Leave it to Bleacher Report to ask the one question no one else dares:
“Is Tracy McGrady the Savior of the NBA?”
As a follower of the Houston Rockets, and thus having some passing familiarity with TMac’s career, I’m happy to provide an answer:
No.
Next up: Is Pauley Shore the salvation of American cinema?
LeBron James is joining the Miami Heat. (Perhaps you have heard this already. The media does seem to have covered the issue.) Although James will not be joining the Rockets, this is still good news for the Rockets for two reasons:
The consensus out there is that, once again, the Knicks screwed up, and, once again, Daryl Morey made out like a bandit.
(As I was finishing up this post, I noticed that Tom Martin over at SB Nation made many of the same points.)
As far as James himself is concerned, I won’t say that the outraged vitriol is surprising (it is, after all, American professional sports in the 21st century, but I do think it’s misplaced. James made a professional business decision of where he could best win championships, and Cleveland lost out on entirely understandable and indeed totally rational criteria. Of course, if sports fans were rational, they wouldn’t develop an emotional attachment to athletically talented millionaires who just happen to be plying their trade in their city of choice in any particular year. (Cue Jerry Seinfeld’s rooting for laundry bit.) Some may think my attitude on James hypocritical given my loathing of Bud Adams, but there’s one key difference: to the best of my knowledge, James never received tens of millions of dollars in direct taxpayer subsidies before leaving town.
So the inevitable parting that so many have predicted seems to have happened, and the Rockets are seeking to trade seven-time All-Star Tracy McGrady at his request. With his $23 million salary, that won’t be easy.
With his departure immanent, it’s a good time to sum up his Rockets career, and to clear away a few myths and misconceptions:
Like Ron Artest, McGrady is a solid player but a flawed individual who did the Rockets more good than harm over the tenure of his career, but ultimately had to be let go for the betterment of the team. Perhaps Rockets wunderkind GM Daryl Morey can trade McGrady for a collection of undervalued spare parts that can be used to push for a championship, but his $23 million cap number makes that a hard sell. Maybe he can sell him to a championship contender in need of another scorer. (I’m sure Morey has already offered McGrady up to the Cleveland Cavaliers as part of a straight-up swap for LeBron James. Oh how they laughed.)
So raise a glass to the departing shade of TMac. If you and Mao had ever both been healthy for an entire season together, Houston might have another championship banner or two…
(Don’t worry; I’ll be returning to my regular book geeking (with an incredibly long post) in a day or so.)