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Tracy McGrady says he wish he had stayed in Toronto

By Philip Rossman-Reich

Feb 12, 2016; Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Canada player Tracy McGrady (1) brings the ball up court during the All-Star celebrity basketball game at Ricoh Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Peter Llewellyn-USA TODAY Sports
Feb 12, 2016; Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Canada player Tracy McGrady (1) brings the ball up court during the All-Star celebrity basketball game at Ricoh Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Peter Llewellyn-USA TODAY Sports /
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As players continue walks down memory lane, Tracy McGrady told Vince Carter and Rachel Nichols he wished he had stayed in Toronto instead of coming home.

Time has a tendency to heal wounds and make anyone nostalgic. The “What if?” questions become too tantalizing to think about and the ugly parts of a relationship tend to disappear, lost to the good feelings and memories they engender.

We saw plenty of this in last week’s airing of This Magic Moment on ESPN. Shaquille O’Neal has repeatedly said in the last few years that if he could do it again, he would have stayed in Orlando. This despite winning three titles with the Los Angeles Lakers and creating his legacy in the league there.

Everyone would do things differently if they could. Another former Orlando Magic star apparently feels the same way.

On an episode of The Jump last week on ESPN, Vince Carter joined Tracy McGrady and Rachel Nichols on the show. With his cousin and former teammate in Toronto on the set, McGrady said he wished he would have stayed with the Toronto Raptors and see what they could have built together there.

McGrady left the Raptors in the summer of 2000 and signed a max contract with the Orlando Magic. McGrady went from averaging 15.4 points per game in his breakout year with the Raptors that season to averaging 26.8 points per game as the featured player for the Orlando Magic in 2001. That season started a five-year run of averaging at least 25 points per game and a seven-year All-Star run.

McGrady is undoubtedly the greatest scorer in Magic history as he single handedly carried some terrible Magic teams into the Playoffs and into national relevancy. He averaged 28.1 points per game on a 48.4 percent effective field goal percentage in four seasons with the Magic.

In the clip, McGrady said it was a tough decision for him to leave Toronto after playing with Carter for two years. The pull of home proved to be too much. Looking back on things now, he said he believes he could have grown into the player he became playing next to Carter.

Indeed, perhaps McGrady would have had that success if Grant Hill did not spend those four Orlando years with McGrady on the injured list so often. It was a lot of individual success for McGrady in his Orlando years, but not a lot of team success as the team never had home-court advantage in the Playoffs and never got out of the first round in his four years in Orlando.

And that relationship too ended poorly.

McGrady has done a lot of bridge-mending of late. After getting booed in every return to Toronto as a player, he returned to participate in a lot of the All-Star festivities this past February. And he returned to cheers. So nostalgia is definitely bubbling up.

Next: Where does Mario Hezonja rank in our final rookie rankings?

His comments do not necessarily mean he regrets his time in Orlando or the decision he made. It is merely a statement of “What if?” Like all sports fans, athletes too like to ponder on these scenarios.