Boys Among Men: How the Prep-to-Pro Generation Redefined the NBA and Sparked a Basketball Revolution

by Jonathan Abrams

  McGrady’s test occurred in the spring of 1996. He had yet to take the court for Mt. Zion. ABCD camp came first. Smith had delivered solid players to Vaccaro’s camp in the past. He told Vaccaro about McGrady. “Make sure you have the best in the country there because I’ve got one that I think is going to be the very, very best,” Smith said.

  Vaccaro voiced his skepticism. “We’ll see,” he said to Smith. “We’ll see.” Vaccaro knew little about McGrady. The feedback he had received painted McGrady as a problem child. McGrady had missed a key game at Auburndale for verbally arguing with a teacher. His old high school coach told Vaccaro that McGrady was not worth the trouble. But Vaccaro did not just have a committee of one, as he liked to say. Pam, his wife, often served as his conscience and tie breaker.

  “Nobody could be that bad,” Pam Vaccaro told her husband. “And anybody that wants to hurt a kid that bad, he’s the bad person. We’re the ones who are supposed to be nice and give these kids a chance.”

  Vaccaro relented and invited McGrady to camp. Vaccaro had staked his professional name on making two bets on Jordan and Bryant. McGrady would eventually become his third and, arguably, his most daring. At 17, McGrady was all knees, elbows, and fast-twitch-fiber muscles. He walked into the stuffy redbrick gym at Fairleigh Dickinson about a month after Kobe Bryant had been taken in the draft. The kids in the gym looked too tall to be kids. Only their faces reflected their true ages. The camp featured several players bound for the NBA in later years, Elton Brand, Quentin Richardson, and Al Harrington among them. Some were nervous. Some were excited. Middle-aged men in sweats with college logos packed the stands. But a change had occurred by 1996. NBA scouts and executives were sprinkled in among them. “As NBA talent evaluators, you go from not even going to a high school game to, after Kevin [Garnett], going to the camps with fellow scouts there,” said Clarence Gaines Jr., a Bulls scout at the time. “It was good to see kids at a young age and see their development, build that book on them as they go up the ladder. But it’s kind of overwhelming too because you go in there and it’s just so many kids, and homing in and focusing in during that time frame is always interesting.” The kids knew the stakes. Blending in meant the same as not being there at all. They eagerly sought the attention of the coaches and scouts.

  McGrady wore number 175. He would have been happy if the number served as his ranking. No one had heard of him and for people wanting to make a name for themselves, anonymity was not the best place to start. Zach Marbury, the younger brother of Stephon Marbury, had already angered McGrady by questioning his talent on the bus to the gym. All the scouts wanted to see Lamar Odom, a 6-foot-10-inch stick from New York, pegged as the next Magic Johnson. No camper wanted to match up against him. Guarding Odom meant embarrassment. Embarrassment was worse than anonymity. McGrady said that he would play Odom. McGrady’s eyes drooped and he appeared sleepy or uninterested on the court. But he played fluidly. He glided faster than others sprinted. McGrady not only defended Odom. He had him on a yo-yo at the other end of the court. McGrady drove past Odom when Odom guarded him too close. He rained jumpers when Odom allowed him room. Players and scouts started noticing number 175.

  The camp closed with the Outstanding Seniors Game, 40 minutes of dunks, crossovers, and little defense between the camp’s best players. McGrady grabbed a loose ball during the game’s second half and sprinted toward the other side of the court. James Felton, one of the highest-rated big men, gave chase.

  The crowd turned silent. It appeared that Felton would either block the shot or his attempt would result in a violent collision. “I had the ball on the left side coming down,” McGrady said. “My initial thought was to do a windmill because I thought I was by myself. And so it happened, we jumped at the same time and I was going through my motion and he happened to be right there and I dunked right on his head. Everybody went crazy in the gym. People started running on the court.”

  The pair had jumped at the same instant. McGrady brought the ball down to his waist, then grabbed it with his left hand before windmill-dunking it into the basket. “I’ll never forget it,” Vaccaro said. “If you ask me [to list] the seminal moments of my life, that’s one of them. That dunk, if that was on YouTube, it would’ve gotten billions of hits. Some of these things are frauds, compared to what Tracy did to that kid.” Few people in the world could display that type of athleticism. The ones who could already played in the NBA. “I had no inclination of what might transpire out of this,” McGrady said. “Not at all. I had no clue because that was really the first camp I had ever been to.” Jeremy Treatman watched from the stands. He had seen that type of athleticism from Kobe Bryant a year earlier. “His elevation was so high that anyone who can do that is such a freakish athlete that he’s bound for instant stardom,” Treatman said. “Unlike Kobe, nobody knew who he was until he walked into that camp.”

