Tracy McGrady Leaves The Rockets, Both Sides Agree To Seek Trade

Tracy McGrady has officially been granted an indefinite leave from the team while the Rockets explore the possibility of trading The Big Sleep.

Rockets fans are not exactly broken up by the news, as illustrated at SB Nation’s The Dream Shake.

Kudos to Yahoo’s Adrian Wojnarowski for telling it like it is in his column on the Tracy McGrady saga.

And it really does. There’s no way that a former superstar like McGrady, who, as Wojnarowski writes, hasn’t yet realized that his skills are rapidly declining, and a team like the Rockets, who have been succeeding in large part due to their precious chemistry, were going to work well together like this. They need to part ways.

It appears we’re inching closer to Tracy McGrady’s final days as a member of the Houston Rockets.

According to Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle, the Rockets told McGrady he would not play in the Rockets’ two games last weekend (New Jersey on Saturday, Cleveland on Sunday) and gave him permission to fly home. This comes on the heels of McGrady expressing discontent about his role after the Rockets’ loss to Orlando last Wednesday, when he quipped to reporters about his “cameo” role.

Tracy McGrady is a player whose reputation exceeds his game at this point. Tracy McGrady is also a player who has an expiring contract (a very large one, in fact). Therefore, it was only a matter of time until someone like Newsday’s Alan Hahn would write about how the Knicks were interested in trading for Tracy McGrady.

Over at The Dream Shake, SB Nation’s Houston Rockets blog, Tom Martin discusses the rumor and eventually votes against trading McGrady to the Knicks right now.

The results from the MRI that Tracy McGrady was scheduled to get yesterday came back, and the news was good for McGrady.

According to Rockets head orthopedic surgeon Dr. Walter Lowe, McGrady’s MRI revealed no additional damage, meaning McGrady is on a normal course of recovery. Rockets.com’s Jason Friedman quotes Lowe on his Twitter account:

Obviously Tracy McGrady’s knee checked out fine, because he practiced today and said he felt good. He told reporters that it felt like a normal practice and said he is ready to play right now if the Rockets let him.

Here’s video, courtesy Rockets.com.

Tracy McGrady still wants to play right now, but the Rockets continue to insist that he stay cautious and only play when he is fully cleared medically.

At that point, can the Rockets really tell him he isn’t ready yet? Unless the Rockets trade him — there’s reported interest from the Knicks due to his expiring contract — they might reach a point where they have to play him even if they’d rather not.

Was the argument between Tracy McGrady and Rick Adelman over when McGrady returns to the lineup even an argument? Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle quotes both parties saying that it wasn’t. Both say they did have a discussion, but it didn’t get heated.

Later in the article, McGrady said he only put on his jersey because he was “excited” and because he felt it was “refreshing” to don it. I don’t know if I believe that one. But I do believe that it’s possible Adrian Wojnarowski’s “sources” misinterpreted the tone of the conversation.

News has been relatively quiet on the McGrady front since last week, but even then, it seemed a conflict might be brewing. And after McGrady’s targeted return this past Wednesday came and went with no sign of the superstar on the court, it seems that the conflict has boiled over. McGrady reportedly got into a heated argument with his head coach Rick Adelman, and is having serious doubts about whether the Rockets want him back. (See earlier update?)

Yahoo! Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski broke the story:

Today, Houston Coach Rick Adelman told the Houston Chronicle that there’s no timetable set for McGrady’s return:

The Chronicle alluded to this in yesterday’s column:

From SB Nation’s The Dream Shake, some thoughts on McGrady’s return:

Indeed, with the Rockets sitting at 4-2 heading into tonight’s game vs. Dallas, McGrady returns not as some white knight ready to save a hapless team, but as a potentially disruptive force that’ll have to be assimilated carefully and with some measure of patience. He hasn’t played in more than a year, and the Rockets have adopted something of a new identity in his and Yao Ming’s absence. Where offense used to revolve around two superstars, today, the Rockets feature a balanced attack, compensating for what could be considered a lack of overall talent by playing smart, tough basketball. Is McGrady ready to be a part of that?

According to the Houston Chronicle, the Rockets and Tracy McGrady are not yet on the same page with this whole “comeback” thing: