series it was!" (Paraphrased)
(http://www.nba.com/suns/video/2013/05/02/westphal130501kj...)He proved to be correct, and the Suns did win the series and went to the Finals before John Paxton broke our hearts in game 6 and the Bulls won the Championship 4-2.
