So Selfless It Hurts: Even before this Miami Heat team came together, fans of the NBA have had a deep-seated bias against ring-chasing. This not-so-nice term refers to a veteran, well past his prime, who joins a contender to fill the void in his legacy. Post-Heat, it can be any player, at any point in his career, putting himself in a remarkable position to win. But I digress. Tracy McGrady is going to join the Pistons. If anyone still thinks about the Pistons, it's generally to bemoan the Ben Gordon or Charlie Villanueva contracts. This team has so thoroughly fallen off the map that no one's bothered to strip Joe Dumars of his genius belt. Head coach John Kuester was an early example of the LeBron James Effect -- the one where James makes everyone he comes into contact with about a thousand times better. And this, my friends, is where McGrady has chosen to play out whatever career he has left in him. It seems like ages ago that we were debating whether T-Mac was a choker, or faker, or anything other than one of the most unfortunate basketball stories of the last decade. He turned up with the Knicks after a long absence -- that is, if you don't count the false comebacks his own Rockets team didn't want -- and showed little that reminded us of who he once was. McGrady is news because there's nothing else going on, and we have a Pavlovian response to his name. Even if, last we checked, it was mostly a call to kvetching. I once thought that an aged McGrady might be able to contribute to a team with his passing and feel for the floor. Sadly, that's not the case. He comes to the Pistons as a broke-down scorer whose physical appearance has started to catch up with his weary game. Detroit hasn't made much of a commitment here, but the fact remains: Tracy McGrady chose the Pistons. For that, no one can fault him. The man still believes he can play, and wants to prove it. He isn't interested in tagging along on someone else's championship ride. McGrady isn't even dropping down into the middle of a young team scrambling to find an identity, as was the case with Allen Iverson's anti-climactic return to Philadelphia. There's nothing doing in Detroit, and McGrady, for better or worse, will get a chance. It's admirable, in its own way. But for T-Mac, this signing is horribly misguided. At best, it returns him to a shadow of his former, controversial self. Even if, through some miracle sent from above, he were to return to scintillating 2001-2002 form, McGrady would be a virtuosic scorer on a dismal squad. There is really, truly nowhere for him to go but down as a featured player. Maybe no one else wanted McGrady. Still, you have to give him credit for not taking the easy way out. A ring chaser, he most certainly is not. Yes, you could even say that McGrady is making a point of finishing up on his own terms. Read more: http://nba.fanhouse.com/2010/08/11/the-works-tracy-mcgrady-in-exile/?sms_ss=tweetmeme
