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McGrady, Tracy
Date of birth: May 24, 1979
Profession: Basketball players; Athletes
Biography from Current Biography (2003)Copyright
(c) by The H. W. Wilson Company. All rights reserved.
Tracy McGrady, also known by the nickname T-Mac,
is one of the most versatile and exciting stars in the National
Basketball Association (NBA). Drafted into the league after he
graduated from high school, in 1997, McGrady is a two-time
All-Star and a guard for the Orlando Magic, whom he led to the
postseason in both the 2000-01 and 2001-02 seasons. On the Web
site hoopshype.com, McGrady is described as "an athletic
freak" who will "dunk on anyone." According to that
Web site, he is "almost unstoppable one-on-one, can drive to
the basket or shoot the ball," and will be an "All-Star
for the rest of his career." As of January 2003 McGrady led
the NBA in scoring, with a 30.3 points-per-game average.
Tracy Lamar McGrady Jr. was born on May 24, 1979
in Bartow, Florida, and grew up in nearby Auburndale with his
mother and grandmother. As a boy he showed himself to be a good
athlete, excelling as both a basketball player and a baseball
pitcher. When he grew to more than six feet, four inches in
height, McGrady (who now stands six feet, eight inches) began to
focus primarily on basketball. He attended Auburndale High School,
where he starred on the school basketball team, before
transferring after his junior year to Mount Zion Christian
Academy, in Durham, North Carolina, which was becoming a
recognized basketball powerhouse. (In January 2003, in honor of
his accomplishments in basketball, Auburndale High School retired
McGrady's jersey number.)
Mount Zion gave McGrady the exposure he needed to
attract the attention of Division I college-basketball programs
and NBA scouts. More important for the young man's development,
discipline was strict at Mount Zion. Along with the rest of the
Mount Zion basketball team, McGrady lived in a large house with
the team's coach, Joel Hopkins, and Hopkins's family; Walkmans,
trips to the mall, and girlfriends were forbidden, and the team
members often ran five miles before dawn. Leading the Mount Zion
Mighty Warriors to a 26-2 record, McGrady averaged 27.5 points,
8.7 rebounds, and 7.7 assists per game while playing, at different
times, every position on the floor. He also led Mount Zion to
victory in the 1996 Reebok Holiday Prep Classic, a 54-team
tournament featuring the best preparatory-school basketball teams
in the country. An unknown player a few months earlier, McGrady
had become one of the hottest young basketball prospects in the
country. In 1997 he was named the USA Today high-school basketball
player of the year, the North Carolina state player of the year,
and, by the Associated Press, a McDonald's All-American.
After high school McGrady made the difficult
decision to forgo college and make himself available for the NBA
draft. The Toronto Raptors, who chose McGrady as the ninth player
overall in the 1997 NBA draft, signed him to a three-year contract
worth nearly $5 million. McGrady had thus joined the select
company of basketball superstars who have been drafted into the
NBA right out of high school. (In the mid-to-late 1990s there were
three other notable examples of players who skipped college and
went straight into the professional ranks: Kevin Garnett of the
Minnesota Timberwolves; Jermaine O'Neal, who as of January 2003
was playing for the Indiana Pacers; and Kobe Bryant of the Los
Angeles Lakers, who befriended McGrady and helped him with the
difficult transition from high school to the NBA.)
The youngest player in the league at the time,
McGrady played an average of 18 minutes in 64 games for the
Raptors as an 18-year-old rookie in the 1997-98 NBA season. He
averaged only seven points per game but displayed his potential in
a February 1998 game against the New Jersey Nets, in which he
scored 22 points and grabbed eight rebounds. "You could see
he was so young just by his body language," his teammate Dee
Brown told Ian Thomsen for Sports Illustrated (October 30, 2000).
"Every time he would make a mistake, he would look straight
to the bench. I told him, 'Don't do that. It makes it look like
you're expecting to come out [of the game].' . . . You could tell
Tracy was wondering if he should have gone to college first."
The season was a trying one for McGrady, as he spent much of his
time sitting on the team bench during games. The Raptors' coach,
Darrell Walker, further undermined McGrady's confidence by openly
criticizing his young player's work ethic and questioning his
commitment to the game. McGrady often felt lonely and spent much
of his free time sleeping. The Raptors posted an abysmal 16-66
record that year.
The 1998-99 season was something of a
disappointment for basketball players and fans alike, as a strike
caused by contractual disagreements between players and owners led
to a shortened, 50-game schedule. (A regular NBA season consists
of 82 games.) McGrady averaged 23 minutes of playing time per
contest and saw action in 49 games, averaging 9.3 points per game.
The Raptors posted their best-ever winning percentage, with a
23-27 record.
