Orlando Magic Shooting Month: Top 20 shooters in Orlando Magic history
Top 20 Shooters in Orlando Magic History
8. Tracy McGrady
By Katelyn Davis
Tracy McGrady is arguably one of the best shooters and players in the Orlando Magic history. Since the beginning of McGrady’s career, he easily made himself present. He outshined his cousin, Vince Carter, and is easily one of the league’s most productive fourth quarter players.
When he left the Toronto Raptors to go back to Florida to play for the Orlando Magic, he carried the team. McGrady averaged almost 27 points per game and, despite having constant losses in the playoffs due to having a lot of rookie players, he still was carrying the team with his crafty scoring.
Later, in his 2003 season, he averaged 32.1 points per game. In the same year, he was one of the top five players that made it. But he was not just shooting threes.
Tracy McGrady had a similar game in his 2003 to what we see in Stephen Curry today as far as shooting the ball. He could shoot the three, but his mid-range shot was also unstoppable. But McGrady could drive to the hoop very well.
McGrady was an all-around scorer who just kept defenses off balance while carrying the entire offensive load. That is how he made seven All-Star and seven All-NBA teams.
In 2004, McGrady scored his career-high 62 points in a game, and again was averaging 28 points per game. And once he left Orlando to go to Houston after being the worst team in the NBA, he scored 13 points in 33 seconds.
At this point, Tracy McGrady was compared to Kobe Bryant as the best wing player in the league. And it was a legitimate debate. The only thing missing from McGrady’s resume was the playoff success, something far out of his control.
Their stats still compare favorably, if not for McGrady’s career tailing off with a litany of injuries and then a sojourn to find a title late in the season.
With his stats as a young NBA player who started at the age of 18, moving from warm Florida to freezing Toranto, McGrady had an impressive first few seasons, before getting injured. If he had not gotten so many injuries and missed so many games and seasons, he could have crafted his game even more and made all of his movements more fluid.
But again, with all the seasons he did play with an incredible scoring average, and comparing stats so close to some of the best to ever play, he made his was up on the list of best shooters of all time for the Orlando Magic.