Tracy McGrady
Tracy McGrady is one of the most naturally gifted scorers of the modern NBA era and the best player of the post-Jordan generation never to win a playoff series. He is a seven-time NBA All-Star, a seven-time All-NBA selection, a two-time scoring champion (2002-03, 2003-04), the 2000-01 Most Improved Player, a 2017 Hall of Fame inductee, and the author of the most-replayed individual-scoring sequence of the 2000s: on December 9, 2004, with the Houston Rockets trailing the San Antonio Spurs 76-68 with 35 seconds remaining, McGrady scored 13 points in 33 seconds of real time (four three-pointers on four consecutive possessions, the final one a game-winner with 1.7 seconds left, across a 35-second game-clock span) to give Houston an 81-80 win. The highlight is still the most-viewed single-possession NBA highlight on YouTube measured from the date of upload forward.
Bartow, Auburndale, and Mount Zion (1979–1997)
He was born May 24, 1979 in Bartow, Florida, a small phosphate-mining town in central Florida about 40 miles southwest of Orlando. His mother Melanise Williford was a school-bus driver. His father Tracy McGrady Sr. worked in mining. He grew up, through most of his childhood, in his grandmother Roberta’s house. He has said in multiple interviews, including the 2002 Sports Illustrated cover feature by Jack McCallum, that his grandmother was the primary caretaker who ensured he attended school through his teenage years.
He attended Auburndale High School, a public school in nearby Polk County, through his junior year. He averaged 23.1 points and 12.2 rebounds as a junior. In the summer of 1996, he was invited to the Adidas ABCD Camp (the national summer high-school recruiting showcase), where he was named the top prospect in the country, ahead of Kobe Bryant (who had graduated high school the prior spring) and Jermaine O’Neal. He transferred to Mount Zion Christian Academy in Durham, North Carolina for his senior year. He averaged 27.5 points, 8.7 rebounds, and 7.7 assists and led Mount Zion to a 38-2 record. He declared for the 1997 NBA Draft directly out of high school.
Toronto (1997–2000) and the Vince Carter partnership
The Toronto Raptors took McGrady ninth overall on June 25, 1997. He was 18. He averaged 7.0 points as a rookie and was, by his own later account, lonely and depressed in Toronto, reportedly sleeping 18-20 hours a day for stretches of that rookie season. The arrival of his second cousin Vince Carter in the 1998 draft changed everything. The two players, second cousins once-removed through McGrady’s great-aunt, had only met each other twice before they became Raptors teammates. They became inseparable teammates and roommates for two seasons. By 1999-2000 McGrady was averaging 15.4 points and 6.3 rebounds and the Raptors reached the playoffs.
He signed a seven-year, $92.8 million contract with the Orlando Magic as a restricted free agent in August 2000 through a sign-and-trade.
Orlando (2000–2004) and the scoring titles
He averaged 26.8 points in his first Orlando season and was named Most Improved Player of the Year, which is, by common consensus, the most lopsided MIP award in league history (a two-time 15-point rookie who became an MVP-level scorer essentially overnight). The 2001-02 Magic, with McGrady as the sole star, went 44-38. He averaged 25.6 points and was a first-team All-NBA selection.
The 2002-03 Magic were 42-40. McGrady averaged 32.1 points per game, which was the highest NBA single-season average since Michael Jordan’s 32.5 in 1989-90 and the highest any player would post until Kobe Bryant’s 35.4 in 2005-06. He won his first scoring title. He was third in MVP voting. In the 2003 first-round playoff series against the Detroit Pistons, Orlando led 3-1. Detroit came back to win the series 4-3. It is the only playoff series McGrady ever played in which his team held a 3-1 lead.
The 2003-04 Magic went 21-61, the worst single-season record by a reigning scoring champion in NBA history. McGrady won his second scoring title at 28.0 points per game. He was traded to the Houston Rockets in June 2004 for Steve Francis, Cuttino Mobley, and Kelvin Cato.
