Bow Wow's hoop dreams didn't end with his 2002 sports comedy Like Mike but 10 years later when he played one-on-one with the late Kobe Bryant.
The rapper, who's currently on the Millennium Tour, recently shared the story of a game between him and Bryant in 2011, where the two played for $1,000. Bryant undoubtably won the game and exhausted the "Basketball" rapper in the process.
Bow Weezy recounted the game during a new interview with Shannon Sharpe on an April 30 episode of Club Shay Shay. Around the 57-minute mark of the video below, the rapper said that he thought the one-on-one would be "a cool moment for the internet." He added that Jermaine Dupri's assistant had gotten "smoked" by Bryant before.
Bow, who was "big on" LeBron James, went to Bryant's camp and aimed to represent the Miami Heat, who James played for at the time. But when Bow thought he had the game in the bag, Bryant showed him why he was an NBA legend.
"I left that gym and I said, 'I will never play in the NBA, nor do I want to.' I was so sore," Bow told Sharpe.
The rapper also admitted that he scored zero points against Bryant.
"He had his thumb in my waist ... He was hand checking and doing all the stuff," he said. "If Kobe, God rest his soul, if he was alive right now—if he was allowed to play defense like he played defense on me in the league—it would be a problem."
Bow also said that Bryant was trash-talking on the court but said that viewers "got a chance to see Kobe in a light that they never got a chance to see Kobe in."
The rapper also shared that Bryant played "hard" against him to avoid covering Bow's floor seats for two seasons. Bow continued reminiscing about Dupri trying to motivate him on the court as Bryant dunked on him.
"That right there is like a bucket list [goal]," Bow concluded. "Every kid would love to play Kobe Bryant one-on-one. And then for [his death] to tragically happen, that's something I'm going to hold dearly to my heart."
Bryant, his second-eldest daughter, Gianna "Gigi" Bryant, and seven others died in a tragic helicopter crash in January 2020.