Tracy McGrady. Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame (Class of 2017). 7x NBA All-Star. 2x All-NBA First Team. 3x All-NBA Second Team. 2x All-NBA Third Team. 2x NBA Scoring Champion. The league’s Most Improved Player in 2001. Kobe Bryant called T-Mac the TOUGHEST guy he has ever played against. Paul Pierce said, “since there was no way to stop Tracy’s shot, you just had to do everything you could to make sure he didn’t get in a position to shoot.” Tracy himself probably said it best, he’s a versatile player, he can go inside, he can go outside, so “how do you want it?”
Range. Skill. Handle. Size. Power. Force. Most importantly: an indomitable will. T-Mac was never one to back away from a big game. He defied defenses with his dizzying and dynamic playmaking because, and he readily admitted this himself, he didn’t have a go-to move. You couldn’t plan for what he was going to do, because he didn’t have just A move, he had all of them.
To watch Tracy is to be envious of his talent, otherworldly as it seems. He can literally do everything on the court, and yet, his moves just build off of one another. It starts with one of the basics of basketball: his footwork is the foundation for his fantastical forays and it, like his range, just continues out from there. I wanted to make a highlight reel worthy of a Hall of Famer, but I noticed something will combing through as many hours of footage as I could find: his greatest highlights, his most powerful posters, were byproducts of his pump fake. His George Gervin/Julius Erving-esque finishes stemmed from his triple threat. His jab made it so he didn’t need his cross. He’s got a hell of a handle, but watch this video and you’ll see that a well-timed attack off the right read from a triple threat, or scissored feet and/or the attack off the catch can kill the defender cold. The beauty of his ability to blow by his guy is because, yes, he is athletic, but that’s not the only thing that let’s him do that. Watch this video and work on what he did; reads, and moves, and counters to those moves. The ability to go over either shoulder, off either foot, finish ambidextrously, goes a lot farther than just wishing you were born with what made McGrady great.
Jab Step. Pump Fake. Step through. Reverse Pivot. Dropstep. These don’t sound as sexy as the combos you string together WITH the basketball, but believe me when I tell you that the basics make the game, and the devil is in the details. It may seem boring to work on the little things every day, but excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better. Just look at what it did for T-Mac.
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