Tracy McGrady isn’t backing down from his belief that he would have won championships alongside Shaquille O’Neal. On a recent appearance on Gil’s Arena, the Hall of Famer clarified his earlier comments, saying the hypothetical only applied to his prime years in the early 2000s when “ring culture” was at its peak.
“When we’re talking basketball, we’re talking hypotheticals all the f–ing time, and it was around the ring culture of what we were talking about,” said McGrady on The Arena. “We’re talking early 2000s. People went to the Rockets years. We are specifically talking about a very minute time in my career when I was on that level. That’s what we were talking about.”
For McGrady, this conversation is not about the accolades or qualifications. Rather, it’s about pure skill and making a judgment based on hoops alone. He’s not trying to compare himself to Kobe, but he believes he could have been nearly just as effective with the right pieces in place.
“When I look at who I was as a player at this time, and I’m looking at Shaq, the most dominant basketball player, and I’m seeing myself playing with a cat like Shaq, based on the conversation around ring culture, I would have won a ring with the big fella. And the reason I say that is when you look back to the early 2000s, and when you look at that All-NBA list, who’s right there with Kob’?”
To McGrady’s credit, both he and Kobe made the All-NBA first team in 2002 and 2003, and they were both All-NBA second team in 2001. They were considered two of the best guards in the league for a time before McGrady’s career took a different turn.
With Kobe and Shaq finally split up, McGrady played out the rest of his prime with the Houston Rockets, where he never truly had an opportunity to win. To this day, McGrady believes his career would have gone very differently if he had the teammates, support, and overall environment that Kobe Bryant had.
While their games and talent may have been comparable, Kobe’s career is leagues ahead of T-Mac’s, no doubt due to his status as a 5x champion with the Lakers. With career averages of 25.0 points, 5.2 rebounds, and 4.7 assists per game on 44.7% shooting, Bryant’s greatness is undeniable, but he also had the help of Shaquille O’Neal during the early stages of his career.
While he’s no Kobe, McGrady is a seven-time All-Star and two-time scoring champion who could have thrived with O’Neal. While he’s not the same shooter Bryant was, his shot-making and finishing ability would have made him an ideal pairing with the Lakers’ big man, and Shaq himself agrees.
So while McGrady has gotten a lot of heat for his claim on winning rings with the Diesel, it’s not an unfair argument given the differences in their team situations. Still, there’s no going back to change history now, and McGrady’s lack of title victories will always be a blemish on his otherwise impressive resume.
At the end of the day, Tracy McGrady’s point isn’t that he was Kobe Bryant, but that he was good enough in his prime to win titles in the right situation. Pairing with the most dominant force of the era in Shaquille O’Neal could have given him that chance. It’s a debate rooted in hypotheticals, but it highlights just how talented T-Mac really was, and how much circumstance shaped his legacy.
