[CHRON] Rockets star lets grief out following lopsided win over short-handed Mavs

By JONATHAN FEIGEN
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

Finally, Tracy McGrady could do the one thing he wanted to do all afternoon.

He had dominated the day. He had flipped in a spectacular running, no-look reverse over his head. He had led the Rockets to a 90-69 rout of the Mavericks.

Finally, he was free to do what had to be done.

So McGrady returned to the locker room. He sat down. And he cried.

"For me, man, like right now, it's so tough for me," McGrady said. "Ever since I stepped in this league, through the course of the season, I've lost somebody real close to me. It's been tough. I don't know how I go out and play. I just try, but I can't take my mind off it, especially when I just lost my cousin (Carroll Johnson). Grew up in the same household. He's older. He was a great baseball player. He's the one that got me involved in sports.

"I know we all live and die. We all go through it. But for me, I've been in this league eight years, and each season somebody has passed. It's been tough, all the things I've been through. There's just a lot of stuff on my mind. I can't really tell you how I do it when I go out and play, because even tonight I would go back to the bench and try to hold back my tears."

To block those emotions from escaping, McGrady built a dam strong enough to hold everything back. Last week in Chicago and Washington, teammates hardly heard him speak. Sunday, he was expressionless. Even when he threw in his final, sensational basket, he pantomimed the 'and-one' sign without showing a hint of satisfaction.

Moments later, he completed his day with 32 points, 10 rebounds and five assists. And for a moment, he smiled on the bench.

But while the gash that opened beneath McGrady's chin in the first quarter had been closed with six stitches to stop the bleeding, his emotions could not be contained so easily.

Remembering good times
"Every time I'm getting ready to go to a game, or I suit up, or I'm coming in the arena, I start thinking about the times I had back in the day when my cousin used to be at every game," McGrady said. "This is tough. I came in the locker room, and I just shed some tears."

Whether despite or due to McGrady's churning emotions, the Rockets played with greater passion than they had in Washington on Wednesday and perhaps since their eight-game winning streak ran headlong into the All-Star break.

As if determined not to go flat with the news the Mavericks would be without Dirk Nowitzki and Michael Finley — Dallas' two top scorers this season — the Rockets were quicker to loose balls, faster in transition and much stronger on the boards.

Having been outrebounded in four of five games since the winning streak, the Rockets outrebounded the Mavericks 54-37, outscoring Dallas 13-4 on second-chance points, then repeating the mantra, "When we rebound, we win."

But with 90 seconds remaining before the fourth quarter, the Rockets led by just two. Jon Barry passed to David Wesley for a jumper and then to McGrady on an inbounds play for a layup with a tenth of a second left.

19-4 start to fourth quarter

Houston pulled away when McGrady and Wesley came up with steals and Dikembe Mutombo got two of his four blocked shots, helping the Rockets to a 19-4 start to the fourth quarter on their way to a 24-point lead.

"We had a couple of bad offensive possessions, and then they got two steals, had a couple of blocks, and before you knew it, we were down by 14 (71-57 four minutes into the fourth quarter)," the Mavs' Keith Van Horn said. "They stepped up the defensive pressure, and that led to their offensive surge."

The Rockets' improved defense and the Mavericks' injuries held the NBA's second most prolific offense 11 points shy of its previous low this season. It was Dallas' fewest points in six seasons. The Mavericks did not surpass the fewest scored against the Rockets this season until Alan Henderson threw down an uncontested dunk in the final seconds.

As short-handed as Dallas was, the Rockets were also different defensively than they had been.

Yao Ming and Mutombo combined for 18 rebounds. Juwan Howard grabbed 10 rebounds, his most since Feb. 13.

Playing in pain
But more than anything, McGrady found a way to play in pain.

"He hasn't said much since Chicago," Barry said. "I guess he found out that morning (Tuesday). We didn't know he would be at the game. He came in and was just really down, did not say a word. You could tell it was wearing on his mind. He played great, but you could tell he was mentally drained. He's really down, but he was great tonight.

