Tracy McGrady averaging 32+ points as a shooting guard tasked with carrying his team’s offense would be in line with him taking inspiration from Michael Jordan. Which he did. But, in terms of idolizing players who paved the way for him, T-Mac was more of a Scottie Pippen guy.
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“I was always the type of player like a Scottie Pippen type — share the ball, defend the best player,” said McGrady on ‘The Jump’. This was in response to him claiming him and Kobe Bryant, another score-first shooting guard, would work well together.
Tracy isn’t wrong as he didn’t start off guns blazing, dunking on centers and making contested fadeaway middys. At his peak in 2002-03 while averaging 32.1 points, he dished out 5.5 assists and racked up 2.5 stocks (steals+blocks) a night.
While on Gil’s Arena, he spoke on being a more wholistic player rather than being labelled a ballhog. This came with him saying during his first game against the Chicago Bulls, he was more excited to match up against Pippen than he was for Michael Jordan.
“MJ is MJ. I was really excited to guard and play against Pip because I really saw myself as him,” said the former Raptor. “Pip is what I identify with.”
Tracy’s first game against the Bulls came on Dec, 13. 1997 where Pippen was out. His first outing against Pippen came on Feb, 19th. 1998 where he dropped 14 points and 6 stocks while Pippen had himself 22 points.
Scottie has been credited as being a pioneer in the ‘All-NBA caliber, point forward’ space. “If I became a little bit more complete, people would look at me as one of the best players in the game,” said Pippen in 2005 on wanting to be more than just a scorer in the NBA, something that seemed to resonate with Tracy.
This isn’t to say that McGrady didn’t adore Jordan. “I ain’t going to lie to you, the man had a glow. I’m on the court with him my rookie year and it took me about a quarter to get over the fact that this is Mike.”
Funnily enough, Tracy was almost Jordan teammate on the Bulls. Jerry Krause wanted to trade Scottie in exchange for a rookie T-Mac to pair alongside Jordan. However, ‘His Airness’ stepped in and vetoed the trade, threatening to not play if Pippen was ousted from the team.
Given that McGrady was itching to play a Scottie type role on a team, perhaps having him alongside MJ would’ve led to a similar level of success. Would it have led to a title in 1998? Probably not.
