McGrady enshrined in Magic Hall of Fame

Tracy McGrady is a Basketball Hall of Famer, meaning he’s already reached the absolute pinnacle of accolades celebrating his playing career.

That doesn’t mean he wasn’t deeply moved by the latest gesture.

McGrady was enshrined Tuesday into the Orlando Magic Hall of Fame , a long-deserved hat tip to what the Central Florida native accomplished during his 295-game tenure with the team. The two-time NBA scoring champion went into the Basketball Hall this past September, and said getting recognized by the Magic still meant more than he could express.

“Yes, I got inducted into the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame, but today is special to me,” McGrady said. “On a personal level, growing up in Auburndale, Florida, my mom used to drive over here every summer when I was playing basketball in Orlando ... and I used to tell my mom, I would tell my friends that I was going to be wearing this uniform one day.” Few wore it better.

Drafted in 1997 about a month after his 18th birthday — by Toronto, Orlando’s opponent on Tuesday night — McGrady went on to play 15 NBA seasons. He was an All-Star seven times, a run that started with each of his four seasons with the Magic, and he remains Orlando’s franchise leader with a scoring average of 28.1 points per game.

“To say you represented the Orlando Magic well would be a vast, vast understatement,” Magic CEO Alex Martins told McGrady during the ceremony. /