"It takes a special person to put that stuff aside and do your job and do it well."

McGrady did it spectacularly, knowing it would all be waiting for him when he was through.

jonathan.feigen@chron.com
Rockets Summary

Rising above
While speaking of Tracy McGrady's ability to play while mourning the loss of cousin Carroll Johnson, Rockets guard Jon Barry recalled another example of remarkable determination under such circumstances.

"The greatest example I saw was Vlade Divac," Barry said. "He had family members right in the middle of the war in Kosovo, losing family members, losing friends. He showed up every night like nothing was going on. I don't know how. I don't know I could do that."

Barry knows better than most how difficult it is to play with thoughts so removed from basketball.

"When my son ( Eli) was born, he was in ICU for two weeks, and I was a complete basket case," Barry said. "I would go to practice. I would go to ICU and see him. I told coach ( Rick) Adelman, 'Don't even play me.' It just took everything out of me, all my thoughts.

"He's fine now. He was born with a hole in his lung. ... I'm an emotion player and an energy player, and all my emotions were tied up with my son."

Fit for James
Mavericks forward Keith Van Horn, who joined Rockets guard Mike James in leaving Milwaukee in trade-deadline deals to save the Bucks spending money for this summer, enthusiastically endorsed James' move.

"It was a great fit for Mike James," Van Horn said. "He will really excel with this team. He is a very good spot-up shooter, and he can run the point. It was a great move on their part."

Resisting relaxation
If the Rockets felt an urge to relax with the Mavericks playing without Dirk Nowitzki and Michael Finley (and with Erick Dampier already on the injured list), they resisted well.

"It's twofold ... when a team loses a player like (Nowitzki)," Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy said. "I thought we did a good job in just staying mentally ready, knowing that ( Jason) Terry, ( Jerry) Stackhouse and ( Keith) Van Horn have all averaged 20 in this league. There's no exhaling or breathing a sigh of relief. I thought we had some good sequences defensively and rebounding. We were obviously sloppy with the ball on offense. You cannot minimize them missing Nowitzki — he's that good. But at the same time, we did some good things."

Said Mavericks coach Don Nelson: "We had our best two offensive players in street clothes, so you make the decision on how it affected us."

Press row view
Jeff Van Gundy planned to keep Yao Ming in the game despite early foul trouble. He didn't. Yao screwed up the plan by failing to get in early foul trouble. But Van Gundy did substitute differently than he had been. He kept Dikembe Mutombo in the game in the fourth quarter until the rout was certain because the Rockets were playing so well at the time. With that, Van Gundy might have done just what he promised, dropping the formula to do what he thought would work. With Mutombo playing beyond expectations this season, that would seem a good way to handle the position. It might even take the pressure off Yao enough to get more out of him and his backup.

Inside the numbers
• 15 — Rockets wins in the 17 games in which Tracy McGrady has topped 30 points.
• 3 — Rockets (McGrady, Juwan Howard and Yao Ming) in double figures in rebounding for the second time this season.
Did you know?
With Dallas scoring 69 points on Sunday, the Celtics are the only team that has not scored fewer than 80 in a game this season.

JONATHAN FEIGEN

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/sports/3071713

 

Mourning Star

Seven seasons, seven deaths. Tracy McGrady's life is forever scarred with the sudden losses of loved ones.

By Jerry Brewer | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted February 29, 2004

The boy had a question. It was not about his car accident, the one that put him in this hospital bed and left him comatose for 13 days. It was not about his crushed pelvis, his shattered hip, his punctured lung, his damaged brain. It was not about the ventilator that sustained him.

Hayden Hooten kept looking at some pictures. In each one, he rested gingerly in bed, and Tracy McGrady, his favorite basketball player, leaned over him, smiling. The photos were all over the 16-year-old's room at Sand Lake Hospital, blown up poster size.

