A Waste of Potential

  

Tracy McGrady was, for a period of about 7 years, one of the truly elite players in the NBA. A world class scorer with a gift for lifting mediocre teams to respectability, the most notable aspect of his legacy is being the best player never to advance past the first round of the playoffs. He is currently the highest paid player in the NBA, and he is being shopped by the Rockets for a fraction of what he might have been worth a couple of years ago. The tale of how he got to this point is both fascinating and depressing, and serves as a reminder that while the NBA is so often measured in potential, a great deal of it is never realized.

It took me several years to appreciate McGrady’s game. I associated him with the kind of player I felt was ruining the game: the selfish ball-handler who at best could not help his team win games, and at worst simply had no interest in doing so. Darius Miles, Stephon Marbury, Shawn Marion, Vince Carter, Antoine Walker. Talented players to be sure, but they all suffered from an inability to translate their talents to victories (To varying degrees, obviously). I thought McGrady was one of them, as evidenced by his propensity to take any and every shot and his lack of postseason success.

What I didn’t realize was how competitive he was, how much respect he demanded, how unfortunate many of his circumstances were. I looked back at his career and realized how much I had forgotten, how unfair many of my assumptions have been. It seems to me that if we’re going to understand his current situation, and that of similar players, this is a most worthwhile endeavor. After all, to understand how we got here, we have to look at where we have been.

T-Mac was drafted by the Raptors in 1997, one of the earlier players to skip college entirely. The team was surprisingly talented in spite of their 16-66 record, featuring Damon Stoudamire, Doug Christie, Marcus Camby and Chauncey Billups. The next year, T-Mac was joined by his cousin, Vince Carter, who quickly became the teams’ leading scorer and marquee player. McGrady emerged as a scorer in his third year, averaging 15 points in 31 minutes, and the Raptors made the playoffs for the first time. The Knicks swept them in 3 games.

Constricted by playing next to Carter, who had a very similar role, McGrady left for Orlando and a chance to play with Grant Hill. Hill would play 47 games in 4 years as T-Mac’s teammate, a series of injuries leaving him a shell of his former All-NBA self. T-Mac, meanwhile, blossomed into a premier scorer, winning a pair of scoring titles in 02-03 and 03-04. He made 4 All-Star teams in 4 years, as well as 2 All-NBA first teams and 2 All-NBA second teams.

The Magic made the playoffs his first three years on the team, losing to the Bucks 3-1, the Hornets 3-1, and the Pistons 4-3. The last series was particularly devastating as the Magic held a 3-1 series lead before losing three straight. McGrady was famously quoted as saying that it was nice to "finally be in the position to advance to the second round (of the playoffs)" before game 5, and it was unclear after game 4 if he even realized the playoff format had been changed from a 5 game first round series to 7 games. When the Magic went on to lose the series, he was pigeonholed as a loser who couldn’t get his team over the hump, a selfish shooter who didn’t make his team better.

What was the reality of the matter? Those teams were garbage, and McGrady played very well in the playoffs. His best teammates in that three-year run were Mike Miller, Darrell Armstrong, Drew Gooden, and Gordon Giricek. McGrady averaged 34, 31, and 32 points in the respective playoff series, playing 44 minutes a game each time. While two of his final three games in the Pistons series were unremarkable, his game 6 effort was anything but: 37 points, 11 rebounds, 5 assists, and 2 steals, while playing 47 minutes. His team lost by 15 points. With Juwan Howard as a sidekick in 03-04, the team won 21 games and appeared to be going nowhere fast.

McGrady was mercifully traded after the 2004 season for Cuttino Mobley, Steve Francis, and Kelvin Cato. Unsurprisingly, one of the 10 best players in the NBA turned out to be a bit more valuable than 3 serviceable players, and the Magic got rid of Mobley and Francis within a year and a half. McGrady, meanwhile, was paired with Yao Ming, one of the premier centers in the NBA. The team was otherwise devoid of much talent, but having 2 perennial top 15 players is an awfully good start for a team hoping to contend for a title.

McGrady’s style didn’t mesh all that well with Ming’s. Ming is a gifted passer and post player that demands a double team, the sort of player who is much better when the offense is run through him. McGrady is a scorer that wants to create off the dribble, which necessitates a good number of isolations and high screen and rolls. In spite of this, the team’s record improved by six games. The team’s defense made up for McGrady’s lack of prowess on that end of the floor, while McGrady improved the team’s offense by stretching the floor and creating a high-low game with Yao.

Perhaps the most encouraging sign for the team was McGrady’s unbelievable sequence against the Spurs in December. McGrady scored 13 points in the final 35 seconds of the game to give the Rockets a one point win over the past and future Champions, an outburst that had Rockets fans dreaming of glory days to come.

They went on to lose a brutal seven game series to the Mavericks in spite of McGrady and Yao’s best efforts. T-Mac averaged 31 points, 7 rebounds and 7 assists, while Yao averaged 21 points, 8 rebounds and 3 blocks. Game seven was the most telling of the series: McGrady scored 27, Yao scored 33, and the rest of the team scored 16. The Rockets lost by 40, and McGrady was left to explain his fifth first round exit.

In spite of this, the Rockets has cause to be optimistic. Yao was 25 and McGrady was 26, the team had little in the way of proven role players, and the Lakers’ dynasty was officially over. Improvement over their previous results seemed to be a formality. Unfortunately, the team was about to be plagued by their now trademark injuries. McGrady had missed 40 games in his previous 6 seasons. Yao had missed 2 games in his first 3 seasons. McGrady would miss 35, 11, 16, and 47 games in the four seasons that followed, while Yao would miss 25, 34, 27, and 5.

