How Good Was Tracy McGrady Actually?

Tracy McGrady is a two-time NBA scoring champion, seven-time All-Star and Hall of Famer who has never won a playoff series. Here's the retrospective of T-Mac's glorious and quirky career, full of hypotheticals. Answer how

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McGrady really was, why he never won in the postseason and why Kobe called him the toughest opponent he ever faced in his early life and path to the NBA. Tracy McGrady was born in Florida in 1979, but unlike some of his NBA colleagues, he didn't have a rags-to-riches story and had a fairly normal childhood. His first sporting love was baseball and Tracy was a talented pitcher;

However, after a lot of growth and watching Penny Hardaway play for her local team, the Orlando Magic, in 1993, Tracy began to focus more on basketball. McGrady broke out as a high school junior with a spectacular GPA. 23 points, 12 rebounds, four assists and five blocks per game, but despite his stellar play,

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had problems, he was an impulsive teenager with a great game and an even bigger ego, so he missed school, had bad grades and often fought with his head coach, which eventually led to him being cut from the basketball team and scared off college scouts, but because one of McGrady's AAU coaches was also an Adidas agent to find talent young people, organized

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To be invited to the prestigious Adidas ABCD summer camp, McGrady arrived at the 1996 camp as a complete nobody and of the 175 players there he was ranked 175. Lamar Odom was ranked number one and Tracy demanded to protect Odom to show them all he could do against the so called best player in camp, what was the result, a completely wiped out odom who was on the receiving end of some ferocious tomahawk dunks from tmac after

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was offered to transfer to mount zion christian academy , where he led his new team to the state finals and was named USA Today's high school player of the year and was called by Associated Press Rick Pitino to come to Kentucky, but Tracy decided to follow the successful path of Kevin Garnett and Kobe Bryant, who came to the nba straight out of high school in two previous drafts in the 1997 nba draft that included tim duncan chauncey billups and stephen jackson mcgrady were selected ninth overall by the toronto raptors, toronto vince's cousin and the first, What if coming to Toronto was a huge culture shock for an 18 year old McGrady who moved away from? from sunny Florida to freezing Canada where he didn't know anyone, it was a big shock to me, he was depressing and I felt lonely after practice, I would come home and go straight to bed.

I must have been sleeping like 20 hours a day. a complete outsider on the second worst team in the league and he started only 17 games scoring 7 points in 18 minutes per game. McGrady repeatedly feuded with then-Raptors coach Daryl Walker, who often criticized Tracy for her work ethic, but the second season brought many positives for Toronto and for McGrady they got a new arena, a new coach and The arrival of a player stole the hearts of all basketball fans in Canada: it was Vince Carter, the fifth pick of the '98 draft, and McGrady's cousin Carter won the rookie award the year award Toronto had two young prospects. interesting and Tracy finally had someone to hang out with.

The two cousins ​​were like peas in a pod and became inseparable as Siamese twins Carter exploded in the 99-2000 season with 26 points and four assists on average. Making his first all-star team, Tracy had begun to excel and eventually saw an increase in playing time by 31 minutes. He averaged 15.4 points, 6.3 rebounds and 3.3 dimes per game. He also blocked 1.9 shots in each game, which was the 10th-best mark. in the league and the best for a non-center, he and Carter were a lethal combination that no one could keep up with and they had enormous advantages because they were both in their early twenties. “I see us as next,” Jordan and Pippen McGrady said during an interview. and added that he considers himself as much scotty and carter as mj, but in the end they turned out to be just nice words, even though they were cousins ​​and best friends, the two young stars had extremely big egos despite publicly saying that it would be fine being a pippin mcgrady secretly wanted to be jordan and he wanted it right away so he opted to return to florida signing a six year deal worth $67 million to join the orlando magic if mcgrady had stayed with carter and the raptors in the Canadian team.

He probably would have gone to two or three NBA Finals considering East wasn't that strong in the early 2000s. Magic Ears with magic. The main reason I came to Orlando was Grant Hill, not Florida, not the money, but Hill Tracy said Hill was a five-time All-Star just entering the prime of his career and he and mcgrady were going to become the least in the best duo in the league, so we thought that unfortunately hill's ankle injury worsened and he played only 47 games in the next four years and Tracy was left with the young magic team on his shoulders, which he did, and then Max began to torture opposing defenses with almost 27 points, 7.5 rebounds and 4.6 assists per game.

