T-Mac nominated to Hall of Fame
Tracy McGrady’s eloquence has been one of the biggest reasons ESPN’s The Jump has become a can’t-miss daily routine for National Basketball Association habitues. As an analyst with unique insights and experience culled from 16 years of toiling in the league, he makes for a perfect complement to Rachel Nichol’s steady and sure-footed steering of the show. In one fateful sequence early this week, however, he found himself struggling for words. The cause: He was blindsided by news of his nomination to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
To be sure, Nichols and The Jump staff deliberately kept him out of the loop in order to spring him the surprise. All the same, they couldn’t have foreseen his reaction. “What?” “No way.” “Oh, man.” “I’m blushing right now.” “I don’t know what to say.” “You shook me up right there with that one.” He couldn’t believe what he just heard, and it took him close to a full minute before he could regain his composure.
After McGrady had at least a little time to digest the welcome development, he explained why he was flustered. He reflected on his outstanding list of accomplishments in the pros, which began when the Raptors drafted him ninth overall in 1997, flourished in the decade he was with the Magic and Rockets, and wound down with journeyman stints that included a stop in China. “Long career, and this is something that I didn’t see happening when I first started,” he told Nichols. “From high school to the NBA, and look where we are now.”
The voting process can be fickle, so it remains to be seen whether McGrady will be a member of the 2017 Class to be enshrined in September. Still, he was a superstar who shone brightly in his peak, one of the sport’s bona fide phenoms to succeed in foregoing college hoops and posting sterling numbers in the league. Notwithstanding the absence of a championship ring on his finger, he deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. He is, after all, T-Mac. Nothing else need be said.