Yesterday, people went nuts when we posted the news that Kobe Bryant had declared himself the best 1-on-1 player ever. Most people immediately reacted like that was some sort of outrageous, off-the-wall claim, which is pretty ridiculous to me, but whatever.
Part of the evidence that Kobe presented as he was running down the names of guys who can’t or couldn’t beat him was a story about how he destroyed Tracy McGrady during an adidas trip to Germany back in the day. Problem is, T-Mac says it never happened.
In case you missed it, here’s what Kobe said:
I played T-Mac. I cooked him. Roasted him. Wasn’t even close. Ask him, he’ll tell you. When I was about 20, we were in Germany doing some promotional stuff for that other sneaker company and we played basketball every day. We were in the gym all the time. We played three games of one-on-one to 11. I won all three games. One game I won 11-2. After the third game he said he had back spasms and couldn’t play anymore.
Last night, McGrady responded on Twitter with this when he was asked about Bryant’s claim:
“”LOL Hell no! That’s far from the truth. No one in the NBA is playing 1 on 1. Me and KB never went to Germany together either..”
No matter what your feelings for Kobe Bryant are, that would be a pretty odd, detailed lie for Kobe to put out there, don’t you think? It seems like T-Mac has a lot more to lose by admitting that he got steamrolled by Kobe.