He earned star recognition and a No. 2 spot in the NBA. team and the most improved player award, however, magic had a group of rookies next to mcgrady and they lost in the first round of the playoffs the next season, it was the same that mcgrady was a star and made the first team of the NBA. this time but the magic was lost once again in the first round of the playoffs, then in the 2002-2003 season we see the best of

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mcgrady's career as she became one of the most unstoppable offensive forces in the history of the game. magical team on his shoulders averaging 32.1 points per game along with 6.5 rebounds and 5.5 assists t-mac was one of the top five players and three-pointers made that year and was equally lethal from mid-range or driving to the basket just pick and choose your poison i don't have any particular unstoppable move i do everything right it's up to the opponent to choose how i'll score mcgrady said then came the first round of the playoffs where orlando barely made it to the 8th seed the top seed detroit was a tough opponent but after four games the magic led three to one after the third win the young and arrogant mcgrady said it feels

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to finally make it to the second round of the playoffs the pistons should have listened to what mcgrady had said about finally advancing and they did everything they could to make his life miserable, first destroying the magic by 30 points in game 5 and then winning the next two games, making tmac eat his words for the 2004 season. mcgrady had continued to dominate, he was scoring at Heaps and there was his career against the Wizards when he scored 62 points with an average of 28 points, once again he was a scoring champion, an All-Star and made the second team in the NBA, but it was all in vain because Orlando was a disaster and they finished the season with the worst record in the nba completely pissed off, tracy demanded they trade him, magic was forced and they sent him to houston in a seven player deal.

The following year, the magic selected dwight howard with the first pick, who became the best center in the nba. in three seasons and Grant Hill bounced back and was an All-Star, it's another, what if? But if Tmac had stayed, he too could have gone to the finals with Orlando. Houston, we have a problem. Houston had a solid team in 2005 with solid veterans around. McGrady, 25, and Yao Ming, 24, who established themselves as one of the best centers in the league. The most memorable moment of the season was McGrady's 13 points in 33 seconds against the Spurs, which is still the best offensive 33 seconds of anyone.

In NBA history, Tmack once again became a star and a member of the NBA team and produced his usual stat line of 25 6 5 in the first round of the playoffs. Houston played Dallas and the series went to game seven in game seven. One of the biggest blowouts in playoff history occurred with Dallas winning by 40 points over McGrady and Yao scored 60 of Houston's 76 points and Tmac definitely did not disappoint, but he was stopped in the first round once again early in his second season with the McGrady Rockets. began to have back problems that kept him off the court on several occasions mcgrady played only 47 games and the rockets did not make the playoffs this season due to several injuries to mcgrady and ming in the 2007 season mcgrady was selected for the game of stars for the seventh time in a row and houston made the playoffs as a fifth seed with high hopes, they faced utah jazz in the first round and the series was decided again in game seven, you guessed it, tmac had lost again despite averaging 25 points and seven assists. in the series at the press conference after the game, tmac said this team was going to go as far as i took it.

I did my best. I tried before I choked back the tears and left the press. The story of the name of the next season. Fifth seed in the west and first. Round lost to the Jazz Tracy again played very well scoring 40 with 10 rebounds in the decisive sixth game, but could not overcome the talented Jazz team without the injured Yao Ming. In 2009 it was Ming who was healthy and played the best basketball. of his career, but now Tracy was on the shelf, missing the start of the season due to knee and shoulder surgery and then missing the entire season with the microfracture in her left knee that didn't heal properly to add insult to injury. .

First time his team advanced beyond the first round of the playoffs with Tracy in street clothes. Multiple trades and injuries. NBA players typically reach their prime around age 28, when their physical ability and basketball IQ reached the same level for McGrady, all after age. 28 was a struggle and his body could no longer take the wear and tear of the NBA, this was mainly due to the way McGrady jumped and landed when he shot the ball which was extremely hard on his knees and back e.g. if you look at LeBron's. The landing mechanics are like a graceful gazelle gently skimming the ground, which is a big reason why he almost never gets injured.

Players like McGrady and Derrick Rose landed like a pair of rhinos and, over time, their knees could no longer handle the stress after age. At 29, his knees were shot to death and he was a shell of the player he used to be just a few seasons before the Rockets decided to trade tmac in early 2009. He landed with the Knicks, where he played just 24 games and averaged 9 points. per game after that he signed for detroit where he averaged only 8 points and then for atlanta where he averaged 5. he played one season in china in 2013 and just when it seemed like everything was over, tracy received a call from the san antonio spurs and coach popp , who still remembered those 13 points in 33 seconds, Tracy joined the Spurs for the playoffs and played garbage minutes.

Still, it was the best chance he had to win a championship, but Ray Allen's triple in game six denied him the title. After the Spurs lost to Miami in Game 7, McGrady retired from basketball at the age of 34. Legacy Prime T-Mac was among the best and most versatile offensive weapons we've ever seen. Mack had no weaknesses in his game or his movements. They were so fluid and so smooth that it often seemed like he was playing slower than he

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was. Of all the shooting guards and forwards of his era, only Lebron was a better passer than McGrady, who averaged more than five assists per game in Orlando and Houston. mack rarely turned the ball over he was a great rebounder and a very good defensive player when he wanted to be especially early in his career tracy could create a shot out of nothing and during his days in orlando he was without a doubt the best scorer in the game, This man averaged 28 points when 28 points was a lot and the pace was among the slowest in league history with 10 fewer possessions per game than in 2021, when Kobe Bryant asked him which player was the most difficult for him to defend, He said it was Tracy. mcgrady because of his six-foot-eight height, length, athleticism and offensive versatility, yes, Tracy never made it past the first round and that's unique for a hall of fame player, but while his teams were unsuccessful , it was not thanks to him.

They were just bad luck injuries and a lot of what ifs