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"You lucky motherfu****" - Tracy McGrady explains why he always envied Vince Carter
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- "You lucky motherfu****" - Tracy McGrady explains why he always envied Vince Carter
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"You lucky motherfu****" - Tracy McGrady explains why he always envied Vince Carter originally appeared on Basketball Network .
Tracy McGrady spent much of his prime carrying the load for the teams he's been a part of, wondering what it would've been like to share the court with a playmaker who could make everything easier. That feeling finally hit him during his time on Team USA, when he got a firsthand taste of what it meant to run alongside one of those guys in Jason Kidd — a true maestro who made the game look effortless for everyone around him.
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The stage was the 2003 FIBA Americas Men's Olympic Qualifying Tournament. McGrady and Kidd found themselves on the same roster, a rare moment where individual stars aligned for a common goal. For T-Mac, it wasn't just about playing with J-Kidd; it was about feeling the difference a true genius made every time he had the ball.
"I think me playing with certain players for the first time had me like, looking at some of the guys that played with these guys, 'You lucky motherf*****,'" the seven-time All-Star shared recently.
"I was looking at my cousin like that (Vince Carter), you playing with Jason Kidd... And playing with Jason on that USA team and you realize how easy the game was playing with him. And I'm out here with the (Orlando) Magic, I'm trying to get it every possession, struggling like a mf to get a bucket to get us the victory. But this man is running with J-Kidd, all you got the do is sprint and try to get a layup, because we know where he's gonna put it," he added. "You just wish you play with a point guard like that in your career."
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Vince had it "easy"
Once McGrady returned from Team USA, the kind of professional envy didn't fade, especially not when he watched Vince Carter team up with Kidd for real in New Jersey. That Nets squad wasn't just built on speed or athleticism. It thrived because of Kidd's ability to orchestrate everything — pushing the pace, finding shooters, tossing alley-oops in transition without blinking. And for McGrady, watching his cousin benefit from all that in a real NBA setting stung just a little harder.
He'd spent years dragging defenders on his back, creating off the dribble and bailing out broken plays. Meanwhile, VC was catching no-look passes in stride and dunking without needing to dribble once.
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Just to be clear, this wasn't a knock on any of the point guards T-Mac shared the floor with, nor on the Carter as well. It was simply the curiosity of the good old "what if" scenario, the kind every great scorer asks himself at some point.
Could McGrady get his ring?
McGrady never got his ring. Kidd did — later on, as the veteran leader of the 2011 Dallas Mavericks doing what he did the best for so long, setting the table for others to eat.
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Meanwhile, Tracy is still among the greatest never to get the taste of being at the top of the Association's food chain and this does make you wonder… What if T-Mac had his J-Kidd?
What if Tracy McGrady had that steady hand guiding the offense, that unselfish genius making life easier night in and night out? Maybe those seven-game series go the other way and maybe the injuries hit a little later.
We will never know for sure, but one thing is certain: having a Hall of Fame table-setter makes everything easy for the scorer.
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This story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Jun 16, 2025, where it first appeared.