The team would miss the 2006 playoffs entirely, due in no small part to these injuries. The 2006-2007 witnessed an 18 game improvement due to the addition of Shane Battier and Bonzi Wells, as well as the emergence of Rafer Alston and Luther Head as role players. McGrady missed 24 fewer games, and the team was once again in the playoffs, this time against an emerging Jazz team. Yao was healthy for the playoffs and averaged 25 points and 10 rebounds, while McGrady averaged 25 points, 6 rebounds and 7 assists.

It didn’t matter. The Rockets took a 2-0 series lead only to lose in seven games, in spite of McGrady’s stellar game 7: 29 points, 13 assists, 5 rebounds, 3 blocks and only 2 turnovers. Williams and Boozer proved to be the superior inside-outside combo, and their supporting cast was superior as well. None of this stopped McGrady from being blamed. Why? Because he wanted it that way.

McGrady said before the series that if the Rockets lost, it was “on him”.  After the series, he said, "Right now, it's a lot of hurt. It feels good that we competed the way we did and pushed seven games. But on the other hand, it was just disappointing." He left the interview fighting back tears.

The loss was nothing like the shellacking they had suffered at the hands of the Mavericks. 103-99 was the final, and it was 96-95 with 1:46 left. McGrady had once again played well and left with nothing to show for it. Three years into the Yao-McGrady experiment, the team appeared to be no closer to winning a title than it was three years prior.

The following year was trying, with both players missing numerous games and Yao being placed on the Injured Reserve list in February. In spite of this, the team managed to win 22 straight games at one point, and went into the playoffs confident in spite of the loss of Yao. They were matched up with the Jazz, and revenge was clearly on their minds.

Do I really need to say what happened? The Rockets lost in 6 games, although this time they didn’t give their fans false hope by starting the series strong. McGrady once again had a stellar game to close a series: 40 points, 10 rebounds, and 5 assists with only 1 turnover. The Rockets still lost by 22. They were down by 17 in the first half, but T-Mac scored 13 in a row to cut the lead to 58-54 at halftime. His teammates admitted that they we of little assistance, but that did nothing to stop the criticism. 7 first round exits in 7 tries. It’s too much fun to blame it on the best player to point the finger elsewhere.

At this point, I was sold on Tracy’s merits, feeling that he was a completely misunderstood player. A 7 time All-Star, 7 times All-NBA (2 First Team, 3 Second Team, 2 Third Team), and a 2 time scoring champion. He always played well in the playoffs, particularly in deciding games, and he was a warrior who was respected by his peers in the league and on his team. He was simply a victim of circumstance.

Unfortunately, the last year has not been kind to his legacy, and a great deal of that is his fault. He missed 47 games in 08-09, and the team appeared to be playing better without him. Yao was healthy, the supporting cast was well constructed, and the team had a clear direction. The Rockets went 26-9 after McGrady announced he was getting knee surgery, and they advanced past the first round of the playoffs for the first time in the McGrady/Yao era. They even took the Lakers to a seventh game, ultimately losing, but they fought gamely in the absence of both McGrady and Yao, who was injured in game 3 and will likely not play until fall 2010.

T-Mac’s crime was not being hurt, though, but rather the manner in which he handled his injury. He had missed games sporadically throughout the season, but had returned in February and was playing reasonably well. The Rockets’ management, however, felt that the team had clearly demonstrated superior play without McGrady, and were looking to showcase his talents for any potential suitors. When it became clear that the team was planning to trade him, McGrady announced that he was getting knee surgery, thereby ruining any trade value he might have had.

The Rockets were understandably unhappy, and from that point on they have been waiting for the day that Tracy will leave the team. He is the rarest of assets in the current NBA climate: a serviceable NBA player with a massive expiring contract, 23 million dollars. While Tracy understandably wants to play to raise his market value, the team has no interest in allowing him to both risk injury and take playing time away from their developing players. The current offers for McGrady are reportedly insulting, but plenty of teams are looking for cap room, either for financial relief or the opportunity to sign one of the vaunted 2010 free agents. The offers will improve come February, and even if they don’t, Tracy will simply wait out his final days as a Rocket at home, having banished himself from the team when they balked at his desire for a greater role.

The question, then, is where does this go? Does McGrady have the ability to stay healthy enough to help a team win? Can he accept being the third or fourth best player on an excellent team? Will any of the current (and future) contenders see enough in him to take a flyer on him?

I don’t have the answers, though I suspect he will struggle adjusting to a new role. I think he will eventually realize that his legacy is at stake and accept that his skills have diminished. Whether that happens this year in a deal with one of the contenders or next year with whoever wins the free agent sweepstakes is yet to be seen.

The most striking lesson to be taken from McGrady’s career seems to be that of potential and its fickle nature. So often we speak of contenders, up and comers, and future stars. Yet there is only 1 championship a year, a handful of places on All-NBA and All-Star teams, even fewer plaques in the Hall of Fame. Not all potential will be realized, and possibility does not equal probability, let alone certainty.

McGrady’s career serves as a cautionary tale to those of us enamored with placing players in the NBA hierarchy. It’s easy to anoint Tracy a loser and be done with it, but the truth is more complicated than that. He deserves his share of blame for his playoff failures, to be sure, but placing the entirety of the burden on his shoulders is simply too much. He was a truly excellent player that elevated otherwise unremarkable teams, was comfortable under pressure, and killed himself attempting to lift his teams. He has tarnished his legacy of late, but that should not detract from his accomplishments. He still has time to make it right and realize his newfound potential as a complimentary player. Where he once failed, he can now succeed.

But who knows if he will. That’s the lesson, after all.

Image Via NGNG Sports

You can email Chris with questions or comments at TheSportsKiosK@gmail.com