Coming into the league straight out of high school is anything but easy, regardless of what the players might blossom into.
Such was the case for Tracy McGrady, whom the Toronto Raptors drafted straight out of school in 1997, but went on to watch his Hall of Fame career flourish elsewhere after some turbulent seasons across the border.
Looking back on McGrady’s time in Toronto, many of the team’s former executives, coaching staff and players had a chance to reminisce about what went wrong in his short but highly publicized time in the city, and even found time to express some regret, thinking about what could’ve been.
“He needed a lot of support; maybe we didn’t give him as much support,” former Raptors GM Glen Grunwald said in the Sportsnet documentary Raptors Delight about the birth of the franchise. “He was young, immature perhaps.”
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Raptors Delight documentary on Sportsnet
Raptors Delight: Part 1 focuses on the birth of the Toronto Raptors, the highs and lows of the Damon Stoudamire era, and the power struggle that nearly destroyed the team, as told through the lens of those involved. Check out the first episode of the documentary, starting Dec. 26, on Sportsnet.
Broadcast schedule
That’s the risk you take when you nab a player out of high school. They might not have the maturity of someone who has been through four years of college basketball.
But then-GM Isiah Thomas had his sights set on the Mount Zion Christian Academy product, particularly after the team missed the chance to select Kevin Garnett two years earlier in its first draft as an expansion franchise.
“Drafting a high school player is a riskier thing than normal, so it was a gutsy call,” Grunwald said. “Isiah was convinced, I guess that was what mattered, but we had a couple scouts that also were really high on him.”
Unfortunately, his first year in the league was messy by all accounts.
“Isiah said, ‘Oh, I know how to handle a teenager. We’re gonna set up with all this stuff, everything from diet to accommodations.’ None of that ever happened,” former MLSE CEO and president Richard Peddie said in the documentary. “We just dropped him into Toronto ill-prepared for it.”
He played in only 64 games in his rookie year, starting in 17, after then-head coach Darrell Walker put his foot down on prioritizing McGrady’s development over team success. Injuries weren’t a problem for the 18-year-old, Walker simply chose to either not play or not dress the rookie.
When he did hit the floor, it was only in short bursts as McGrady averaged only 18.4 minutes a night and put up 7.0 points, 4.2 rebounds and 1.5 assists.
McGrady has described that rookie season as “hell,” harping on the way he was treated by Walker, seemingly being stuck in the coach’s doghouse, and how he felt like a lonely teenager in a strange city.
“Darrell was a rookie head coach, so he was maybe a little old-school in terms of his approach to yelling at players and things like that,” Grunwald said, “and maybe that wasn’t the right approach for some players like Tracy.”
But when looking back on their one-and-only year together, Walker stuck to his guns, saying McGrady had a lot of areas he could improve on and that he was hard on the 18-year-old because he simply wasn’t ready to play.
“He probably hated me, and I didn’t care. I could care less about players hating me, my job was trying to win basketball games,” Walker said to Sportsnet. “Did you see flashes that he could do some things? Yeah, but he still was an 18-year-old kid trying to figure out the NBA.”
A point of inflection in their relationship came on New Year’s Eve 1997 when the Raptors were gearing up to play the Washington Wizards. Walker told reporters ahead of the game that if McGrady kept behaving the way he did — showing up to practice late, not taking the league seriously — he would be out of the NBA in three years.
McGrady pulled out the receipt on that one during his Hall of Fame speech in 2017 while talking to Thomas, saying rhetorically, “Was he wrong? Boy, was he wrong.”
Walker didn’t seem to care, though, regardless of how McGrady’s career turned out.
“I made a statement and he tries to still be mad about that, which I could give a s— if he is mad about it, to be honest with you,” Walker said. “Because at the time I just made a statement, if he doesn’t learn to practice harder and go harder, he’s gonna be out the league if he’s not careful.
“I’ve lost no sleep over that. I did what I thought was best for the team. He panned out to be a Hall of Fame player, which is great for him, but at the time, he wasn’t.”
In 2000, McGrady became a free agent for the first time and took his talents to somewhere much hotter and more willing to give him a bigger role, heading to the Orlando Magic via a sign-and-trade deal.
There, he started all 77 games he appeared in during the 2000-01 season, was named the NBA’s most improved player and made his first of seven All-Star Games. His averages jumped to 26.8 points, 7.5 rebounds, 4.6 assists and 1.5 steals per game while playing a then-career-high 40.1 minutes a night.
The player the Raptors put their faith in had bloomed into a superstar right before their eyes after three dramatic years in Toronto. And as most things go when you look back at the early days of the franchise, the age-old question seems to bounce around in most fans’ heads. What could’ve been?
“The biggest mistake was not allowing Mac to grow,” said Damon Stoudamire, who forced his way out of Toronto two seasons before McGrady.
What could’ve been, indeed.
The first episode of the Raptors Delight documentary will air on Sportsnet on Boxing Day ahead of the Raptors’ game against the Memphis Grizzlies — coincidentally a 30th-anniversary game for both franchises.
