Tracy McGrady's top-five moments that helped him make the Hall of Fame
Add Hall-of-Famer to the list of Tracy McGrady’s many accolades. McGrady, a seven-time All-Star and two-time scoring champion, will join basketball’s most prestigious club on Sept. 8 to put the finishing touch on his incredible 16-year career. To celebrate McGrady’s many accomplishments, we broke down his top-five career moments:
1) Tracy McGrady scores 13 points in 35 seconds
McGrady’s career-defining moment came in the waning seconds against the San Antonio Spurs on Dec. 9, 2004, in his first year with the Houston Rockets. Trailing by eight points with a minute to play, McGrady single-handedly engineered one of the greatest comebacks ever when he scored 13 points in the final 35 seconds to beat the Spurs. McGrady hit four 3-pointers, including one four-point play and a game-winning triple with a second left in the game to cap off an amazing win.
2) McGrady drops 62 on the Wizards in 2004
Despite playing on a team that finished with the worst record in the Eastern Conference, McGrady won his second consecutive scoring title during the 2003-2004 season, thanks in part to an incredible 62-point performance against the Washington Wizards on Mar. 10. It was first time a player had eclipsed the 60-point total since Shaquille O’Neal had 61 for the Lakers in 2000, and the highest single-scoring game since David Robinson scored 71 points in 1994. McGrady also became the 17th NBA player to score more than 60 points in a game.
3) McGrady goes off on the Bucks in playoffs
The 2000-01 season was McGrady’s coming out party, as the newly-signed Orlando Magic had a career year and put his name on the NBA stardom map with an incredible showing against the Milwaukee Bucks in Game 3 of the first round of the playoffs. McGrady finished with 42 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists.
4) McGrady’s earth-shattering dunk on Shawn Bradley
McGrady is 6-foot-8. Shawn Bradley is 7-foot-6. But despite being almost a foot shorter, McGrady lept over and threw down one of the biggest dunks of the 2004-05 season over the Dallas Mavericks center. Oh yeah, and McGrady also finished with 28 points and a game-winning jumper to take Game 2 of the Rockets’ first-round postseason series against the Mavericks.
5) McGrady throws an alley-oop to himself in the 2002 All-Star Game
McGrady found a way to make a meaningless game fun in the 2002 All-Star Game when he threw the ball off the backboard to himself for an incredible dunk. In just his second All-Star game, McGrady led the East with 24 points in a losing effort to the West.
