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Coming off a breakout season, Tracy McGrady is ready to teach an old team some new tricks

By Chris Ballard

A one-man highlight film last year, McGrady will now be the frontman for a trio of midsized menaces.  Bob Rosato Enemy Lines An opposing team's scout sizes up the Magic " Tracy McGrady is the best player in the East. There are only five players I would consider trading him for, and they're all in the West: Shaquille O'Neal, Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett and Chris Webber. McGrady is the guy who gives Orlando reason to believe it can win a championship. ... Grant Hill 's absence last year wasn't as bad for the Magic as you would have thought because it allowed McGrady to establish himself. Now all Hill has to do is fit in. It's going to be a bit of a struggle because he's going to have some rust, but he's an intelligent player. ... I can't overstate the value of Doc Rivers 's leadership. He has control of the team, and he's going to get [his players] to buy into what needs to be done. ... To beat Orlando you'll have to limit points on the fast break, in the paint and on offensive rebounds, and that's hard because the Magic will come at you in a variety of ways. ... The Magic has a collection of guys who can have a bad night and not be missed: McGrady, Hill, Horace Grant , Mike Miller , Patrick Ewing , Pat Garrity -- any of them can step in and help win a game. ... Last year Orlando was 19th in defensive rebounding, but that's going to improve with Grant, Ewing and Hill coming in. ... This will be the perfect situation for Ewing as long as he accepts the fact that he's going to play limited minutes to sustain his quality of play throughout the year and not disrupt the chemistry of the team. It wouldn't surprise me if they won the East. But winning the Finals? Probably not. "

At this time last fall Orlando was in the midst of throwing a citywide housewarming party for the Magic's two prize free-agent pickups: former Pistons star Grant Hill and unproven but promising ex-Raptors swingman Tracy McGrady. Despite the duo's matching seven-year, $93 million contracts, McGrady took pains to make one thing absolutely clear. "It's Grant's team," the 21-year-old said. "He's the All-Star. I ain't done nothing in this league yet."

How strange, then, to attend Magic training camp only a year later and listen as Hill talked about playing on what is now undeniably Tracy's team. Even stranger still, Hill not only seems to be accepting this reversal but also fully embracing it. "My role will be different, and I welcome that," says Hill, who sat out all but four games with an ankle injury last season while McGrady was maturing into one of the league's best players.

Indeed, optimism is the designer drug of choice these days in Orlando, where McGrady has mentioned 60 wins as a goal, coach Doc Rivers talks of "expectations [that] are very high, and they should be" and general manager John Gabriel calls this year's squad "maybe the best team we've ever had here, including our Finals team [1994-95]." (That last claim would no doubt be of interest to a certain Lakers center and former Disneytown denizen should the two teams meet in the Finals next June.)

Easy as it usually is to discount such preseason braggadocio as mere hot air, in the case of the Magic it's hard not to agree. After all, this is a team that finished fourth in the Atlantic last season based largely on the make-you-stay-up-and-watch-TNT-on-a-Tuesday play of McGrady, who capped an All-Star season by going Jordan on the Bucks in the first round, averaging 33.8 points and 8.3 assists in the four-game series defeat.

This year the Magic not only brings back Hill, who has looked healthy, if rusty, in the preseason, but the team also bulked up by adding free agents (or more accurately, free ancients) Patrick Ewing, 39, and Horace Grant, 36, who between them have played in 2,448 NBA games, or more than twice as many as the Orlando franchise. Regardless of their mileage, the pair is a significant improvement upon last year's starting duo of Andrew DeClercq and Bo Outlaw, who, though admirable hustle players, contributed little to the box score outside of the PF column, combining to average more fouls per game (5.8) than field goals made (5.2).

Thus, in one off-season, the Magic has gone from an undersized smoke-and-mirrors club to one of the deepest, and tallest, teams in the East. As such, Rivers won't be starting Mike Miller, the 2000-01 Rookie of the Year, even though the sweet-shooting swingman probably made the greatest off-season strides of any Magic player. After being pushed around as a rookie, Miller spent the summer working out with McGrady in Orlando, adding 15 pounds of muscle and a good dose of confidence, both of which were on display during the U.S.'s gold medal run at the Goodwill Games.

Miller broke a bone in his foot last Friday, and he may miss up to six weeks. Once healthy he will often team with McGrady and Hill, whom Rivers plans to use as a point forward this year to create the ultimate small-guard matchup nightmare. Faced with a trio of players 6'8" or taller, all of whom can pass, shoot and handle the ball, opposing teams will either have to send their smaller guards into the paint to play post defense (welcome to the weight room, Sam Cassell, Jason Terry and David Wesley) or try to match the Magic's height. Asked how he would defend such a lineup, Rivers thinks for a moment and then smiles. "I don't know," he says. "That's a good question."

It's one the rest of the East will have to figure out quickly, or the Magic -- be it Grant's team or Tracy's team -- will be known simply as the East's best team.

Issue date: October 29, 2001

Click here to look back at CNNSI.com's preseason Magics preview.