During the NBA lockout, the Hawks leadership used the time to go antiquing. The franchise absolutely fell in love with the patina of the former All-Star.
The urge to redesign around that theme grew overwhelming. Wouldn’t a couple of those vintage players just look fabulous on the bench?
So the team reached back to the first round of your 2001 NBA Fantasy League draft to find some role players for the 2011-12 season.
When they uncrated Tracy McGrady and Jerry Stackhouse, the Hawks were following through on a deliberate plan to season their roster.
“One of the common themes with clubs that have been championship caliber the last five years is the number of players on their team with bench players in their 30s,” general manager Rick Sund said. Players, he added, who had a wealth of playing experience and the willingness to do whatever it took to extend their careers.
“In the past we didn’t have those players on our club.”
They ended up importing five new players who were 30 and above. The most veteran two had the real residual name value. The impact of a pair who, 11 years ago, were East All-Star teammates, who finished the 2000-01 season among the top seven of the league’s scorers, has yet to be established.
Stackhouse, 37, has barely seen the floor. Playing but 23 minutes entering Friday, he has been relegated to the role of locker room Yoda.
What he was
McGrady, 32, is the intriguing acquisition, who between back spasms has provided teasing glimpses of a one-time superstar who still has carefully measured amounts of savvy to give.
There is a long list in the McGrady “Was” column. Was a seven-time All-Star. Was the NBA scoring leader, twice. Was the guy who with Houston in 2004 scored 13 points in the final 33 seconds to stun San Antonio.
He also was (still is) the superstar without a playoff series victory. He was the player stigmatized by Jeff Van Gundy, when his former coach in Houston used him as an example of underachievement during a presentation at a 2011 sports conference at MIT. Van Gundy expected much more of a player whose talent, he said, was “otherworldly.”
At the same conference, Rockets GM Daryl Morey suggested that McGrady never really felt challenged by the game when he was young. “His wingspan was freakish, his size was enormous, his IQ [was high] — my sense was all that did get in the way of Tracy reaching his highest highs.”
The game comes too easily to him no more. Bouncing between four teams over the past three seasons, feeling the drag of age and injury, McGrady presents a complex, compelling sub-plot to this Hawks season.
Pains of age
Through the Hawks first 15 games of this truncated season, he has shown a little bit of everything. There have been flashbacks to better days of yore — 16 points, seven rebounds, four assists in a victory over Miami. There has been frailty — he has been held out of four games with a bruised knee and a bad back.
The aches of winter are inconsequential, McGrady insists: “The most important thing is to be healthy down the stretch of the season, that’s what I’m looking forward to.”
Wednesday, the past and present of the Hawks bench converged at Philips. Portland’s Jamal Crawford — once a Sixth Man of the Year in Atlanta — went for 22 against his old team. He was, as always, shot-happy (leading his team with 22, connecting on just 36 percent). By contrast, McGrady clocked a steady 27 minutes, made half his six shots, opened up the floor with his passing and the attention paid him by the Trail Blazers defense and generally looked as comfortable as a man on his own front porch.
“It’s just knowing the game, man,” he said, explaining his quick Atlanta acclimation.
“It’s always fun to be out there on the floor with him,” said the Hawks’ Joe Johnson. “He’s a guy I definitely idolized when he really had it going. To be out there with him, to see him able to make plays, it’s an honor and privilege.”
McGrady is no longer a player to be measured by numbers, Sund said. Rather, he is now the player of more subtle attributes — one of the team’s best passers, a versatile big (6-8) guard who can handle the ball and post up and who still can pose a match-up quandary.
“Put all that together with a player who is willing to accept coming off the bench, that’s a plus for us,” Sund said.
What McGrady and Stackhouse have in common — besides the minimum salary for veterans of their tenure ($1.4 million) — is the journey from lead to character actor. They provide a fascinating glimpse at a dimming star and at how ego can be reconfigured to almost any shape if it means the difference between going to work in shorts or a suit.
“Not everybody can do it because some guys’ pride can get in the way,” Stackhouse said. “In order to maximize what you love to do, you make some sacrifices.”
Accepting change
For McGrady, who in 2002-03 went for 32 points a game, who averaged more than 30 a game in four losing playoff series, it has been three years since he averaged in double figures. The toll of 14 years in the NBA is written on his body. He had microfracture surgery on his left knee in 2009. The back has become a chronic problem, one that is going to have to be remedied surgically perhaps as soon as the next offseason, he figures.
You know you’re getting old when your back seizes up, as it did most recently with McGrady, when just dismounting from your hotel bed.
At least before arriving in Atlanta, he has had time to perform all the reality checks.
“I had a long run at being at the top of my game, being well known in this league, doing some amazing things,” he said.
“Unfortunately injuries brought me down. I understand that. I accept that. There’s nothing I could do about it. It was quite simple for me. It’s not like the basketball gods just came and took all my talent. I had injuries that took me away from who I really was.
“That wasn’t going to stop me from getting back on the basketball court, being able to prolong my career.”
Stackhouse describes the philosophy he brings to the Hawks bench one way: “I still feel if I’m the eighth man on the team, I’m the best eighth man in the NBA. If I’m the 11th man I’m the best 11th man in basketball. That’s how you channel your thoughts.”
Befitting his more prominent role, McGrady frames his approach another way: “I consider myself to be an effective player, more than a lot of these guys in the league. I can still play, no doubt about that.”
The Hawks require, especially now with the loss of Al Horford, that some of their relics remain in working order. McGrady in particular. “We’re going to need him,” Johnson said.
They are counting on him to be the vintage Ball jar that could seal tight in a pinch, the rotary phone with a dial tone, the old Sinclair Oil sign that might still gleam if it catches the sun just right.
Meet Tracy McGrady
Born: May 24, 1979. Bartow, Fla.
High dchool: Auburndale (Fla.) High and Mount Zion Christian Academy (Durham, N.C.).
College: None.
Drafted: Ninth overall by Toronto, 1997.
Career arc
1997-2000 Toronto. (192 games, 24.1 minutes per game, 11.0 points per game, 5.5 rebounds per game, 2.5 assists per game).
2000-2004 Orlando. (295 g, 39.4 mpg, 28.1 ppg, 7.0 rpg, 5.2 apg).
2004-2010 Houston. (303 g, 32.0 mpg, 22.7 ppg, 5.5 rpg, 5.6 apg).
2010 New York. (24 g, 26.1 mpg, 9.4 ppg, 3.7 rpg, 3.9 apg).
2010-2011 Detroit. (72 g, 23.4 mpg, 8.0 ppg, 3.5 rpg, 3.5 apg).
2011-2012 Atlanta. (11g, 19.1 mpg, 7.6 ppg, 3.7 rpg, 2.1 apg).
Stats before Friday’s game
Career highlights
● Seven consecutive All Star appearances (2001-07).
● Two-time NBA scoring champion (2002-03, 2003-04).
● Most Improved Player Award (2000-01).
● Averaged 28.5 points per game in 38 postseason games.
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