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Magic wants McGrady to decide plans
The Orlando Magic want to keep Tracy McGrady, but are willing to trade him if he wants to go. The league scoring champion wants to stay, but is demanding some improvements to the NBA's worst team.
"I don't want to leave. I'll be the first to tell you, I don't want to leave," McGrady said Wednesday, before Orlando's season finale. "But I'm a competitor and I want to win."
McGrady, whose seven-year, $93 million contract runs through the 2006-07 season, can opt out of the deal after next season.
Magic general manager John Weisbrod said he'd like McGrady to stay, but if he knows McGrady won't be back after next season, trading him would be the best move for the team.
"I don't want that misinterpreted that I'm looking for a way to trade him or we're predisposed to trading him," said Weisbrod, who took over as Orlando's GM last month. "We're obviously not. We'd like to build the thing around him."
Earlier Wednesday, Weisbrod said the organization would like to know McGrady's intent sooner rather than later so the team knows what direction to go with its rebuilding plan.
Past that point, Weisbrod said, the situation would become a distraction. Even worse, if McGrady leaves after the season, the Magic receive nothing in return.
But, exposing a conflict that may never reach resolution, McGrady said he was willing to wait deep into the season ¡ª perhaps as late as the February trading deadline ¡ª to make up his mind.
"If I do decide to leave, I definitely don't want to play out the whole season so they don't get anything," said McGrady, adding he was grateful to the team and city in which he flourished.
McGrady's deal gives him an opt-out clause after the fifth year of his deal, an attractive alternative if there's no turnaround in the franchise's fortunes.
The Magic were 20-61 entering their last game, against Philadelphia.
"All things being equal, I think he'd like to stay in Orlando," Weisbrod said. "But there are a lot of factors that don't make all things equal ¡ª we're a bad team right now without any (salary) cap room."
McGrady's contract may make a trade difficult. He's due to make almost $14.5 million next season, and teams would be leery of acquiring McGrady unless they knew he would re-sign.
"He's still in a position, if he wanted to get traded, to dictate where he got traded to," Weisbrod said.
McGrady averaged 28 points this season, leading the league for the second straight year, before going on the injured list last month. Last season, his 32.1 points made him the youngest player to average at least 30 per game since the NBA/ABA merger of 1976.
But the season soured long before knee tendinitis shut him down with nine games to go. His shooting percentage of .417 is a career worst, as are his 2.67 turnovers per game.
Also, he emotionally faltered under the burden of being named team captain, especially when a franchise-record 19-game losing streak early in the year doomed the Magic's playoff hopes. "Ideally, I do want to remain a Magic," said McGrady, second in franchise history in points. "But (Weisbrod) also understands I don't want to be put in the situation I was this year." |
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