"Tracy McGrady came to see me?" he asked. "Why?"

Obbe Maldonado understood his friend now. He saw McGrady's desert-dry face swell with tears. Then McGrady collapsed, and two men strained to lift his 6-foot-8 body. It was December 1999. They were at the funeral of McGrady's cousin, Ryan T. For the first time in his life, Maldonado witnessed McGrady, then 19, unable to control himself.

"That's when I knew he had feelings," Maldonado said.

It was a sad moment that would only multiply itself. It triggered seven paradoxical years for a teen who would grow into a star. The more McGrady has gained, the more he has lost.

Seven NBA seasons, seven deaths.

These people cannot be forgotten.

"Ryan McGrady -- we called him Ryan T. -- he was playing ball and forgot his inhaler.

"Corey Bess. They shot my cousin."

"Vanessa Jones, her boyfriend shot her in the head."

"Eric Anderson, my boy E, got shot."

"Henry Andrews, went to school with him, car accident."

"Jaclyn McGrady, that was my stepmom, cancer."

"Johnnie Ruth Green -- she helped raise me -- it was her heart." When Ryan T. died, McGrady considered life unfair. Now, he sometimes wonders if it is as fleeting as an NBA career.

Seven deaths later, loss has scarred McGrady. It doesn't make his grief more important than others who mourn. It doesn't make him more of a victim of his roots and of circumstance than any other person who has risen from poverty.

This struggle puts him on a universal level. Move through tragedy with McGrady, and his smirking, aloof image vanishes. Then a man who fears answering his phone after midnight appears.

"It's happened so many times," McGrady, now 24, said. "I'm wondering who's going to be next. Sleeping at night, waiting on a late phone call. Bad news."

The first phone call came in November 1997. McGrady was going through his first NBA preseason in Toronto when he learned that Henry Andrews, the little football player who could fight guys twice his size, had fallen asleep while driving and wrecked on Interstate. 4.

McGrady was miffed, but he accepted Henry's death as a random occurrence. That was before Ryan T. died.

He was having dinner with his girlfriend in Toronto, where his NBA career began. Chance, his brother, was on the other end.

Chance told his brother that Ryan T. had an asthma attack while playing basketball. McGrady was concerned but not panicked. Ryan T. was an asthmatic. This had happened before.

Fifteen minutes later, Chance called again.

"He didn't make it."

"What do you mean he didn't make it?"

"He died, man."

McGrady dropped his fork. He and his girlfriend bolted from the restaurant. "I don't know if I paid the bill," he said.

He returned to his condo and plopped on his bed. He did not move the rest of the night. He flew home in silence the next morning.

Home wasn't the same. Home never would be the same again.

McGrady is from Auburndale, a Polk County town of 11,000 between Orlando and Tampa. Ryan T. died on the court where McGrady honed his game.

The deaths of Ryan T., Corey Bess and Eric Anderson hurt McGrady the most. He grew up with them. They shared his NBA dream. They all died as McGrady lived their dream.

Ryan T., Corey and Tracy lived in the same neighborhood, as did Vanessa Jones, a cute, studious girl with strict parents. They called the neighborhood The Hill, though there is no hill.

McGrady often drives through The Hill to remember his past.

"That was, like, the spot," he said. "We played football in the street. We played baseball. We'd do anything. My grandmother used to always go fishing, and we'd always have a fish fry in the evening time. That's what we did."

He can remember the proximity of his friends. On Lincoln Court, there's his old home with the screened porch, small enough to walk through in 20 steps, large enough to accommodate Tracy, his mother, grandmother and a visitor. Around the corner, on Henry Street, is Vanessa's home. Two houses to the left is Ryan T.'s place. Two more houses down, at the end of Henry, are Corey's -- CB's -- quarters, where all the boys used to hang. Four friends in 150 yards.

It was a simple life, as long as they stayed away from the complicated stuff -- the drugs and guns. Out of hood nobility, the children had some protection. They weren't allowed on this one stretch, between New Hope and Hobbs streets. There was too much dealing, too much crime there.

