Seven-time NBA All-Star and arguably the league’s most electrifying scorer, Tracy McGrady, came from extremely humble beginnings. Growing up in Auburndale, Florida, McGrady was raised primarily by his mother and grandmother in a household where money was always scarce. The Hall of Famer recently said there wasn’t one specific moment when fame and fortune hit him all at once but that the leap from the hood to the NBA was a complex experience.
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On a recent episode of 7PM in Brooklyn with Carmelo Anthony, the 16-year veteran shared that, when he finally did receive money, his mind immediately drifted back to his early years. McGrady talked about how the back door on his childhood home wouldn’t lock, so they’d block it with a board or a chair, and no one in his family made more than $40k a year.
No one taught the former foward about financial literacy. So, when T-Mac was greeted with a three-year, $4.5 million rookie contract, he had to figure out what to do with the money himself. Just 18 years old on draft night, this proved to be a challenge for the young superstar.
“Had to raise myself in terms of mom going to work, grandma going to work. I gotta get myself up as a kid to go to school, get myself dressed, food, walk to school, walk across major highways. This is at 8, 9 years old,” McGrady said. “This is s*** I was doing at 10 years old.”
Following his contract with the Raptors, McGrady signed an endorsement deal with Adidas. At that point, he was questioning how he was going to manage his newfound fortune. “How you maneuver through that? That was the challenge for me,” he continued.
“I had a good support system, but it was a challenging f****** time, bro, to really maneuver through having that much money and where I came from,” McGrady said adamantly. “Just didn’t know hot to handle that.” Throughout his early days in the pros, McGrady never felt that he had his finances figured out.
“I was trying to control it the best way I possibly could because I didn’t have the knowledge,” T-Mac shared. “I’m young. I didn’t have the knowledge. I’m just maneuvering through this s*** just by trial. Trial-and-error just trying to figure it out as I go.”
As McGrady reflected on his journey, he shared that he often turned to Kobe Bryant for guidance, highlighting Kobe’s sharp mind and the stability he had growing up in a two-parent household. Despite coming from vastly different backgrounds, McGrady and Kobe managed to build a lasting bond.
It may have taken McGrady some time to fully grasp how to manage his wealth, but with age and experience, alongside increasingly lucrative contracts, he figured it out. By the time he hung up his sneakers, McGrady had earned $162 million, making it clear that those early worries about basic necessities were far behind him.
