The Case for Tracy McGrady

[Fellow72]

There are a lot of people who say T-mac is overrated and there have been many terrible takes on this in my opinion. From him not deserving to be in the HOF, or not even deserving to at least be in the conversation for top 75 players. I thought it best to re-educate people on this.

Not only did Tracy have a couple years where he was completely unstoppable and a headache for every team to deal with, he was one of the most prolific scorers the Nba has ever seen. Just so it is known, it was Tmac, not Allen Iverson, not Paul Pierce, not Kobe Bryant, not Dirk, not Garnett, or even Shaq, who was the best scorer from the first half of the 00s era. An era that is considered a top 3 era of all time. From the 2000- 2005 Nba seasons, Tracy was ranked #1 in points accumulated. He finished with 10,301 points in those 5 years. Iverson, the runner up finished with 9,920 points in those 5 years. And the rest of the people I mentioned above go further down the list.

You can only count on 1 hand the amount of players in NBA history who scored at such a rate. He showed complete dominance within those 5 years within one of the best eras of all time. All of his individual achievements are far from easy to replicate, and there will be few who will ever even be able to do so. There are even a number of people within the HOF and the top 75 team already who have achievements and stats that do not compare.

When Tracy says he has never gotten the chance to play with good players in his career, this is what he was talking about.

Quoted from Bill Simmons
"Darrell Armstrong (three years), Bo Outlaw, Andrew DeClercq (two years), Mike Miller (two years), Pat Garrity (two years), Horace Grant (36 at the time), Monty Williams, Jacque Vaughn, Gordan Giricek, Drew Gooden, Yao Ming (two years), David Wesley, Bob Sura, Ryan Bowen, Scott Padgett, Shane Battier (two years), Rafer Alston (two years), Chuck Hayes, Luis Scola, Dikembe Mutombo (somewhere between age 40 and 52 at the time), and Bobby Jackson."

Those were his teammates. He had only one good team, and that was when Artest Came to Houston and Daryl managed to put together a pretty good team. It was the one year where quite a few people thought they were going to win a championship. And considering how well they did against the Lakers, almost beating them in 7 games with no superstars or allstars, clearly people were correct to think so. Sadly Yao and Mcgrady get injured and the rockets advance to the next round without them. They lose to the Lakers, then Artest leaves, a few roster changes happen, and they turned into an underachieving team again. T-mac calls for surgery, and we all know the rest.


Common Criticism: "If T-mac stayed in Toronto, he would have won a championship with the Raptors."
Yes, Tmac and VC COULD have been something amazing, but people forget that it was Raptors Management that let Tracy go and it wasn't all T-mac. Tmac would have stayed if management promised to pull a few strings, but they refused, which was stupid of them. He then chose to go to Orlando since it was the next best thing for him, plus he wanted to test himself to see what he was truly capable of. Something he may have never fully realized if he remained under the wing of VC for another 3-5 years(not to mention T-mac was in the league a full year before VC).

Common Criticism: "He never made it out of the first round."
Well why don't we look at things this way; He took the Pistons to 7 games, a top 3 contender who went on to win a championship the following year, all by himself. To top it off, 2-3 zone defence was finally made legal that year which works well against superstars that do not have a good team and superstars were just getting adjusted to it. And if he wasn't so unlucky by having the Nba changing the playoff format that year from 5 games to 7 games, Tracy would have advanced to the next round. So technically, when you look at all the other HOF players who atleast did something in their playoff games, they did it in the 5 game format, not 7. Tracy brought the magic to a 3-1 series lead before the team completely collapsed. We've seen what can happen if a series has two extra games, and who knows how it could have affected some HOFs if 7 game format was always the standard?

So why do small technicalities such of advancing to the second round have to determine his worth? Had the NBA decided to change the rule the following year, people wouldn't have much else to say to discredit him. He's a HOF player, definitely deserves to be in the top 75 team (there are other snubs too of course). His career was just hurt by very bad luck and injuries sadly. He was definitely one of the best to ever play the game.

Snippet from AI (Even Shaq agrees)

[Gorilla Monsoon]

T-Mac >>> Dame Lillard

[Statlanta]

If you removed T-Mac and erased him from history what do you get.
A few vacated scoring titles and All-NBA placements.

Raptors teams that weren't notable of any playstyle or winning.
Magic teams that weren't notable of any playstyle or winning.
Rocket teams that were too injured to be notable of any playstyle or winning.
He's not an international superstar or a college superstar.
He's not a guy who's helping the Magic currently outside of a cursory advisor role.

If anything he's the most guilty spot of nostalgia.

[Bornstellar]

I think T-Mac is getting a little overrated honestly. He's one of those guys I grew up watching in the early 2000s and while he was clearly a very talented player, people act like he was on Kobe level which I don't think is true. His teams were never great and the best performance they had was with him and Yao out with injuries. He just didn't have the impact on winning like some of the truly elite players did, and I never thought he was anything special on defense. He was just really smooth and flashy and because of how effortless he made it looks sometimes, people tend to overrate him because of nostalgia. Can't really think of many memorable T-Mac playoff performances tbh. Yeah he had nice PPG stats but he also routinely played 40+ minutes a game

[Flash4thewin]

I think T-Mac is getting a little overrated honestly. He's one of those guys I grew up watching in the early 2000s and while he was clearly a very talented player, people act like he was on Kobe level which I don't think is true. His teams were never great and the best performance they had was with him and Yao out with injuries. He just didn't have the impact on winning like some of the truly elite players did, and I never thought he was anything special on defense. He was just really smooth and flashy and because of how effortless he made it looks sometimes, people tend to overrate him because of nostalgia. Can't really think of many memorable T-Mac playoff performances tbh. Yeah he had nice PPG stats but he also routinely played 40+ minutes a game

So hypothetically say you replace Tmac with Kobe, would his teams have won anything? Yao being hurt etc I don't really see any change in the outcomes. Like you said his team where never great.

