In 2002, Kobe Bryant cemented his status as a pure street baller at the legendary Rucker Park in Harlem. The mecca of street basketball that helped produced the likes of Julius "Dr.

John Salley used Julius Erving’s 1-on-1 loss to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to teach Kobe Bryant a lesson about height over heart.

“I got a nice rep from playing streetball and bringing streetball into the ABA and bringing it into the NBA,” Erving said. “And a lot of people start saying that the Rucker league made me ...