Kobe Bryant has gone down as one of the best 1-on-1 players we have ever seen, but he once admitted to having trouble beating his former teammate John Salley. Salley appeared on Vlad TV recently, where he was asked about those 1-on-1 games with Bryant and claimed he never lost any of them.
Vlad: “You used to play Kobe 1-on-1 all the time.”
John Salley: “Every day.”
Vlad: “How many times did you play him 1-on-1? If you were to just count. Just a rough number in your head.”
Salley: “30.”
Vlad: “30 times?”
Salley: “Maybe 40. 30 or 40.”
Vlad: “Okay, let’s just say 40. How many of those games did you win?”
Salley: “Every single one.”
Salley claimed he would never play two games, and he would always get the ball first. He added he would always back down Bryant and score using hook shots.
Salley was listed at 6’11” while Bryant was 6’6,” so this wasn’t really a fair fight. The former was just too tall for the latter to guard, and he’d get scored on easily. Also, these two were teammates on the Los Angeles Lakers only during the 1999-00 season.
Bryant wasn’t at his peak at that point, but to be fair, Salley was on his last legs as well. He would retire in 2000 with career averages of 7.0 points, 4.5 rebounds, 1.2 assists, 0.6 steals, and 1.3 blocks per game in the NBA.
Now, some would have refused to believe that a role player like Salley would even stand a chance against a Hall of Famer like Bryant, who averaged 25.0 points, 5.2 rebounds, 4.7 assists, 1.4 steals, and 0.5 blocks per game in his career. Thankfully for him, Kobe admitted on The Best Damn Sports Show Period that he always got beat.
“He used to beat me every day,” Bryant said.
Bryant seemingly forgot about his battles with Salley as the years went by, though. In 2016, he claimed he had never lost a 1-on-1 game against anyone in practice and added that only Michael Jordan could have potentially pulled that off.
Bryant didn’t believe he’d lose to his idol either, though. He was quite confident he’d beat Jordan 1-on-1 just a few years into his career. If there’s one thing Bryant never lacked, it was confidence in his abilities.
