[Hoopsworld] Tracy McGrady: This isn't a Goodbye

Every top player at some point in their career comes to the realization there are some things they simply can no longer do. Some players have a harder time dealing with this reality than others, but Detroit Pistons swingman Tracy McGrady is not one of those players.

Now 31 years old and in his 14th season in the league, McGrady – who has earned north of $160 million in salary in his career – is playing on a minimum deal with the Pistons. Coming off microfracture surgery on his knee many thought this could be McGrady's NBA swan song.

"It is what it is," said McGrady. "I've been blessed to play 14 years in this league. I look back over my career and if I couldn't play another minute would be content with my career. I enjoyed every bit of it. I've had some great individual season, I accomplished a lot, and it's just unfortunate for me that the last couple of seasons I injured my knee and it set me back a little bit. I've worked extremely hard to get back and put myself in position to be starting for the Detroit Pistons."

As it turns out, this isn't a swan song at all. Believe it or not, but after two injury-riddled seasons featuring a trade deadline deal last year that sent him to New York (effectively a salary dump by New York to get in the LeBron James sweepstakes) after five-and-a-half seasons in Houston, McGrady is a starter for the Pistons. Not only that, but he's averaging a career-high – yes, career-high for the seven-time All-Star – in shooting percentage at 45.9%. No, his other numbers aren't overly special, but it's something.

Still, McGrady knows when people – and he himself – look back on his career there are many question marks. The tone of his voice says he knows this is true, but he also knows there is nothing he could do about it. Injuries happen.

"I need to apologize to myself because I know if I was healthy… Going back four years, if I was healthy, there is no doubt I would be in a great situation as far as what I would have accomplished in Houston. There is no doubt, because I look back at the year we got Ron Artest and I felt like that year we were one of the elite teams in the NBA. There is no question about it. Not only could we get to the playoffs, but we could have made it to the Finals. And that team – without me, without Yao in most of the playoffs – they made it to the second round and took the Lakers to seven games. And the Lakers went to the Finals that year.

"Just thinking about that, knowing that could have been me, Shane Battier, Ron Artest, and Yao… It's hard. It's very hard.

"My whole career was what if - what if Grant Hill was healthy? In the Eastern Conference back then I took us to the playoffs without having another superstar player. So yeah, I look back on all that. And that's why I'm not sad about the situation, because it's unfortunate, but it was just something out of my control."

And he's right. When McGrady signed with the Orlando Magic in 2000, so did Grant Hill. Fans and pundits alike expected great things, but foot injuries derailed Hill's career. In three of McgGrady's four years in Orlando he played 75 or more games (the other he played 66). During that same time Hill played in only 114 – and 67 of those were in the fourth season.

Then McGrady went to Houston to team with Yao Ming, where the pair just couldn't seem to find good healthy at the same time. In their second season together, 2005-06, McGrady played 47 games and Yao 57. The next year McGrady played 71, but Yao only logged 48. In 2007-08 McGrady managed 66 but Yao played in only 55. Finally, in 2008-09 (the season McGrady refers to above), Yao was healthy until the playoffs, but McGrady hurt his knee and played only 35 games and had his microfracture surgery. Yao missed the entire next season, McGrady struggled to return, and was finally sent to New York.

It puts many things in perspective. If there is anyone in this league who can speak to the point of every day not being promised, it is Tracy McGrady. Twice in his career he has, on paper, been part of a contender, but the total games missed between him, Hill, and Yao when they played together is significant: 161 for McGrady, 214 for Hill, and 139 for Yao. That's over a span of nine-and-a-half seasons for McGrady (four for Hill and five-and-a-half for Yao).

McGrady knows he has a responsibility on a team as young as the Detroit Pistons, with players like Rodney Stuckey, Greg Monroe, and Austin Daye getting ready to take on larger roles with the team.

"I do it, I do it. I do it to that young fella right there, he knows it." McGrady points at second-year forward DaJuan Summers. "And you know what? You are one injury away from your whole life changing, your basketball life changing, and then who knows what's going to happen with this new collective bargaining agreement?"

Content to accept the things he cannot change, McGrady also isn't ready to hang them up. He doesn't talk like a player looking at retirement, but rather like one who is reinventing himself and still has plenty of miles to put on the odometer.

"Oh I'm still playing now, there's no doubt about that! I'm not giving my going away speech, my walking away from the game speech, I'm just saying I recognize that I'm not going to be my old self. I still will be effective, I can still be good in this league. I'm not going to be that superstar player that I was. I accept that."

He would also like a championship ring, like many veterans who don't have one.

"You know what – if it's the right situation, yeah. But I won't chase it. I won't chase it."

No matter what, no chasing? No matter who came calling?

"I don't know man, I don't know. I'd have to evaluate that when it comes, but I don't see myself chasing it."

And when it comes right down to it, Tracy McGrady still loves to play the game of basketball. After the injuries, the pain and the rehabilitation, he's still having fun when he steps on the floor.

"Yeah! I haven't had fun in two years! I'm having fun, no doubt about that."

This season with the Detroit Pistons assuredly will not be McGrady's swan song. It's likely he has done enough to earn himself another contract after the new collective bargaining agreement is finalized, whenever that is, and it's likely a contender or two will come calling for his services in a limited role.

No, this is not McGrady's swan song; far from it.

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