McGrady looking for the glaring omission

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McGrady looking for the glaring omission Scoring champ eyes team success to add to wealth of individual honors By JONATHAN FEIGEN Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/sports/2874727 Nothing shows. There is a slight smile. Sleepy eyes. The look seems to indicate he is plotting something, or reaching some sort of a conclusion. Is the smile a smirk? Does that offer a clue? Is it a "tell" that reveals, or at least hints, at the cards he holds? Tracy McGrady shares a few thoughts, sometimes with verbal jabs as sudden and startling as his first step to the basket. But the poker face seems to be hiding more. He wore that look on the bench in Orlando when he was held out of a preseason game so Jeff Van Gundy could get a look at his teammates. And it was easy to imagine him thinking of all he wanted to prove to those who would doubt and malign him. He talks of the pain of losing as his eyes seem to close even more until he almost glowers. And he seems to divulge a resolve. McGrady describes his career so far and what is left of it. He speaks of accomplishments that no longer satisfy, of potential unfulfilled. And though that grin never quite leaves him, he doesn't seem at all amused. Instead, he arrives in Houston insisting, though no one argues, that he has something to prove. And he almost seems to give away what is behind that slight smile and sleepy eyes. "That's what it's all about," McGrady said. "When you have the type of season I had, the type of player that I am, everybody questions your drive, everybody points fingers at you and has these things to say about you. There was a lot on my shoulders last year. There was a lot said about me in a negative way. It's how you bounce back from that. "Criticism to me always makes me stronger. When you go out and prove your critics wrong, they have to look themselves in the mirror and wonder if they meant what they said. "That doesn't bother me. I don't worry about that. I want to prove that I can wear the (championship) jewelry." Looking inside McGrady looks like a player who can win championships. He has offered evidence to support the assumption. But he has not proven it. The timing for that next step seems right. In leading the NBA in scoring the past two seasons, McGrady has achieved the most glorified individual accomplishment. Assist-to-turnover ratio is nice, but they make shoes and commercials for the scoring champion. But McGrady often is the first to mention that he has never won a playoff series. He has never lost one with the better team, but now there is a sense that he is a part of a team good enough that he can be fairly measured by how well his team performs. "He has a lot to prove," Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy said. "I have a lot to prove. We all have a lot to prove. "I think I can be a championship coach, but until I do it, all I proved is can get a team there. I haven't proven I can get over the hump and do it. He's proven he can get a team to the playoffs, but hasn't been able to advance yet. You can make a great parallel to (Kevin) Garnett." But Garnett did not fall as hard before winning a playoff series for the first time and taking the Timberwolves to the Western Conference finals last season. He received his share of criticism. But the censure of McGrady was much more personal and contemptuous. "When you lose in this league, they will try to assassinate your basketball character," Van Gundy said. "Everybody wants to label everybody. They're going to say what they say about him until he wins. "It's the same stuff (Michael) Jordan went through until he won. 'You can't win when you're the high scorer in the league.' Then he won. ... The same people that coronated him three years before had the criticism. Then they said, 'He changed.' He hadn't changed. The team around him changed. "There's so much talk now. It can sap you if you want to listen and respond to everything. He has to be clear-headed. We expect him, and I know he expects himself, to be great." Taking it all in McGrady, 25, is different from many players. He knows what has been said about him and does not feign indifference. He said he does read the newspapers, listen to the talk shows and watch television reports. "We all know," he said, "because if we didn't, (the media) would tell us." McGrady did not, however, have to be told what was said about him in Orlando. Though his expression again displayed no anger, he has made it clear he did not appreciate the condemnation. "Let me tell you something, when something goes on like that, they're going to come up with all kinds of excuses and blame it on the star player," McGrady said. "All the blame is pointed on me, which is cool. I'll take that the rest of my career. Even with this team, if we lose, it's going to be pointed at me because we are star players of the team. "I was reading a couple of quotes where (Magic general manager John) Weisbrod said T-Mac can leave the gym having 30 or 40 and he walked out saying he did his part. He doesn't understand what I was going through when I went home. I might not show it around the players or around here, but when I go home to my people, to my inner circle, I'm (angry) because we are losing. "He tried to destroy (my reputation). Some of the things people that work with me ... say, 'That guy is out of his mind. He doesn't know you.' But they all understand the game as well. When you trade somebody of my caliber, with all the stuff that went on, he has to cover his (reputation)." Weisbrod has said he dealt or at least could not relate to McGrady in part because McGrady did not seem upset by losses. That would make McGrady the first player ever traded because of his eyelids. But McGrady was the best player on a team that lost 61 games. He can dispute the criticism but not the record. He and Van Gundy also can argue it might have been useful for him. "It was a very humbling year for him," Van Gundy said. "You don't lose 19 games in a row and not look within for what's going on. I think we're getting him at the right time of his career. He's coming here at the right time. It can be a very, very good mix." Hard work ahead McGrady was not the only one looking. The league knew what had become of McGrady's reputation. Labels might not have been tattooed, but they were stuck to him like Post-its. The Rockets juggled the trade possibility long enough to decide what they thought about everything from McGrady's often sore back to his work habits. They watched tapes, leaned on sources and called in assistant coach Patrick Ewing, a former McGrady teammate in Orlando, for a heart-to-heart. "I told Jeff I thought he was a great player and a great teammate for me," Ewing said. "I thought Jeff could get him to the next level, and that's what I told him." Van Gundy did not consider McGrady without fault last season. Defensively, McGrady had gone from outstanding in Toronto to a traffic cone in Orlando. But Van Gundy was also convinced that his shortcomings were not intractable. "Subconsciously, when you go through a bad year or two ... you fall into some bad habits," Van Gundy said. "Because not every possession or every game is important. After the first 20 games last year, they were out. It's easy to slip. "One of the best competitors I ever dealt with was Derek Harper. When he got traded from Dallas to New York (in 1994), they had gone through some tough times in Dallas. When he got to New York, he had slipped. Solving a problem is acknowledging it existed. He acknowledged it and got his habits back to where they should have been. If a great competitor like Derek Harper can let it slip, anybody can. That's why a lot of times trades take a while to really work. "Tracy has a good handle on who he is, what his strengths are, how he can affect winning." In the end, only that ?winning ?will answer critics or satisfy McGrady. For all he has accomplished, he has not proven that. "I think all of us have a lot to prove, individually and together, starting with me," Van Gundy said. "I've been fortunate to be a part of teams that have always been in the playoffs. I've even been able to get to the finals, conference finals a couple times. But I haven't proven that I can get a team over the top. And that drives me. And I think (it drives) individual players." But timing and history point that finger first at McGrady. He said he welcomes that demand but also did not argue when Rockets owner Leslie Alexander called him the NBA's best player. "I would accept that, but at the same time I won't put myself as the best player in the NBA because I don't have any jewelry to show for it," McGrady said. "I'm not at Kobe Bryant's level because he has three rings. "I feel I'm one of the elite players in this league. If you ask me at the end of this year and I have some jewelry to showcase, I'll tell you yeah, I'm the greatest player in this league." Until then, when McGrady sort of smiles and barely squints, he seems to know he has something to prove. jonathan.feigen@chron.com 個人認為寫得很棒的一篇文章…不過太長了，所以沒時間譯… Hope that T-mac will become a really great player with rings, one day. -- ※ 發信站: 批踢踢實業坊(ptt.cc) ◆ From: 203.218.215.98