It must be the dull days of the NBA offseason when hypotheticals start making headlines. One debate that has seemingly garnered steam on social media is whether or not former NBA star Tracy McGrady would have NBA titles playing alongside a prime Shaq like the late Kobe Bryant did.
A few months ago, Tracy McGrady caused an uproar when he suggested during an appearance on ‘First Take’ that if you were to replace Kobe Bryant with him, that he would have won championships alongside Shaq as well. Fellow former NBA star Gilbert Arenas went a bit further and suggested that McGrady was actually the better player during the early 2000’s. That response drew a swift rebuke from Nick Young during an episode of ‘Gil’s Arena.’
Over the weekend, McGrady made his own appearance on an episode of ‘Gil’s Arena,’ where he seemed to walk back those comments a bit by clarifying that he meant no disrespect at all to Bryant as one of Bryant’s biggest champions.
“So, I’m looking at Shaq and you got to think San Antonio and the Lakers won all the f**king championships at that time. Like, nobody else was winning. So when I said it, and here’s what I do want to say. Ain’t nobody replacing Kobe Bryant right? Nobody’s replacing Kobe,” McGrady said. “And people forget that I’m one of the biggest advocates out here defending when Kobe is disrespected. And if anybody took disrespect to what I said, it’s on you, right? Cuz I didn’t mean it wasn’t no disrespect to my brother Bean. Top five wherever y’all have him. For me, he’s one of the greatest and I put him in that top five all time.”
During the early 2000’s the Los Angeles Lakers won three straight NBA titles from 2000-2002. Although Shaquille O’Neal won Finals MVP in each of those seasons, there was a legitimate debate at the time as to whether or not the Lakers had the two best players in the league.
But McGrady was no slouch either. During his four seasons with the Orlando Magic in that time frame, he was named an All-Star each of those years, finished top-four in the MVP voting in 2001-02 and 2002-03, and was named All NBA First-Team in both of those seasons as well. McGrady also led the league in scoring in 2002-03 and 2003-04.
