As two of the biggest NBA stars of the early 2000s, Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady will be forever linked by their time spent playing with and against each other over the years. But, while many remember their legendary careers, there’s still a host of fans out there who may not be aware that the pair share another unique bond that extends beyond the hardwood.
During the latest episode of The VC Show with Vince Carter podcast, the NBA legends and Florida natives reminisced on the hilarious story of how they learned they were second-cousins prior to the 1997 draft. Just before the chat, McGrady, who was selected ninth overall out of high school that year, told Carter—a junior at North Carolina at the time—he believed they had never actually talked about the story together.
After telling McGrady “it still baffles me and makes me laugh how we found out we were cousins,” Carter said the story began after the two met in Chapel Hill for a run of pickup games in the summer of ’97 ahead of the July draft. Both players already knew each other before the meet-up through AAU circles and their time as local high school basketball stars, with McGrady in Bartow, Fla. and Carter a few hours away in Daytona Beach.
As they continued to play throughout the week, Carter said T-Mac told him he wouldn’t be there that Friday because of a family reunion, which he said he had no plans of attending because he was in summer school. At some point later on, Carter said he received a call from his grandmother, but was not greeted by her voice on the other line.
“I’m like, ‘The hell is she calling me for?’” Carter said before pretending to answer the phone. “’Grandma, you good? What’s going on?” And on the other line, I hear, “What’s up, cuz, what’s up!’ And I’m like, ‘Bruh, who is this?’ He said, ‘This Mac cuz, we family, cuz.’ I’m like, ‘What are you talking about, bro? This don’t make sense.”
McGrady then explained his reaction to finding out they were related. In a previous telling of the story to Sports Illustrated in ’99, McGrady said he found out after he was introduced to a cousin, Carter’s grandmother, during the reunion who revealed her grandson played for UNC.
“You don’t even understand how excited I was when I heard this, man,” McGrady said on the podcast. “Because, I’m telling you this is, post-being on Team Florida, watching you, I told you it was the inspiration, then I’m playing pickup ball with y’all, I go home and I run into your grandmother, I was like, ‘Hold up, bro, we cousins?”
“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, man, I cannot believe this,” he added.
As time would eventually tell, that fateful summer ended up serving as a proper precursor to Carter joining McGrady with the Raptors as the fifth overall pick in ’98. The pair led Toronto to one playoff appearance across two seasons before McGrady departed for the Magic in 2000, though the cousins would again play on the same team down the line in three All-Star games from ’01 to ’04.