  McGrady entered the camp wearing number 175. He left as the country’s top-ranked player. “I brought him out of nowhere,” Smith said. McGrady returned to Mt. Zion. He was months away from becoming a multimillionaire. Yet, he slept in a bunk bed and woke up before 5 a.m. Joel Hopkins likened himself to a high school Bobby Knight. Hopkins and McGrady physically fought during one practice. Surprisingly, their relationship improved afterward and emotions softened. They realized they needed each other. At the time, McGrady figured he would have his pick of colleges. He wanted to attend the University of Kentucky. But he noticed more and more NBA scouts attending his games throughout his year at Mt. Zion. Craig Neal, Toronto’s scout, watched McGrady play seven straight times. Neal gave McGrady rave reviews when he reported back to Isiah Thomas and insisted the Raptors find a way to draft him. “A lot of people didn’t do as much homework as we did,” Neal said. “They didn’t see him enough. Once it came out that he was going to come out, everybody was scrambling to try to see him and there really weren’t a lot of places to do that.”

  Hopkins declined to let scouts watch McGrady up close, in case they unearthed any weaknesses. He brought McGrady into his office after the season. Hopkins and Smith had already escorted McGrady to an Orlando Magic game to see the athletes up close. McGrady had doubts and they wanted him to see that he matched their athleticism. McGrady knew that Hopkins would offer more of the same talk during the meeting in his office. “You’re going to the NBA,” Hopkins told him. “There’s not too many players who can say they can come out of high school and go to the NBA. You’ll be a first-round draft pick.” The decision between college and the NBA kept ping-ponging in McGrady’s head. I’m not really trying to hear this shit, man, he thought. I don’t know if I’m ready for this jump. I’m seventeen years old. I don’t know if I’m ready for this.

  “By the end of that day, I was like, forget it. Let’s do it,” McGrady said. “I’m going to the league. I made my decision to go to the league. It was a tough situation for me to make myself eligible, knowing that, Damn. I could be the first in my family to go to college. But then, I could be the first to play professional basketball from my area. Am I ready still? I had doubts within myself whether I made the right decision.”

  Vaccaro wanted to sign McGrady. But Nike had caught on to Vaccaro’s pattern of signing the top high school players. “Tracy, by then, was on the open market, so I competed,” Vaccaro said. “There was competition for Tracy. He was an unbelievable bet, because, for the first time, Nike got into the war with me.” McGrady had established a bond with Vaccaro. But he had grown up wearing Nikes and idolized Penny Hardaway, an Orlando Magic player and one of the company’s signature athletes. Nike hosted McGrady at its headquarters, inviting him to take anything he wanted at the campus store. “I was leaning toward Nike,” McGrady said. “But obviously money talks, right? I went shopping on their campus and I went in. I went in on that campus up in Portland and got all types of stuff like the new Penny foamposites. I was the first to have those. I was walking around thinking I was the man.”

  Nike and Adidas both bid for McGrady. Smith and Hopkins,
McGrady’s advisers, worked for Adidas. Arn Tellem, McGrady’s agent, had just negotiated deals with Adidas for Kobe Bryant and Jermaine O’Neal. Nike offered McGrady a multiyear deal worth $1.85 million annually. The bid topped that of Bryant’s agreement of five years and $8 million and O’Neal’s of five years, $500,000. As Tellem negotiated in his Brentwood office with Nike, Vaccaro fielded a phone call from Smith some 100-plus miles away in the desert resort city of Palm Springs. Smith wondered how it would affect his relationship with Vaccaro and Adidas if McGrady signed with Nike. “I love you, Tracy loves you,” Smith said. “If you can come close, we stay with you.” Vaccaro decided to end the negotiations. Raveling operated with a larger amateur budget than Vaccaro. But Adidas had started to loosen Nike’s stranglehold on the $12 billion industry. After signing Bryant, Adidas had risen to third in the country’s shoe market, trailing Nike and Reebok. Vaccaro offered McGrady a six-year deal for $12 million. “Adidas didn’t give him twelve million,” Smith said. “Sonny Vaccaro gave him twelve million. Sonny Vaccaro believed in Tracy McGrady. He gave Tracy more money than he gave Kobe the year before. He believed in Tracy. I convinced him. I convinced Sonny and Sonny believed in me.” McGrady accepted the deal. The Nike spending spree had nearly swayed him. “I was walking around thinking I was the man and a couple of weeks later, I signed the Adidas contract and had to give all that shit away,” McGrady said.