[Cubbies2120]

I think T-Mac is getting a little overrated honestly. He's one of those guys I grew up watching in the early 2000s and while he was clearly a very talented player, people act like he was on Kobe level which I don't think is true. His teams were never great and the best performance they had was with him and Yao out with injuries. He just didn't have the impact on winning like some of the truly elite players did, and I never thought he was anything special on defense. He was just really smooth and flashy and because of how effortless he made it looks sometimes, people tend to overrate him because of nostalgia. Can't really think of many memorable T-Mac playoff performances tbh. Yeah he had nice PPG stats but he also routinely played 40+ minutes a game

I think the Lakers still threepeat with 4th year - 6th year Tmac (just like 4th year - 6th year Kobe), but I don't think they win with Pau + Tmac combo in '09 and '10.

[Fellow72]

I think T-Mac is getting a little overrated honestly. He's one of those guys I grew up watching in the early 2000s and while he was clearly a very talented player, people act like he was on Kobe level which I don't think is true. His teams were never great and the best performance they had was with him and Yao out with injuries. He just didn't have the impact on winning like some of the truly elite players did, and I never thought he was anything special on defense. He was just really smooth and flashy and because of how effortless he made it looks sometimes, people tend to overrate him because of nostalgia. Can't really think of many memorable T-Mac playoff performances tbh. Yeah he had nice PPG stats but he also routinely played 40+ minutes a game

So hypothetically say you replace Tmac with Kobe, would his teams have won anything? Yao being hurt etc I don't really see any change in the outcomes. Like you said his team where never great.

I strongly disagree. So you are saying that if Yao and T-mac were not injured in the 2009 playoffs it wouldn't have made a difference against the Lakers? Mind you Ron Artest led the Rockets to 7 games against Kobe and Pau after Yao went down halfway in the series. They had a solid squad which is why people thought they were going to win the championship that year...

[JN61]

Extremely overrated on these boards. No case into top 75 in my opinion. About top 100 but that's about it.

[miamiheat319]

I think he is properly rated. I feel like most people acknowledge he was a great, very talented regular season but also recognize his little success in the playoffs

[coolness]

Grant Hill said T-Mac was the best player in the league during the pre-season after they signed with Orlando.

His speed and quickness were Iverson level. Changing speeds Chauncey level. High IQ. Good shooter/passer/defender.

I wish he coulda been a point guard, staying in front of smaller fast players, shooting/passing over them.

Somewhere I picked up the idea that T-Mac didn't train too hard. Definitely no Kobe. Injuries were significant too.

EDIT: massive vertical.

[_qubik]

TMac was a great player, he is better than some guys on the list for me.

The problem is 75 is too much, there arent so much great guys, so people start arguing and listing "common" stars

[BigO]

TMac was fun to watch and I don't hold it against players for playoff losses when the talent on his team was just not there.

Having said that, TMac was an inefficient shooter and not great at rebounding or assists. His defense could be very good at times, but overall he was an average defender. I wouldn't put him in the HOF, but he is close because of his scoring prowess, no matter how inefficient it was.

[Onlytimewilltel]

Tmac in his peak is definitely top 75. Just didn’t have a healthy career unfortunately and the back end of his career he was clearly injury impacted

[GSP]

Tmac is EASILY top 75 maybe the worst ommission after Dwight

his lack of playoff success def hurt him here as he never won a playoff series

[uraverage]

Hard to put a guy in the top 75 that admits he gave up on his team. How many in the top 75 can we say that about?

[Haldi]

I think T-Mac is getting a little overrated honestly. He's one of those guys I grew up watching in the early 2000s and while he was clearly a very talented player, people act like he was on Kobe level which I don't think is true. His teams were never great and the best performance they had was with him and Yao out with injuries. He just didn't have the impact on winning like some of the truly elite players did, and I never thought he was anything special on defense. He was just really smooth and flashy and because of how effortless he made it looks sometimes, people tend to overrate him because of nostalgia. Can't really think of many memorable T-Mac playoff performances tbh. Yeah he had nice PPG stats but he also routinely played 40+ minutes a game

I think the Lakers still threepeat with 4th year - 6th year Tmac (just like 4th year - 6th year Kobe), but I don't think they win with Pau + Tmac combo in '09 and '10.

Completely agree with both parts of this… replace Kobe with Tmac in early 2000s and history would be very different. Tmac is very underrated, if he’s not on Kobes level, hes as close as you can possibly be.

[triple_threat]

You can’t argue T Mac for top 75 without mentioning Vince (I think they both are btw)

Also nothing makes pierce better than those two except kg and Allen coming to town.

The above is a perfect example of circumstances vs pure talent

[God Squad]

Hard to put a guy in the top 75 that admits he gave up on his team. How many in the top 75 can we say that about?

Also never won a playoff series. I think Tracy is rightfully rated and respected by most.

Still don't think Dame deserved to be on there.. like at all.

[Rainwater]

The fact that T-Mac was left off the top 75 team is a straight up crime. This will be a controversial statement but from an individual perspective T-Mac was a better player than Ray Allen, Paul Pierce, Lillard, and arguably Anthony Davis.

If you ever watched T-Mac play Ray Allen or Paul Pierce back in the day he completely dominated those guys. Example go watch the Bucks/Magic playoff series when Ray played with Mil and T-Mac was just unstoppable.

T-Mac is being punished not because he is not a better player than a lot guys on the list but because he played with some crappy teams and he lacked longevity.

[Ballerhogger]

His lack playoff success and injuries killed his top 75. Can’t believe Dwight didn’t make it