McGrady once witnessed police arrest his youth league football coach during a drug bust. Gunshots were as common as wind gusts. McGrady wasn't even a teenager when he looked over a fence and saw a dead man, his leg separated from the blast of a shotgun.

"I was like, 'Damn,'. " McGrady said. "I changed after that. I was like, 'Man, this is real out here.' I didn't want to be a part of that. Not at all."

Barry and Lynn Hooten didn't know what motivated McGrady to see their son. Maybe it was the Polk County connection. Maybe Hayden living in Lake Wales, about 20 minutes from Auburndale, mattered to McGrady.

Hayden kept asking why, and his parents just smiled and confirmed the authenticity of those pictures. Hayden was entranced. The parents hoped that reinforcing his idol's visit would help cure his post-traumatic amnesia.

McGrady came on Dec. 20, or Day 45 of his hospital stay. There would be 27 more days there, none better than this one. McGrady pulled out an autographed game jersey and presented it to Hayden.

"Our boy lit up like a light bulb," the parents recalled.

McGrady left Auburndale in 1996 and went to Durham, N.C. He spent his senior year of high school at Mount Zion Academy, a basketball factory located in a boom area for hoops. To become a great player, he had to go elsewhere.

He made the biggest of jumps, from high school to the NBA, ventured to Toronto in 1997 and missed his little country town for his entire rookie season.

After the 1999-2000 season, McGrady would become a free agent and sign with the Orlando Magic, partly because Orlando is 40 miles from Auburndale.

It was a homecoming. But home, or at least the feeling behind it, was dissolving.

In McGrady's final season in Toronto, Vanessa Jones -- the cute, studious girl with strict parents -- was killed. On the morning of Oct. 6, 1999, McGrady laced his sneakers to endure more of the preseason NBA grind. In The Hill, on Henry Street, Flora Jones received a call.

The caller told Flora that her husband, David, was having problems with his truck. David needed Flora to meet him at The Tree, a local landmark in nearby Winter Haven, the caller said.

Flora left to help her husband. She told her daughter, Vanessa, that she would be back. Flora and Vanessa had been surprised earlier when Vanessa's ex-boyfriend, Oscar Hodge, came to the house pleading to chat. He was rejected.

It was over between the two. They had split three days earlier. Vanessa had taken off the engagement ring and given it back.

Hodge couldn't handle the disappointment. So, police think, he had someone place that phony call to Flora. Once Flora left, he approached the home.

Vanessa opened the door. Hodge fired a .38 at her head. Mom would return home to find her daughter's body 30 minutes later.

Then Hodge drove to a Lake Cannon boat ramp, proclaimed he had killed a person, threw his cell phone to an onlooker and placed that gun in his mouth. He pulled the trigger, but his suicide attempt failed. After he recovered, his trial began, and in 2001 he was sentenced to life in prison.

Vanessa, 19, was gone. By the end of the year, only Corey and Tracy were left from The Hill crew.

McGrady did not attend the funeral, but distance did nothing for the shock. This was Vanessa, a good girl, who had the strictest parents, who often came home from school, went into the house and did not resurface until the bus arrived the next morning. The type of girl that had great parenting, McGrady said. Shoot her? Who would shoot her?

"You love a woman," McGrady said. "You want to marry her. Things get bad. So you shoot her? It's crazy, man. Crazy."

After McGrady joined the Magic, he bought the mansion of deceased golfer Payne Stewart, a private home tucked away in southwest Orlando.

He also learned his stepmother, Jaclyn, was dying of cancer. He offered to take care of his brother, Chance, Jaclyn's child. He became big bro and guardian. The dying mother gushed over her stepson's generosity and love.

McGrady became a star that year. He led the Orlando Magic in scoring and verve. By the time the 2000-2001 season ended, McGrady was one of the brightest young talents in basketball.

