Is T-Mac Back?

[Indazone]

McGrady hasn't lost carefree demeanor
By JEFFREY MARTIN Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle
Sept. 28, 2009, 11:29PM


Nick de la Torre Chronicle
McGrady will be out of action to continue rehabilitation until late November.

Share Print Share Del.icio.usDiggTwitterYahoo! BuzzFacebookStumbleUponRockets training camp begins today, and Tracy McGrady was asked Monday how and where he plans to spend the next few weeks after general manager Daryl Morey announced the star guard would be held out of action while continuing rehabilitation until late November.

“I'll stay at home since they won't let me practice, sit on my couch and watch TV,” he said with a straight face before grinning. “Nah, I'll be here working. I'm back.”

McGrady said he feels better, seven months removed from microfracture surgery on his left knee, than he did at any point during the 2008-09 season, when he was limited to 35 games and averaged 15.6 points, 4.4 rebounds and five assists.

“It's like night and day,” McGrady, 30, said. “Jumping, running, cutting, better mentally.”

Still, caution is emphasized, which explains why Morey said an MRI will be administered and examined before McGrady can return Nov. 23, a timeline that apparently hadn't been relayed to him.

Asked the significance of the date, McGrady said: “It's the day before my wife's birthday.”

Consensus reached
Everyone is in agreement, according to Morey.

“He wants to be 100 percent when he gets back,” Morey said. “He wants to be able to go on back-to-backs, to be able to fit in with the up-tempo style we're doing. He wants to be 100 percent. We want him 100 percent.”

McGrady rushed back onto the court in 2008-09, and, as he said Monday, “all hell fell loose.”

Because of the injury, he said he grew frustrated because he wasn't in top form. As a result, he said he started to fall out of love with the game. He heard the questions and the doubters.

Then he moved to Chicago, where he lived the past seven months. McGrady said that under the guidance of trainer Tim Grover, he was pushed, from a physical and mental standpoint, like never before. At times, the workouts were so strenuous, he said, he blacked out.

But he never gave up, and McGrady believes he might have dispelled a nagging myth along the way.

“He had to apologize to me,” McGrady said of Grover, whose high-profile clients include Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Gilbert Arenas and Dwyane Wade. “You can read a lot in the press about ballplayers, read things on the Internet about how hard they work. You just don't do some of the things I've done on the basketball court without working hard. I don't give a damn about how much talent you have. You have to work hard. That's the huge misconception about myself.

Dispelling a myth
“He had to apologize. He saw how hard I worked in some of the things he put me through.

“That, right there, gave me a lot more confidence, because he's trained the best. Who works harder than Mike? Just hearing him say that gave me a boost of confidence.”

McGrady said he feels as if he could go all out now. He won't, of course, because there's no rush. And he doesn't need to prove himself in the final year of his contract.

“I'm here to prove to myself that I'm capable of coming back from this injury and being the type of player I want to be,” he said. “If I do that, the contract will take care of itself.”

Ready to run
He said he's excited about the up-tempo style the Rockets will employ because he made a name for himself in a similar style — even if his coach, Rick Adelman, doesn't sound as if he's getting his hopes up.

“If Tracy McGrady gets healthy and can play, he's going to make my life a lot easier,” Adelman said. “But if he can't, I have to deal with what we have and try to bring these other guys along.”

McGrady is sure he can play. When? That's to be determined.

“Trust me, I'm here,” McGrady said. “Can't you see it on my face? The glow?”

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[duncan228]

Rockets’ McGrady says rehab is ahead of schedule (http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=ap-rockets-mcgrady&prov=ap&type=lgns)
By Chris Duncan

Houston Rockets forward Tracy McGrady said Monday he’s “far ahead of schedule” in his recovery from knee surgery and wants to show that he’s still got a few good years left in him.

The seven-time All-Star underwent a risky microfracture procedure on his left knee on Feb. 24, and doctors said his recovery could take up to 12 months. McGrady said he hasn’t set a date for his return, but he can already run and jump several weeks ahead of doctors’ expectations.

“It’s only seven months out, post-op,” McGrady said at the Rockets’ media day Monday. “It’s not time to really rush it back. Confidence-wise, running, cutting, jumping—I have that right now.”

General manager Daryl Morey said McGrady will have an MRI exam Nov. 23 and the team will have a better feel for when he’ll return after that.

“We’re just taking it each step at a time,” Morey said. “If he can play after Nov. 23, I think he’ll still be ahead of schedule. But we don’t know what the MRI is going to show.”

Yao Ming, Houston’s other seven-time All-Star, was a no-show as he recovers from surgery to repair a hairline fracture in his left foot.

Yao isn’t expected to play this season and when the Rockets open training camp on Tuesday, they’ll hardly resemble the team that pushed the Los Angeles Lakers to seven games in the second round of the playoffs last year.

Ron Artest was traded to the Lakers, Trevor Ariza came to Houston and Australian David Andersen was signed to play center in Yao’s absence.

“So much has changed. The people that we’re missing are huge pieces,” Coach Rick Adelman said. “It’s going to be interesting to see how the guys respond. We’ve become a very young team, guys are going to have to accept different roles and we’re going to have to see what people can do.”

Adelman will leave it to the doctors to tell him when McGrady can come back.

“If he can play, that’d be terrific,” Adelman said. “If Tracy McGrady can get healthy and play, he’s going to make my life a lot easier.”

McGrady played in only 35 games last season, opting for season-ending surgery at the All-Star break. The Rockets made a surprising late-season run without him, then knocked off Portland in the playoffs before taking on the Lakers.

McGrady spent his summer in Chicago, rehabilitating with Tim Grover, the former personal trainer of Michael Jordan. McGrady called the grueling workouts “the hardest thing I ever had to go through” and conceded that he passed out from exhaustion during one of the sessions.

“He pushed me to a level that I’ve never been,” McGrady said. “There was a point that he saw where I was going to be before I even saw it. It took me a while to really understand and really gain the confidence in myself that I was going to reach that level.”

McGrady said from the first day of training camp last year that he wasn’t totally healthy. He averaged 15.6 points and five assists per game, but was sluggish and tentative on the court.

He said dealing with his balky knee every day wore him down mentally, and he started to lose his desire to play.

“Going through that injury and going through just everything last season, I got frustrated,” he said. “When you’ve got to deal with injuries like that, it’s hard to love the game of basketball, it’s hard to get up in the morning and go play a game, because you can’t be yourself.

“That’s how it was last year,” he said. “It was hard to come here, knowing that I can’t be me.”

McGrady is entering the final year of his contract but said he’s not thinking about his future beyond this season.

He acknowledged that he probably shouldn’t have played at all last season and said he won’t come back before doctors say he can.

“I don’t want to rush anything,” he said. “When I feel like I can go every day without having to play a night in practice and then sit out, until I feel that way, I’m not going to play.”

[Thunder Dan]

If they lower the rims to 9 feet, look out NBA!