[Florida Today] McGrady's ire still hot at Orlando

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McGrady's ire still hot at Orlando

Might not play today after death in family

BY JOHN DENTON

ORLANDO - Tracy McGrady grew up here, played here and still spends most of his summers here. So when he speaks about the history of the Orlando Magic, his perspective is equal parts fan, former player and curious observer.

And McGrady doesn't like what he has seen when it comes to star players fleeing the Magic organization.

Shaquille O'Neal lasted four seasons in Orlando before bolting in free agency in 1996. Penny Hardaway was a four-time All-Star in Orlando, but he begged out in 1999 under a hail of boos. McGrady blossomed into the NBA's most lethal scorer with Orlando but asked for a trade in 2004 after he clashed with former general manager John Weisbrod. Steve Francis, the centerpiece in the blockbuster McGrady trade, lasted 134 games before he was shipped to New York this week.

"When you get rid of the big fella (O'Neal), then Penny, then myself, obviously there's some kind of bad trend going on there," McGrady said. "I don't know what it is, but it does make you wonder sometimes.

"As far as me leaving, it was just one individual (Weisbrod) who messed the whole organization up. He's not there anymore, but it's really too bad how it turned out."

By escaping Orlando, McGrady hoped he was leaving his problems behind in Central Florida, but instead they have followed him to Houston. He failed in his bid to win his first playoff series in five tries last season, falling to Dallas in seven games. And like during his first seven NBA years, when his world was rocked by the deaths of either family members or close friends, tragedy hit McGrady again this past week.

The mother of McGrady's longtime fiancée, Clarenda Harris, died. McGrady wasn't with the Rockets on Friday night in their win against Golden State, and the six-time All-Star's availability is in question for Houston's 3:30 p.m. game today at Orlando.

It's been that kind of season for McGrady, who was expected finally to achieve playoff greatness with a talented and veteran Rockets team around him. But McGrady missed 13 games with a back strain and had to leave three others, and the Rockets were 0-16 in those games.

Center Yao Ming missed another 21 games because of surgery on an infected toe. Houston, picked by many to challenge San Antonio in the Western Conference, has limped to a 24-31 record.

Now the Rockets, 9-3 since getting Yao back, hope to make a late surge similar to a year ago. Houston started last season 13-15 but finished 51-31 with a 38-16 spree over the final four months. The Rockets still have to jump the Lakers, Jazz, Kings and Warriors to get back to the playoffs, but it's something McGrady feels Houston can do -- as long as he and Yao are on the floor.

"With the two of us out, let's face it, we're going to struggle," said McGrady, who ranks ninth in the NBA in scoring at 25.2 points a game. "But with us in the lineup, we're winning 70 percent of our games. So I think people see that if we can stay healthy, we could be a team to deal with down the stretch."

McGrady, 26, admitted at the NBA All-Star Game in Houston he's had to deal with so much away from the floor this season that it has affected his basketball. He wouldn't be specific about the problems, but he did say that he felt so overwhelmed at times that he thought about escaping and not telling anyone about his whereabouts.

"I told my coach (Jeff Van Gundy) that's how I felt -- that I really felt like leaving and not tell people where I was going, just getting away for a few days and just clearing my mind," said McGrady, who had 36 points in last Sunday's All-Star Game. "I need peace of mind right now. It's all just piled up on me and broken me down."

It's a similar feeling, McGrady said, to the sickness he felt back in 2004 when he realized he no longer could coexist with Weisbrod, a former minor-league hockey executive who was hired to run the Magic.

Disgusted by the Magic's inability to add talent around him -- draft picks Steve Hunter, Jeryl Sasser, Ryan Humphrey and Reece Gaines and free-agent signings Juwan Howard and Tyronn Lue were all busts -- McGrady bottomed out in 2003-04. He led the NBA in scoring (28 ppg.) and had a career-best 62-point night against Washington, but his Magic were a league-worst 21-61.

All the losing, combined with his dislike for Weisbrod -- the two had several heated incidents -- and McGrady ultimately asked to be traded.

The fact he actually wanted to leave, he said, should speak volumes about his unhappiness at the end of his tenure in Orlando. McGrady grew up 45 minutes away in Auburndale, wore his Penny Hardaway jersey to Magic games as a teenager and most of his family still leaves in nearby Polk County.

"It still makes me mad to know that I had to leave home," he said. "I really don't think people understand how much it meant to me to be playing at home and how much it hurt me to leave there. But it was all because of one person."

That person, Weisbrod, is gone, having left last spring in what was believed to be a forced resignation. Also gone are Cuttino Mobley, Kelvin Cato and Francis -- the three players Orlando acquired in the blockbuster trade for McGrady.

Again, he watches the franchise that he rooted for as a kid, the franchise that helped make him a NBA star, and he wonders about its direction.

Through the disappointment, he is able to see a sliver of promise.

"Obviously, it's different people running the team from the guy who traded me," McGrady said. "They're doing a real good job of clearing cap space."