Two weeks later, Jaclyn died. McGrady and his brother, Chance, had prayed for her to make it to Mother's Day. But the cancer would not allow it.

Less than two weeks later, police found Corey Bess' body in Fort Myers. A Fort Myers man, Derek Davis, allegedly killed him.

A robbery attempt had turned bad. Corey and Adrin McGough, a Winter Haven native, tried to run. Bullets struck Corey in the back and leg. McGough was shot in the arm, but he survived.

The Hill seemed faceless now. McGrady had escaped, but Corey, Ryan T. and Vanessa had exited, too.

Corey -- CB -- was the glue. Everyone used to show up at his place. He had the basketball goal. He had the latest video games. He shared with all.

"CB made sure we were straight," McGrady said. "He just took care of us."

CB, Ryan T. and Tracy. They were a clique. They were a rhyme. They were now extinct.

McGrady rides through The Hill and remembers them riding bikes through the neighborhood. Or maybe they're teasing Vanessa on the way home from school. They're all memories now of a different time, of a misplaced time.

"It's not the same," he said. "It's not the same at all. Everybody who's come out of there, they're off doing their own thing. They're locked up. They're dead. That's basically it. Or they're probably on drugs.

"All the cats I grew up with, they're not even around there. None of them. Nobody."

Slowly, Hayden's amnesia lifted. Why it happened, not even the doctors can say for certain. But after McGrady's visit, Hayden began to improve.

This much is fact: McGrady came to see Hayden. The family took pictures. The family used those pictures to make Hayden want to remember. Eventually, Hayden remembered. Hayden's father, Barry, is a pastor. His strongest beliefs go beyond medicine. That day with McGrady was uplifting, and everyone in the room felt it. That day sparked Hayden.

"We're not going to give all the glory to T-Mac," Barry said, "but the Lord, he works through people."

McGrady led the NBA in scoring last season. He averaged 32.1 points per game, but it was the ease in which he scored that astonished. Some nights, there was just no defense for him. He was untouchable in those games, and people could tell from his first shot.

Last March, with the MVP chants at their loudest, he stared at a room full of silent friends. They had all gathered at his mansion, but no one wanted to tell McGrady the truth.

Eric Anderson was dead.

His guy, his point guard at Auburndale High School, took a bullet to the chest while watching a fight in a McDonald's parking lot. Lil' E was gone at 25.

He and McGrady had been playing phone tag, and this is what hurt the most. McGrady had been trying to convince Lil' E to move to Orlando. McGrady wanted Lil' E to use his college degree and find a job near him.

Eric agreed, but he didn't want to live off McGrady. If he was going to make the move, he didn't want to use his friend for assistance. At the same time, he sensed that he needed to leave Polk County as soon as he could. "There's nothing good for me here," he would tell friends.

On the night he died, Eric planned to stay home with his girlfriend. He went out late. At a club, a 7-year-old incident regurgitated itself. A fight ensued, and Eric's brother, Curtis Crossley, was involved.

This quarrel drifted to a McDonald's restaurant in Lakeland, about 5 miles from the club. Lil' E went to look after his brother. But as the group headed toward McDonald's, he called his girlfriend and asked her to come get him.

The 7-year-old feud turned into a brawl at McDonald's. The participants raged against each other while onlookers encircled them. Then, police say,

Aree Spivey, Jason Reid and Patrick Brown pulled out their guns. Crossley's crew was stunned.

A fistfight had turned into a pistol-whipping, bullet-flying fiasco.

By the time Eric's girlfriend arrived, he was dead. The bystander became the victim.

McGrady couldn't believe it. He figured this was the year he wouldn't lose anyone. What happened to untouchable? This was his year. He was unstoppable on the court. Layla, his daughter and the gift that made life comprehensible, was born. He figured there would be no early-morning phone calls, no awkward declarations of death. The season was almost over. He had almost survived.

