Tracy McGrady is one of a handful of former players who is very proud of the era he played in. He believes that guys who were in the NBA in the '90s were some of the most ruthless competitors in the league's history. That's why, recently, T-Mac recalled some of the coldest trash-talkers he played against during his career, and the list isn't surprising at all.
"Gary Payton, obviously. The obvious guy is Gary Payton, KG [Kevin Garnett], but you just didn't know who KG was talking to. He'd be talking so much sh*t, and you looking around like, 'Is he talking to me?' 'Cause I ain't say nothing to him. But yeah, KG is one of those guys that constantly just talked a lot of sh*t. Whether it's you or it was to himself, you didn't know who he was talking to. GP, that sh*it was directly to you. Kobe talked sh*t as well," McGrady said.
The ultimate trash-talkers
Kobe, KG, and Payton have talked about why trash-talking fueled them and why it was a big part of their game. The latter liked to take it personally towards his competitors, even if it meant bringing up their family members.
"If I knew something about a person's mother, I knew something about his sister. If he had just got a drunk driving charge, I would go at the situation. It might be cruel to some people, but I would go at it, " Gary said , describing how ruthless he would get when talking smack.
As for " The Big Ticket ," he once admitted that he wasn't an avid trash-talker, but his former coach, "Wolfie," unleashed the art of trash-talking in him.
"Wolfie was like, 'I mean, if you've got something you wanna get out, man, let it out. Don't be holding that in here.' He gave me that freedom of expression…He started to help me really express myself through the skill because he saw what I would work on after practice and all the things I wanted to be better at. And he was like, 'Man, you gotta start implementing that into your game, and you gotta do that s*** with some energy, man.' So I would do it with that," Garnett said on the "Knuckleheads Podcast."
Bryant 's opponents, meanwhile, would say that he was an intellectual trash-talker who would yap out of competitiveness just because he knew he was way more talented than anyone on the court.
"It was intelligent trash-talking. Like he made you always second guess everything you're doing. He always did this. He's like, 'Bro, you're not open. I'm not even going to help over there.' He used to say, 'Mouse in the house,' It was just random stuff; it was sometimes a conversation, and then you get a foul, and he goes, 'Go sit on the bench, stupid.' It was just one of those things where when you played him, you're playing a mental war," Gilbert Arenas said .
Related: "He offered me some cash in front of my grandma" - Kevin Garnett on how his grandmother pulled out a shotgun on a recruiter
T-Mac has his own fair share of moments
McGrady recalled one instance in his career when his trash-talk got out of hand. It happened in the 2001 playoffs when T-Mac played for the Orlando Magic and faced the Milwaukee Bucks and Glen Robinson.
"I called him puppy dog 'cause his name is 'Big Dog' Robinson. You know me being young, dumb and ignorant called the man puppy dog. It spiced up that series a little bit between the two because in the next game, we definitely got into a little scuffle, but I loved every bit of it; it was fun," McGrady stated.
Perhaps the biggest difference between the '90s and today's NBA is that the big-time players valued trash-talking way more. It's why the likes of T-Mac believe that their era was more competitive, and honestly, he might just be right.
Related: Tracy McGrady talks about a hypothetical one-on-one matchup with Michael Jordan: "I'm about three inches taller, so he won't affect my shot"
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