Chicago Bulls Go For Broke With McGrady

The Chicago Bulls were the supposed favorites to land LeBron James when the summer started, and now they might just have to settle for Tracy McGrady. It seems like the worst booby prize possible in the free agent frenzy of 2010, but it’s a sign that the Chicago Bulls are willing to take a chance on their current roster, which was playoff worthy without recent acquisitions.

McGrady is a 13-year NBA veteran who was the 9 th overall pick in 1997 when Isiah Thomas kept him as the draft’s best kept secret that year out of high school. Since leaving Toronto in 2000, McGrady has become a huge free-agent signing for Orlando and Houston but has still never been a part of a playoff roster that has squirmed past the second round of the playoffs.

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That kind of makes McGrady the unfortunate fit for the Bulls, who haven’t been past the second round of the playoffs since their last NBA title run with Michael Jordan in 1998.

Yet I wouldn’t be so quick to laugh at the McGrady signing. Knee, ankle, shoulder problems have plagued the multi-purpose scorer throughout his career, and at 31 it would seem like his best days are behind him.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that McGrady is a poor choice as a bench scorer. The team has already added Kyle Korver, Ronnie Brewer and Carlos Boozer in this off-season and must have been frustrated to lose J.J. Reddick when the Magic matched his offer sheet.

It should be worthy to point out that McGrady is seems like the team’s last free agency option on the ladder. They wanted LeBron, Wade, Bosh or any combination of the three. Management then pursued a handful of role players, and Reddick, before landing on McGrady.

He’s not a star player anymore. In the past two seasons he’s played in just 41 games and averaged 9.4 points per game. Gone are the days of his 20+ point averages, and he surely lacks the speed and agility that made him a threat at the elite level.

Yet for once, an NBA team is making off-season moves that mirror the drive and intensity their players show on the court. Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah played magnificently in the playoffs, and that should have been enough for at least one mega-star to say “I want to play with those guys”. It was for Boozer, and now it certainly seems like enough for McGrady.

We can’t expect No. 3 to be a star anymore. That’s unfair considering both his long list of injuries and the 13-year track record he’s picked up in a vagabond career.

Singing McGrady isn’t a cure-all to the depth chart in Chicago, but it’s a move that sends a definitive signal to Rose and Noah. Management is saying “We will do whatever it takes to give you two the team you need to succeed”.

McGrady can help push Chicago over the hump, so this will be a successful signing. People have purchased worse lottery tickets in their lifetime. If the Bulls can get even a marginal return from McGrady at this point in his career, it gives Chicago another threat as we had in to the crapshoot of the 2010-11 NBA betting season.

And at this point in free-agency, you’re better off going with McGrady than anyone else left out in the open market. At least it’s not Shaq. See? There’s a bright side to this!

Check out the NBA futures during the off-season here!