  The contract stipulated that Hopkins and Smith would receive $150,000 annually over the deal’s life span. “I don’t know if they always had my best interest,” McGrady said with a laugh. “I think they may have had my best interest, but it was in their best interest as well. I don’t know. I was going to get something out of it, but they were also going to receive something.”

  McGrady’s deal represented a landmark moment in the developing, symbiotic relationship between the NBA, shoe companies, and amateur sports. Shoe company bidding wars might never have happened had Vaccaro and Nike never split. Likewise, Vaccaro never would have fully turned his attention to younger players had he remained with Nike. The split spawned the future windfall that McGrady, Smith, and Hopkins all benefited from. McGrady, the nobody from Auburndale, became the next Michael Jordan as the modern-day sneaker pitchman.

  The agreement also shifted the attention of some amateur coaches. Some—though not all—operated in the background and looked to direct the career of a prodigy in search of a future payday. Smith and Hopkins proved that the lottery could be struck without waiting all that long after all. They became father figures to kids who needed those kinds of paternal role models, mostly black kids whose biological fathers had long ago vanished from the family picture. Here lay the conflict faced by McGrady and others who followed him. McGrady needed Smith and Hopkins more than they needed him at the time. They took his talent, molded it, and directed him to the right people, who further advanced his career. Would McGrady have been a washed-up relief pitcher somewhere had he never met Smith? “Probably worse than that, because Tracy was having all types of problems in school,” Smith said. They also financially benefited once McGrady signed his shoe contract with the company they had been affiliated with for years. Their actions were not completely altruistic, but McGrady stayed on track, in part, because of them.

  That give-and-take is not lost on McGrady. His relationship with Smith and Hopkins fizzled as his NBA career took off. The more they inserted themselves into McGrady’s professional life, the more he realized he was no longer the kid who had once relied on them. “I don’t fault them at all,” McGrady said. “I wasn’t old enough to recognize what was going on. I was young and too naive, too blind to see at the time and understand. But as I got older, I knew what was going on. That’s why we don’t really have a relationship today. They gained some financials off of me, which was understandable because they made some things happen in my life that probably wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t establish that relationship with them. I’m not tripping on them. I’m not greedy. They put me in some great situations. Their greed also, I think, caused them their downfall as well.”

  McGrady prepared for the NBA Finals with the San Antonio Spurs in 2013, nearly two decades after he had broken into the league. He was closing a remarkable career as a dazzling scorer, but one who fell short of any meaningful playoff wins. Reporters crowded him. They wanted his thoughts on his playing career, even though his last impact on a game of importance had occurred years ago. A reporter asked McGrady what the determining factor was in his decision to declare for the NBA out of high school.

  “Well, let’s see,” McGrady said. “Adidas gave me a twelve-million-dollar contract. Shit, enough said.”

  7.

  The prospect of drafting high school players—and outscouting, outwitting, and outmaneuvering his opponents—deeply intrigued Jerry Krause. Their ceiling was predicated on potential, and few gauged ceilings more accurately than Krause. “It created a new avenue,” he said. Krause crafted the Chicago Bulls and possessed a baseball background. He was a native Chicagoan and the son of a shoe salesman. He was a dedicated, relentless worker who did everything he could to throw other NBA personnel off his scent. Krause was also perennially disheveled, short, stout, abrupt, and opinionated. Michael Jordan mockingly called Krause “Crumbs” for the doughnut fragments that somehow seemed to find a permanent home on his shirt. Teams occasionally enter weight clauses into players’ contracts and either award them bonuses for making a certain weight or fine them for crossing over it. Jerry Reinsdorf, Chicago’s owner, once inserted one into Krause’s contract—“Not so much for his looks,” he told the New York Times, “but for his health.” But it was Krause who pieced together the Bulls’ dynasty team. In 1987, he shrewdly traded for the little-known Scottie Pippen, originally a walk-on at the University of Central Arkansas. Krause insisted that Phil Jackson, considered a radical with no NBA coaching experience, become an assistant coach on Doug Collins’s staff and later elevated Jackson to Chicago’s head position. In all, Krause obtained each and every one of Chicago’s dynasty mainstays with the exception of Jordan, drafted third overall by Rod Thorn in 1984.

