Ever since Verzuz started back in March 2020 with Swizz Beatz and Timbaland doing a hit-for-hit battle over video to do something for fans with everyone locked down at the start of the pandemic, there have been ideas for spinoffs and how the battle format might work outside of the world of music — where Verzuz is now doing full-on battle concerts.
On Friday, Feb. 18 at All-Star Weekend, the brand will try out its first basketball highlight battle between two legends of the NBA, as Tracy McGrady and Allen Iverson will go highlight for highlight from Cleveland after the Friday night festivities wrap up. The event will be shown on the Bleacher Report app, Verzuz Instagram page, and on the Triller app, starting at 11 p.m. ET. Taylor Rooks will serve as the host for the event, with Fat Joe as the “analyst,” and Shaq will be the “commissioner,” in which he’ll set the matchup for each event and offer his thoughts on who won each round.
It’ll be interesting to see how the format works in the world of sports and whether it can stay engaging throughout the battle or if the novelty fades at all as it goes on, but it should be fun to see the two Hall of Famers try to one-up each other with their highlights and getting their thoughts and insight on how it all went down. We’ll see if there are times the other simply concedes with a bit of a throwaway — like, what will T-Mac throw up against the Ty Lue stepover from Iverson — and it’ll provide some great nostalgia for those who grew up during their heydays in the late 90s and early 2000s.