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NBA: 30 best careers from players who skipped college

By Josh Cornelissen

LeBron James, Miami Heat and Kobe Bryant, Los Angeles Lakers. Photo by Victor Decolongon/Getty Images
LeBron James, Miami Heat and Kobe Bryant, Los Angeles Lakers. Photo by Victor Decolongon/Getty Images /
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Tracy McGrady
Tracy McGrady, Photo by Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images /

30 best careers from players who skipped college – 6. Tracy McGrady

One year after Kobe Bryant and Jermaine O’Neal jumped straight into the NBA from high school. Tracy McGrady became the latest high school phenom to bypass college. Isiah Thomas, former Detroit Pistons point guard and in 1997 the general manager of the expansion Toronto Raptors, had passed on Kevin Garnett and Bryant because he didn’t think his team had the right culture to help a teenager flourish.

By 1997, those concerns were alleviated either by a change in culture or the excitement of these high school prospects, and Thomas and the Raptors took Tracy McGrady ninth overall in the 1997 NBA Draft. Then Thomas abruptly left the franchise, and McGrady was left with a team uninterested in replacing a veteran player with a teenager.

McGrady played — and lived his life — with a certain amount of flair. That made him noteworthy in high school, and it would later be a part of his star turn. But early on, it kept him glued to the bench by his old-school coach Darrell Walker, even on a bad Toronto Raptors team.

All-in-all he started just 53 games through three seasons with the Raptors, but then signed with the Orlando Magic and exploded, making seven straight All-Star games and twice leading the league in scoring. Then he became a member of the Houston Rockets, pairing up with Yao Ming in the Western Conference, finally maturing into a veteran star who gave his all to the game and seeing his first true postseason success.

McGrady never won a title, but he did establish himself as one of the best offensive players of his generation. He finished as high as fourth in MVP voting twice in his career and was an All-NBA player seven times. Injuries sapped his athleticism and he had a quick downturn in his career, playing his last season at the age of 32.

Perhaps McGrady would have been helped by going to college instead of waiting his turn as a backup on the Raptors, but it did not stop him from putting it all together and turning himself into a star player.