Jerry Stackhouse recalled playing one-on-one games with the late Kobe Bryant 25 years ago.
Stackhouse said they played several games and admitted that Bryant did beat him several times.
“But again, because he’s so been great since this, these stories go back of ‘Oh, he beat Stackhouse one-on-one.’ Come on, man. Me at 20 years old, can you imagine a 17-year-old beating me consistently? I’d have hurt him first, real talk.
Just physically, that could never happen to me. Did we play one-on-one? Yes. Did he beat me, did he maybe win a game? Yes. Did he consistently beat Jerry Stackhouse at 20 years old when he was 17? Hell no. I’m putting an end to that story.
Was he super talented and everyone saw great potential in him? Yes, but those scenarios … of Kobe Bryant, they’re a little bit of a different story when you go talk to people that were actually in the gym,” Stackhouse told Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, as transcribed by Noah Levick of NBC Sports.
Bryant died in a helicopter crash on January 26.
