Sometimes a simple statement gets blown entirely out of proportion. A big story over the last week is some comments made by basketball legend Tracy McGrady. The Hall of Famer suggested that if he played with Shaquille O’Neal in the early 2000s, he most likely would have won an NBA title, an honor he never got to experience in his prestigious career.
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“Replace me with Kobe with Shaq, I don’t win a championship?” T-Mac asked during an appearance on First Take. “I felt like if I was put in that position to win a championship, I damn sure would show up and do what I do in the playoffs to elevate my team to that level.”
While it seemed pretty clear what McGrady was implying, his words were miscontrued, with many assuming that he was slighting Kobe. T-Mac himself put an end to that implication during his most recent interview with Timeless Sports.
“To go back to those comments, I never should have said replaced. I think replacing Kobe, I don’t want to say I’d be replacing Kobe,” he stated. “Everybody knows Kobe’s my man. Kobe’s my brother, bro. There’s no way in hell I would ever disrespect my brother like that.”
That said, T-Mac wasn’t about to let his original point get lost in the conversation. “I will stand on playing with Shaq, though. In that era,” he specified. To ensure that his words didn’t get used against him again, he explained exactly why he thought partnering up with the Diesel would have netted him a ring.
“My resume, Kobe resume. We’re not talking about that. We’re only talking about a specific moment. In 2000-2001 to like 2007-2008. Specifically, when I was in Orlando and Shaq, they were three-peating. Shaq was the most dominant player in our game. When I’m seeing a guy average 38 and 16 in the Finals, and I’m over here averaging 30 as a 21-year-old. Yeah, I believe if I’m playing with that big guy I’d win a championship,” he said.
“The reason I said that is because Shaq, Kobe, Tim Duncan, were the only ones winning championships,” he added. He’s not wrong. The Spurs and Lakers were explosive in that period, with the Pistons and the Heat (also featuring Shaq) sneaking in a couple of trophies in the meantime.
For people to come down so hard on McGrady for just suggesting a “What-If” is one of the biggest problems with the amount of sports media that exists in this day and age. The number of times information has been aggregated incorrectly is infinite, and a simple fun theory turned into “T-Mac thinks he’s better than Kobe.”
Both players were offensive gurus. They were explosive in multiple facets of the game, and they knew how to take over when they were locked in. To think that the Diesel and T-Mac wouldn’t have won a ring together is silly, but the noise around the question even being asked is elementary.
Try to enjoy the game, folks. True ballers won’t let you down.
