I do not think that is true. I do not think that ANY person likes competition. They may say that they do; I am sure there are many "Kobe Bryant / Michael Jordan" instincts where people think they want to beat the others and want harder competition so that they could be better than the best. But the reality is, you want people who are 99% close to you, not 100%. Meaning that, what you desire is to work so hard and be so good that you are at the top, and people who you beat are not 5 year old children, but people who are 99% close to you; they are just missing that 1%.
You do not want to lose, you do not want to be bad, you do not want to be last place. If in a scenario where you help create the competition and that results in you losing, that is never good for you and you never like it. No matter how much mentality you have going on about trying to be best, if you are not the best, you are going to be upset about it. Which is why there is absolutely no reason why people should believe that you want better competition. You want the competition to be better than themselves, but worse than you; you want them to force you and make it hard, but still end up losing. Think of a football game: you want to win by a goal at stoppage time in the 98th minute, not win by 5 or lose.
I never said that any person likes competition. I actually said the opposite. I only said that I like competition myself and I would artificially create a competition, so I'm motivate myself to be better than my old self and others.
I don't want basketball and I don't know much about the relationship of Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan but Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are great examples from football. You know what? When you are the best and you don't have a competitor, you don't become a better because there is no point, you are the best, why should you force yourself further? There is no motive and drive for it.
Honestly, the only person that I've seen forcing himself further without competition was bodybuilder Chris Bumstead. He was in the best shape and no one was closer to it and weren't able to be closer to him but every year he pushed himself further and further. And if I had to choose another person, that would be UFC fighter Ilia Topuria but he had a competition, every fighter is potentially your competitor.