“Half-spin had Bean drunk at the bar”: Kevin Durant marvels at 1v1 duel between Kobe ‘Bean’ Bryant and Tracy McGrady from the early 2000s NBA

Kevin Durant is from an era that grew up idolizing and admiring Kobe Bryant and Tracy McGrady. He look back at one of their great oncourt moments.

Kobe and T-Mac were the two Adidas athletes who threatened to change the sneaker industry in the early 00s. The T-Macs are still viewed as some of the best basketball shoes of all time.

But while Kobe later switched to Nike and the Swoosh, he also had a radically different career path. Whereas T-Mac played his best years on a Magic team with a perennially injured Grant Hill, Kobe made yearly runs to the Finals with Shaq.

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This obviously gives Kobe the edge 1v1 when the duo dueled each other. T-Mac didn’t have the luxury of throwing it to Shaq in the post and getting a guaranteed bucket every possession.

This didn’t obviously mean that the duo didn’t have their moments as the two best wing players of the NBA. Kobe and T-Mac vied for superiority all through the noughties till the latter succumbed to injuries at Houston.

Kevin Durant shares legendary 1v1 clip between Kobe Bryant and Tracy McGrady

T-Mac took 2 scoring titles in the early 2000s over the likes of Kobe, Shaq and Allen Iverson. This is a clear indicator of his varied scoring arsenal and his myriad ways of getting a bucket.

Kobe was no slouch obviously, and he ended up giving as good as he got whenever he went up against Tracy McGrady or Iverson. Kevin Durant shared a vintage clip from Ballislife that documents this rivalry.

“The guy that always gave me the most problems was Tracy McGrady…He could do everything I could do but he was taller.” – Kobe Bryantpic.twitter.com/T12urxVrCV

— Ballislife.com (@Ballislife) May 24, 2021

Half spin had bean drunk at the bar…then that tween go had mac stuck in mud seconds later. Haha God is funny https://t.co/MphcBeNG3t

— Kevin Durant (@KDTrey5) May 24, 2021

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As you can see, it was quite the vintage sequence of plays. A T-Mac turnaround fadeaway that left Kobe on the floor, followed by Kobe blowing by McGrady for a dunk.