During the 1999-2000 season, whether because of
the experience of two pro seasons or the support of friends and
teammates, the 20-year-old McGrady proved better able to tap his
potential, helping the Toronto Raptors to a franchise-best 45-37
record with his uncommon versatility--he alternately played the
positions of point guard, shooting guard, and small forward.
Despite his strong play that year, McGrady was often overshadowed
in the media by Vince Carter, a distant cousin of his, whom the
Raptors had drafted the previous year and whose high-flying dunks
and sensational plays had made him a fan favorite. On the court,
however, McGrady held his own alongside Carter and built upon his
reputation as one of the NBA's most promising players. He shot a
respectable 45 percent from the field, averaged 15 points, six
rebounds, and three assists per game, and displayed his
outstanding defensive skills by finishing 12th in the NBA in
blocked shots. "If ever there was a Generation X version of
Pippen, [McGrady]'s it," the Indiana Pacers president, Donnie
Walsh, told Sports Illustrated (March 27, 2000), referring to the
All-Star Scottie Pippen, who won six NBA titles with Michael
Jordan and the Chicago Bulls in the 1990s. "As good as Vince
Carter has been, this kid has been playing just as well, and he's
doing more things. He can handle the ball, he can rebound on both
ends, he's gotten to the point where he can shoot it, and he's
playing great defense." Still, the Raptors' coach, Butch
Carter, often relegated McGrady to a subordinate role. For the
first time since the team entered the league, in 1995, the Raptors
made the play-offs; there, they lost three straight games to the
New York Knicks in the first round and were eliminated.
McGrady became a free agent in the summer
following the 1999-2000 season and opted to leave the Raptors.
Both the sporting-goods manufacturer Adidas, who had signed
McGrady to a $12 million endorsement deal in 1997, before he was
drafted, and McGrady's agent, Arn Tellem, wanted him to play on an
NBA team in the U.S. to enhance his marketing potential. (The
Toronto Raptors play in the Canadian market, which is much smaller
than its American counterpart.) On August 3, 2000 McGrady was
traded by Toronto to the Orlando Magic, who play less than an hour
away from his childhood home in Auburndale. For McGrady, the
return to a warm-weather climate was a welcome change. "The
thing about Tracy is that he's come home to play for the Magic,
and that's giving him even more drive," Wayne Hall, McGrady's
longtime personal trainer, told Ian Thomsen. The Magic signed
McGrady to a seven-year deal worth $93 million and made him a
full-time starting player for the first time in his professional
career. In the 2000-01 season, he started 77 games as the Magic's
shooting guard and made an immediate impact on his new team,
leading them in scoring and minutes played and hitting 46 percent
of his field-goal attempts while averaging an outstanding 26.8
points, 7.5 rebounds, and 4.6 assists per game. His scoring
average, seventh-best in the league that year, was the highest in
NBA history for a player 21 years old or younger. He was selected
to start in the 2001 NBA All-Star Game and was named to the
All-NBA Second Team. The Magic posted a 43-39 record and made the
play-offs. In game three of the first round, against the Milwaukee
Bucks, McGrady tied a Magic play-off record with 42 points.
McGrady averaged 33.8 points and 8.3 assists per game in the
series, but the Bucks defeated the Magic and eliminated them from
the play-offs. For his accomplishments in the 2000-01 season,
McGrady was honored with the NBA's Most Improved Player Award.
In the 2001-02 season, McGrady again posted superb
numbers, averaging 25.6 points (fourth in the NBA), 7.9 rebounds,
and 5.3 assists per game. He and Kobe Bryant were the only two
players in the NBA to average at least 25 points, five rebounds,
and five assists per game that season. For the second year in a
row, McGrady was selected to play in the NBA All-Star Game (where
he led the East team with 24 points in a losing effort), was named
to the All-NBA First Team, and finished fourth in the NBA
most-valuable-player voting. The Magic improved upon their
previous season by winning 44 games; they were eliminated by the
Charlotte Hornets in the first round of the play-offs.
As of January 2003, less than halfway through the
2002-03 season, McGrady led the NBA in scoring with a 30.3
points-per-game average, while shooting 47 percent from the field.
With a 19-17 record, the Orlando Magic were in fourth place in the
Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference.
McGrady, who has said that he would like to try to
become a professional baseball pitcher in addition to playing
basketball, lives in Orlando. He enjoys playing video games. --
C.F.T.
Suggested Reading: cnnsi.com; nba.com; Sports Illustrated
p56+ Dec. 29, 1997-Jan. 5, 1998, p172+ Mar. 27, 2000, with photo,
p94+ Oct. 30, 2000, with photo
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