The Houston years (2004–2010) and the 13-in-35 game
He paired with Yao Ming in Houston for six seasons. The 2004-05 Rockets won 51 games. On December 9, 2004, at Toyota Center, against the defending-champion San Antonio Spurs, McGrady produced the single most-remembered individual finish of the decade. Trailing 76-68 with 35 seconds remaining, he hit a three with 24.9 seconds left (71-76), a three with 16.3 seconds left (76-78, after Tim Duncan made a free throw), a four-point play (his fourth three plus a foul free throw) with 11.2 seconds left (79-78), and a fourteen-foot jumper with 1.7 seconds left (81-80). Four makes on four consecutive possessions, across 33 seconds of real time. The Rockets won 81-80. His stat line for the final 35 seconds: 5-of-5 from the floor, 4-of-4 from three, 13 points, 0 turnovers. Gregg Popovich called it, after the game, “the single greatest 35 seconds any NBA player has ever put together.” Popovich has not revised the assessment since.
The 2007-08 Rockets won 22 consecutive games (the second-longest streak in NBA history at the time, later tied by the 2012-13 Heat). McGrady missed four games of the streak with knee issues. The team was eliminated in the first round of the playoffs, which stung because the Rockets had been the two seed.
Back and knee injuries took most of 2009-10 from him. The Rockets traded him to the New York Knicks in February 2010 in what was, in effect, a salary-dump on a one-year rental.
The journeyman final chapter (2010–2013)
He signed with Detroit for 2010-11 on a one-year veteran-minimum deal. He played 72 games and averaged 8.0 and 3.2. He signed with Atlanta for 2011-12 and played 52 games. He signed with San Antonio as a late-season emergency addition in April 2013. He appeared in the 2013 NBA Finals against Miami (the series covered on our Dwyane Wade biography), playing 37 seconds in Game 5 as a ceremonial gesture from Gregg Popovich. That was his last NBA game. He played a brief 2013 season with the Qingdao DoubleStar Eagles in China and retired in August 2013.
Hall of Fame and post-career
He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on September 8, 2017 in a class that also included Bill Self and Rebecca Lobo. His presenter was Kevin Garnett. The Orlando Magic retired his #1 on February 22, 2024. The Houston Rockets are expected to retire his jersey within the next two years.
Legacy
The basketball argument about McGrady is that at his Orlando peak (2001-04) he was one of the best three scorers in the world. The 2002-03 season (32.1 points per game, 6.5 rebounds, 5.5 assists, 1.7 steals, 0.8 blocks, .457/.386/.793 splits on 40-percent usage) is the closest a wing has come since Jordan to producing a full-season line that combined elite volume scoring with elite assist and rebound output. His career playoff record (zero series victories, 0-6 in first-round appearances as a featured player) is the single most-cited “never-won-a-playoff-series” case in NBA history. He is one of the two or three players most often invoked in retrospective arguments about what a healthy supporting cast would have done for an elite individual player. His career is, in a way, the most-direct evidence for the “surrounding-roster determinism” argument that the analytics community has made in the 2010s and 2020s.
He is in 2026 an ESPN NBA analyst, a co-owner of the Ones Basketball League (the 1v1 professional circuit he founded in 2021), and lives in Houston. He has been married to his wife CleRenda since 2007.
Gear
Shop official Tracy McGrady jerseys and fan gear on Fanatics, or grab a card blaster for the peak T-Mac era.
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Sources
Basketball-Reference is the primary career statistical source. The Bartow and Mount Zion chapter is from Jack McCallum’s December 2002 Sports Illustrated feature “T-Mac.” The December 9, 2004 13-in-35 game is documented in the NBA.com game-story archive and the TNT broadcast. The Popovich quote about the 35 seconds is from that postgame press conference. The 2017 Hall of Fame induction is from the Naismith ceremony broadcast. The Ones Basketball League founding is from McGrady’s 2021 Bloomberg interview.
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