So there was another funeral at Cypress Cathedral, one of the largest churches in town. And on the ride there, McGrady and his friends said, "Every time we come to this church, it's for a funeral. We hate this church, really."

And McGrady looked at a dead body again. And tears streamed again. And two men were needed to prop him up again.

People knew he had feelings again. He was not untouchable again. Disbelief reigned again.

"I think about them every day," McGrady said. "Ryan, I still can't believe that he's dead. I assume that he's down in Auburndale, doing his normal thing. And E, the same thing. I just can't believe that."

Shortly after Eric's funeral, McGrady and his trainer, Wayne Hall, came across some old photographs. They were in the Philippines for an adidas promotion and posing with a basketball team of dwarfs. They had been so taken by these guys. They looked so happy in the pictures.

Hall looked at McGrady while he stared at those pictures. He was looking at Lil' E with "that look like you'll never see him again," Hall said. McGrady got quiet. His friends know to leave him alone then.

"Because I just go into my own little cage," he said. "I go into my own little shell and just clam up. And I'm out of it for a while."

At the beginning of this season, McGrady suffered a slump unmatched since he became a star. He cried about the NBA's zone defenses, which he thinks limit him. He watched his team lose 19 consecutive games. He revealed that he considered quitting basketball.

It was thought to be the fit of a spoiled superstar. McGrady stuck out his chest, and then in private would think to himself, "Who will I lose this year?"

In January, Johnnie, his great aunt, died of heart failure. A key figure in his upbringing was gone. He was saddened but not shocked.

By now, he can set his watch to death.

McGrady threw a birthday party last month. His daughter, Layla, turned 1. His home turned into a kids' carnival, with family friends and children giggling amid balloons and cake. Worry had ceased.

"I can't believe I have a little girl," he said, laughing and shaking his head. "A real girl."

Obbe Maldonado, his childhood friend, joined him. They reminisced. They went from men to boys to men in their chat. They reunited at fatherhood.

"I told you," Maldonado said. "Didn't I tell you? You'll never know about life until you have your own kid."

McGrady nodded.

"You'll die for your kids," Maldonado said.

"I sure will," McGrady replied.

During that moment, death was not a word to fear. Love resided within the thought of death.

"You can't escape it," McGrady said. "Everybody has their time."

Such a truth won't stop memories from roiling McGrady. There always will be those weird, quiet moments. He understands this.

He would rather have those moments than forget. He will never forget.

"There's nothing wrong with that," he said. "I'm hurting, though. I'm really hurting. But I'm alive. So I'll play with this pain. I'll play through this pain. All those people I've lost, they deserve that from me."

Before McGrady left the hospital, Hayden needed to know something. He needed to know if his idol was OK. McGrady grinned to calm him.

The tenor of this meeting had shifted. It was no longer just about what McGrady could do for Hayden. The boy had touched the icon. They both understood why McGrady had come then.

Hayden still needed to know if McGrady was OK. They would part soon, Hayden to rehabilitation, McGrady to the rest of a basketball season. They did not meet to be lifelong friends. They were destined to stop briefly as they passed by each other. And McGrady's assurance would end this encounter.

"Well, you just keep working," he said, "and I will, too."


SEVEN SEASONS, SEVEN DEATHS

* HENRY ANDREWS, 20, friend. -- Died Nov. 7, 1997. Car accident.

RYAN T. McGRADY, 19, cousin. -- Died Dec. 5, 1999. Complications from asthma.

VANESSA JONES, 19, friend. -- Died Oct. 6, 1999. Shot.

JACLYN McGRADY, 38, stepmom. -- Died May 8, 2001. Cancer.

COREY BESS, 22, cousin. -- Died May 20, 2001. Shot.

ERIC ANDERSON, 25, best friend. -- Died March 16, 2003. Shot.

JOHNNIE RUTH GREEN, 73, great aunt. -- Died Jan. 28, 2004. Heart failure.


Jerry Brewer can be reached at jbrewer2@orlandosentinel.com.