Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady have a lot in common. They both burst onto the NBA early and became arguably the most exciting players in the entire league. Carter was known for his ferocious dunks, some of the best in the history of basketball, while McGrady could score at a level that was outstanding and hard to fathom even for those around him. They both also had a lot of love and respect for each other’s talent.
They both never lived up to the hype, though, T-Mac because of the injuries and Carter because he couldn’t capitalize in his time as a superstar. However, one of the most wholesome and well-known facts about the two is that both are also related to one another. Carter and McGrady are cousins, and Carter has now shared the epic story of how he found out about that on the ‘All The Smoke’ podcast:
“So watch how this story happened. My junior year, is when I find out that T-Mac was my cousin. So he comes out and he goes to the draft and he’s coming in to work out and he comes to play pick-up. And he’s like, ‘Ey bruh’, nobody would let him use their locker.”
“Now, we played AAU ball together. Aight, so I knew, he was on the younger team, I was on the older team. So we used to watch each other play. Never knew we were cousins. We’re playing pick-up in Carolina all week. I say, Ayy bruh, you can use my locker room, whatever… And then he said, ‘I’m going for a family reunion, I’ll see you next week when I get back.”
“He sits at the table with my grandmother, they get to talking, so she’s like, ‘Oh, you at school in North Carolina, my grandson plays college ball there. He says, ‘Oh, for real, who’s your grandson?’”
“I get a call from my grandmother. ‘What’s up cuz!‘ And I’m I’m like ‘Who the hell is this?’ He says ‘It’s T-Mac man! What’s up’?’ That’s how we found out we’re cousins.”
That is an incredible story, and, amazingly, Carter and McGrady turned out to be from the same family, considering how elite they both were at the very highest level. Although neither achieved the sort of greatness that might have been expected from both, both of them were always amazing for the league and the watching fans and have gone down as legends of the game.
