Being a basketball player in the NBA is the best job ever. Well, one might say that only because he never experienced what it "actually" feels like. Sure, playing the sport you love for a living and getting paychecks much bigger than what a normal person considers, definitely has its appeal. However, Tracy McGrady once explained why he wanted it to be the other way around. Not that he didn't like being the absolute superstar in his heyday, but just to see what regular people go through every day.
"I would like to know how it feels to punch a clock, to balance a check," McGrady said at the time while watching his own Adidas commercial on television, in which miniature soldiers, tanks and helicopters are overpowered by a dunking T-Mac.
"I don't know what life is like, I don't know how regular people live," one of the most prolific scorers added. "I just can never understand it. My first job was the NBA."
And Tracy is not wrong. He came into the league as the ninth overall pick in the 1997 NBA Draft when he was barely 18 years old. Most of us were doing homework, hanging out, figuring out life. But not T-Mac. He was pushed into the action right away, expected to carry the load for a franchise like the Toronto Raptors and quite literally the entire Canadian basketball scene. At the time, he signed a three-year, almost $5 million rookie contract, so it is safe to say that his concept of money and work was vastly different from what most of us learned.
However, this gap in lifestyle and monetary ability made Tracy wonder how he could somehow connect with the fans who came to the games, who followed him faithfully, and at the end of the day, bought his sneakers. But at the end of the day, it was easier said than done.
"I'm just one guy," he added. "I can't bring the whole league closer to the fans. But I worry about that. Look, people have no idea what it feels like to be me, to be the guy who is blamed for the problems when the team is losing. I'm the guy making the most money, so I'm the guy everyone blames. What if people came to your job, if your company wasn't doing well, and said, 'You, you are the problem'? You would say, Me? It's a whole company, a whole team."
It seems McGrady understood that the problem, in this case, was his team in Toronto. In his first two seasons in the Great White North, the teenager barely got to see the floor and showcase the kind of talent he really was. It wasn't until his third year that he showed glimpses of what kind of player he could be. And after being signed and traded to the Orlando Magic in the 2000–01 season, McGrady literally took off.
Most Improved Player, All-Star appearances, the best scorer in a league that featured guys like Kobe Bryant, Allen Iverson and many more — Tracy did it all. Well, all except a championship. His teams were often considered unready for big things, and much of the burden fell squarely on McGrady's shoulders.
After that, injuries followed, and McGrady found himself on a downward spiral in his career. And yet, even with all the fame, money, and accolades, he still wondered what it felt like to have a regular job. To be just like "rest."
This story was originally published by Basketball Network on Dec 12, 2025, where it first appeared in the Old School section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
