火箭专家费根搜狐专栏：伤病让麦迪变得不自信

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　　费根专供搜狐原文：

　　By Jonathan Feigen

　　Tracy McGrady had not been wondrous, but he was playing well. He was making his shots, setting up teammates. The Rockets led by eight and seemed already certain to win easily.

　　That’s how these things go sometimes – with no warning. When McGrady had the back problems, they too jumped up and grabbed him after the most mundane of moments, a routine practice day layup in Houston and a simple jump shot in Washington. When Yao Ming went in for the MRI that would end his season last February, he expected little news of consequence.

　　This time, McGrady stepped toward Luis Scola to shuffle a pass back outside, twisting his knee and immediately recoiled in pain.

　　As the evening would go on, he would say he could play, but could not promise that he would not be limping. He hopped around in front of the Rockets bench, but Rockets coach Rick Adelman decided not to take a chance.

　　When the game was over, McGrady felt the frustration build in him. An MRI had already been planned to determine if he had done more damage to the knee that he thought had been surgically repaired six months earlier. But having grown weary of battling with his rehab and of playing so far beneath his standard, he had decided he might need to just rest and rehabilitate the knee, rather than continue with the previous plan of playing his way back to full strength.

　　“My knee gave out on me,” McGrady said. “They told me if I was to go back in, and they saw me limping they were going to take me back out. I was like, “Well, that’s what you’re pretty much going to see.’ My knee is feeling right. I hate to do this, but I’m going to get an MRI tomorrow and until, further notice, I’m going to have to shut it down.

　　“Tonight, I went back to square one, like before even surgery. I’ve always been feeling it, but tonight, before that particular play, I came up and it just gave out on me. I’ve been trying to work my way into playing shape and strengthen my leg. I’ve never been 100 percent. I’ve just been hoping playing on it would put me over the edge and I won’t have any more pain, but it hasn’t worked.”

　　That sounded more like the frustration talking than doctors’ orders, but his frustration is understandable. Many no doubt share his feelings, even if the next day, he returned to practice, still unsure if he would play.

　　It likely will not come to him taken an extended leave to get well, but on several occasions, he did speak of the way he looks with his abilities so diminished.

　　If McGrady is still the face of the franchise, the image of the Rockets during his time in Houston has been of unfulfilled potential. While he carries the label as a player that has never won a playoff series, he and the Rockets have been marked as unable to stay healthy long enough to achieve the post-season success that otherwise would seem within the grasp of their ever-improving roster.

　　Last season, they never really had much of a chance with Yao Ming out. By then, Rafer Alston was in and out of the playoff series with injuries and Shane Battier was playing with an ankle injury from which he still had not fully recovered. Even the year before, though Yao had returned from that season’s injury, he was not yet his best and the Rockets lost in seven games.

　　McGrady, however, has seemed most betrayed by his body. As gifted as he is with size and athleticism that as a young player was off the scouts’ charts, he must constantly monitor his back condition and is trying to play with an arthritic left shoulder and a sore and weakened left knee.

　　He has seemed to have grown old early, playing without the usual lift in his shot or the pop in his moves.

　　In many ways, this is the risk that the Rockets have accepted when they decided to build their fortunes around him. His talent and feel for the game is so great that they accept that he brings as many questions as answers, believing that their best chance is to make their foundation hold up long enough for a good playoff run, rather than to tear things apart and start over.

　　He really is that good, with an ability to lead an offense in any way necessary, with talent to get his own shot at any time or to trigger an offense that gets good shots for those around him.

　　Talent, however, seduces. With McGrady and the Rockets, it all seems to repeatedly go back to the same question: Can the Rockets be a championship team if led by Tracy McGrady?

　　History would argue that it is unlikely that he could go from never winning anything to suddenly winning everything, but there are details within his past that clouds that conclusion. His teams, cursed by injuries – to Grant Hill in Orlando and to Yao and himself in Houston – was never better than the one that beat it. McGrady did usually show up in those series, playing better and producing better numbers than in the regular seasons.

　　The questions about McGrady, however, seem more tied to his entire approach, from his cool, impassive-appearing exterior to his determination to conserve energy.

　　He grew up as a player in Orlando, after Hill was hurt and a roster built around the sign-and-trade coup of getting Hill and the free agency homecoming of McGrady was left remarkably shorthanded. McGrady was in his peek then and asked to carry a bad offense. He led the league in scoring in consecutive seasons, but also developed the habit of resting to save his strength for the scoring that the Magic needed.

　　He does not warm up before games and at halftimes, usually sitting alone on his special chair as his teammates go through their paces. During games, someone else matches up with the opposing teams’ best perimeter scorers so McGrady can devote his energy to scoring. He often will choose when he should go full out and when there is little point, so that even when other teams finish fast breaks that he could not have prevented or gets to loose balls that he could not have retrieved, he is seen walking away as if disinterested.

　　In some ways, he is not wrong about any of that, but if everything goes back to his ability to lead a team to greatness, his manner does make it unclear whether appearances do matter. With a Kobe Bryant or a Kevin Garnett, the best players are also the hardest working players between games and hardest playing players during games. With McGrady, you get many things, but you don’t get that.

　　Because he does not defend the best scorers, the Rockets brought in Shane Battier. Because he does not show determination, they traded for Ron Artest. Because he is such a fine passer, they add shooters to play next to him.

　　They have committed themselves to going as far as McGrady can take them, and each year, with every addition, they seem to have found the right mix to give them a chance better than the year before.

　　“We really haven’t proven ourselves over the last – ever since I’ve been here,” he said. “We are a talented team. We have to go out and prove it. We want to be one of those teams that one year comes in and everyone is picking us as a favorite. Until we get to that point, we have to go out and prove it.”

　　McGrady, however, knows he has not taken them anywhere other than to a good regular-season record, and can feel his time as that sort of player dwindling with every game in which he cannot do the things that had once come easily, so naturally.

　　For someone that keeps his emotions so carefully hidden as he plays, his frustration was plainly evident as he spoke of the knee and the uncertainty.

　　The frustration he inspires comes from the same place. He is so gifted that no matter what he does, he seems capable of more, almost as if he chooses to limit himself.

　　It is not that simple of course. He is enigmatic in his actions almost as much as his deeds. But as he weighed where these latest turns in his career would take him, he seemed to want more from himself than he has delivered, unsure if it will come.