The NBA in the early 2000s was as fun as it gets. So many great players made their mark in that era, from Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett to Tim Duncan and Dirk Nowitzki. These guys were Hall-of-Famers with iconic moves and big personalities. The game is in a great place now, with so many incredible players, but there’s something about that era that just spawns so much nostalgia.
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It’s always nice to take a walk down memory lane to that era, and it’s even better when you can hear first-hand accounts of what it was like to be playing then.
Tracy McGrady, T-Mac himself, was on The Young Man and the Three this week, and he spoke about some of the toughest matchups he dealt with. Unsurprisingly, he named Kobe as the standard-bearer whose work ethic inspired everyone else.
“Kobe didn’t take no vacations like that,” McGrady said. “If he had a disappointing season, I know what he’s doing. So at that time, I can’t be on vacation, taking all this time off and relaxing on the beach, and not working on my s***, because that’s one of the coldest m************ to ever play the game, and I gotta see him.”
The fear of being embarrassed or being talked about as “less than” drove T-Mac, and he said that prepared not just for an 82-game season, but for certain matchups, as well. Kobe was at the top of the list.
“When you’re playing against a dynamic player like [Kobe], you gotta have a game plan,” he said. “So I go in saying, ‘I’m taking certain things away. You’re just not gonna get me with this. I’m sitting on this.”
One of their greatest confrontations occurred in 2002, when they each put up 38 points in a 112-102 win for McGrady’s Magic over Kobe’s Lakers. In the rematch three weeks later, they again scored the same amount, this time 21 points, and the Lakers got revenge 107-84.
They only met one time the following year, but it was another all-timer, as Kobe’s 38 helped the Lakers overcome McGrady’s 37 in a 113-110 overtime win for the Lakers over the Rockets.
Perhaps the most memorable game the two played against each other was in 2007. Kobe outscored T-Mac 53-30, but he required an unbelievable 44 shots from the field to do it. McGrady was only 7-24 from the floor but he made 15-16 free throws in a Rockets overtime win.
Kobe once said of McGrady, “He could do everything I could, but he was 6’10”. He had no weaknesses in his game; he could score from anywhere and defend. He’s the hardest player I have ever had to guard.” The stats bear this out, as the two had some incredible head-to-head battles.
Kobe versus T-Mac was one of the great rivalries in the NBA, and the fact that we still care about these stories two decades later is proof. We lost Kobe far too soon, but his legacy lives on through his competitors and the stories they tell.
