“It’s like UFC fights. When these guys go against each other, you know who’s stronger, because it’s just one-on-one.”
Tracy McGrady did not provide a cage to surround the half-courts of his “Ones Basketball Association”. On the other hand, he counts on the spirit of competition and the individual talent of his participants to make the best publicity for his one-on-one championship.
In line with the success of the “BIG3”, T-Mac wanted to decline the principle by setting up a one-on-one league, the “Ones Basketball Association”, with the aim of finding the best player in the country in this exercise. He also drew on his own experience with his two sons to try to offer a format that will appeal to the youngest, who tend to neglect NBA games, which are sometimes considered too long.
“I have two sons myself, and I run an AAU program. My boys don’t watch NBA games, or college basketball, and even the guys in my program don’t sit down to watch two and a half, three hours of basketball”he confided. “But what they like is the short formats on YouTube, summaries, things like that, which they gravitate towards. So why not create something short, fun, that they relate to? Because they play one-on-one basketball all the time.”
The former scorer also slipped that he was regularly asked about his place in history among Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant and others, and who would win a one-on-one tournament among them. “Apart from me, I would say Kobe. Kobe was truly a one-on-one player. It was his style, and he brought that to the NBA. That’s why he was so strong.”
The championship will begin on April 30 and will be held in seven cities including Houston, Atlanta, Chicago, New York and San Francisco. 32 participants will compete in each city, by size category, and the top three will win an invitation to the final tournament scheduled for Las Vegas. The big winner of this last meeting will be crowned “King of the court”, and will win the sum of 250,000 dollars.
