Transcription
[Music] and against McGrady. [Applause] The Grady versus Kobe's. Behind. Wow. When you first met, when you guys first got to know each other as teenagers, did you recognize right away you were kind of kindred spirits in the way you approach the game?
Well, yeah. But he was, he was freakishly more athletic and taller than I was. And I had to get it. Yeah, because I was a little bit more reserved and never been around, you know, somebody worked as hard as he did. And I'd learned that from him. Yeah, I had to. A polettis is him, but the work ethic part, I had to get from being around him.
So how old were you when you guys met? Was 19, right? Because you're a year ahead. Yes. Yeah. This is when I knew, okay, he likes to play mind games. And he's always trying to get an edge on whoever his opponents. Whatever. I don't care if I'm his friend. Whatever. So right, I told him, I said, I'm about to go work out. And he was like, well, are you going to work out for your offseason? Like, people need to work out. And I'm looking at him like, so all right. Go back to my room, change, easy, chill for a minute. Go to the weight room. [Laughter] What? So I had to start taking notes like, this dude right here. So he's always gonna have an edge on somebody.
He had a hard time understanding with sarcasm. While just being sarcastic. Disneyland. And somebody was afraid of roller coasters. I was gonna ask about that. Why's afraid of roller coaster? It wasn't that I was afraid. Lisa, we just had lunch. And this man trying to drag me on a roller coaster, which you couldn't see after this. Him doing that, my whole day. I was so mad. And he was, he was, he was not the same residue. Then we're gonna talk to me once. And he was so pissed. I was gonna wait till later. Bruh, I'm just gonna get to it now.
So you have told a story that the two of you on a trip to Germany. Yes. Where y'all played one-on-one supposedly in a gym. And according to you, you won. He's supposedly smoked weed. We didn't play one-on-one first of all. Did you go to? He wasn't keeping score. What we were doing was it keeping score? Cold. What we were doing, we were working on our footwork on the post. We were working out individually. And then we were working on our stuff on the post. Let's keep a scope. If somebody's playing a workout and if the person scores, they keep the ball. What is that? We wasn't keeping score.
Have you ever been with him where he wasn't keeping score? That's the question. Yeah. Let's be honest. That's the question. Now that you know him, has he ever? I mean, please. Here's a cup of coffee and keep score. He was people score. I was to keep a score. But 11 to 3. III. I'm not gonna pull nobody in there. I remember specific aunt. Believe the guy that doesn't even know the location where we were playing. Country. The country. Maybe off now. I may forget a lot of things. You forgot what report. Think I'm not gonna forget. Here's the score. There were some lemons. Oh, it was. It's okay. Jeremy peridot. I'll tell you how much.
So you guys brought different things to it when you were teenagers and working out together and doing all that. He was, you know, straight out of high school, so high profile. How did you end up in his house? I just felt like, you know, he's been there, you know, in those, those shoes. And I felt like, what better person to learn from? This is all new to me. Then somebody that's already been through it. And you know, we became, we hit it off. Instead, as I was watching karate flicks, we went to a spy. I was scared as hell because we ran into Mike Tyson. Like [Laughter]. Everybody told me they said, Tracy, his potential was off the charts. These potentials off the charts. And for me, it was a time where I was getting a lot of flack for being a young player coming league. And I'm looking at another player coming out of high school. And I'm like, okay, we need to make noise. Like, we need to show old guys that we can come out of high school and do some serious damage. The older guard so excited about having these young kids from high school come up together. My first year, I called him like every week. Or it was a lot that I talked to him on the phone because I was going through it. And I know he went through his rookie season. So I had somebody to lean on. Like, yo man, you know, you come out of high school, you didn't, you know, you the man, you getting all the shots. And then you come to an NBA team and you'll play one game, probably 20 minutes. And you don't see the floor for another five years. Like, it was just inconsistent. And I was being Barry. And I was like, it was, it was doing something my confidence, right? So I had to lean on him at that time. And we talked relentlessly. Yeah.
My response was, I went there. I went to villain's room. It was just like, okay, well, wanna bury me here on this? Everybody's gonna pay for this. I'm gonna show everyone that no, I was deserving of this planet. I'm as a rookie again. As a my sophomore season. But I used it as motivation. Some form of vengeance. Dale Harris still to this day. I mean, we talk, we joke about it a lot because he really didn't play much. And I remember that game when he came to LA with the Dallas Mavericks. And he was the head coach of that game. Yeah, that was in 1990. Doesn't matter now.
Tracy has said to me that as he started to come up more in the league, and that you guys became more rivals on the court, he says that's when you stopped hanging out as much. Not because you didn't like each other, but just back then it was like, hey, if you were going at each other for real, you didn't socialize. Enjoy yourself. Well, let me tell you, me tell you story. So when he went to Orlando, and we were trying to win our championships in LA, so I absolutely buried myself even more so in the craft. And literally cut everybody out my life. Is just focused on that. But I remember in the playoffs, you guys are playing the Milwaukee Bucks and one year. And me and Vanessa went out to lunch. Went to a restaurant, they had TVs in the restaurant. I remember sitting there and watching. I mean, you just, just cooking big. I mean, just like, I think all the puppy dog was it lucky dog. I remember sitting in the restaurant, watching on TV. I said, man, that dude's the real deal. He's made it. When we started out like as young as together. But I remember feeling like such a sense of joy because of what he was doing. So even though I've never actually told him that, there's a sense of pride that's as much as I'm going. [Laughter]