  The Bulls had just captured consecutive titles in the summer of 1997 when the contracts of Jordan, Jackson, and Dennis Rodman were set to expire. Pippen was unhappy, having played for years under a contract below his market value. Part of Krause longed to rebuild, to show that he could again develop another championship core—one without the expanding egos of Jordan, Pippen, and Jackson. As the 1997 draft loomed, Krause planned for such a scenario. He had scouted a few of Tracy McGrady’s games. Clarence Gaines Jr., one of his key scouts, had trailed McGrady closely during McGrady’s final year of high school. Krause was still upset that he had passed on Shawn Kemp, who never played collegiately, several years earlier. Krause had hosted Kemp for a workout and left highly impressed by his athleticism. But he worried about the influence that Kemp’s inner circle had over him and that playing so close to Kemp’s Indiana roots would prove distracting. Krause drafted Stacey King sixth overall instead and selected B. J. Armstrong one pick after Seattle took Kemp. Kemp developed into one of the league’s most devastating, athletic forces. “We pushed really hard for Shawn and Jerry was just not going to do it,” said Jim Stack, Chicago’s assistant general manager. “He just thought there were too many factors of being home at that young of an age that would cause a problem for a young man. I don’t know if that would have been right in hindsight.”

  Krause did not want to repeat the same mistake. He envisioned McGrady as a younger Pippen. “He was Scottie,” Krause said. “He was quick and active and a better shooter than Scottie was and Tracy McGrady was one of the better high school players I’ve ever seen and a very, very mature kid at that age.” The Bulls scheduled a predraft workout with McGrady. Gaines Jr. picked him up from the airport and brought him to the Berto Center, the team’s training facility in suburban Illinois. A McGrady Bulls jersey awaited him on his arrival. “He put it on and you could just see the kid light up in
terms of him really visualizing and seeing himself in a Bulls uniform,” Gaines Jr. recalled. “I’ll just never forget when that jersey hit his body and the lights were on in the Berto Center.” Krause entertained several trade offers for Pippen that would have allowed the Bulls a draft pick to take McGrady and kick-start their rebuilding efforts. Krause even secretly arranged a late-night physical for McGrady a couple of days before the draft. “Jerry Krause was famous for those clandestine last-minute physicals,” Stack said. Questions had arisen about the durability of McGrady’s back and if Krause was going to end the Bulls’ dynasty, he wanted to be damn sure he would inherit a healthy player. The Boston Celtics dangled the draft’s third and sixth picks before Krause. He deliberated about that all the way up to the draft. “Jerry Krause was receiving death threats because he wanted to trade Scottie Pippen,” said Alvis Smith, McGrady’s youth coach. “He wanted to trade Scottie Pippen to draft Tracy. Jerry Krause wanted to do that. Jordan called him up and said that if he drafted Tracy he [Jordan] was going to retire. That’s a true story. That happened.” Stack said that Jordan definitely voiced his opposition to a Pippen trade. “I don’t think he would have retired, but he would have been very, very upset if we would have done that and he voiced that to us and you could understand,” Stack said. “Scottie had been his running mate since ’87 and they had done a lot of good things and won a lot of championships and Michael just felt that loyalty with Scottie and felt that we could continue to win.” After much debate, Krause held on to Pippen. “If you’re going to trade for a player the magnitude of Scottie Pippen, then you’ve got to knock somebody out,” Krause told reporters. “It can’t win by a decision. We just didn’t feel the packages we were offered were strong enough to be a knockout.” The rest of the pieces fell in line following the decision. Jordan signed for another season, this time for $33 million. Dennis Rodman and Phil Jackson also returned. The Bulls held off breaking the team apart for another year. “You always wonder,” Stack said. “What if we had Tracy? Would we have been able to sustain it longer? We would have had him on a rookie-scale contract. It would have allowed us to maybe add another piece or two and Scottie had a balky back at the time. He had had a couple surgeries. But we were very loyal to our players.”