NBA: Who are the greatest NBA players to fall short in the playoffs?
By Rahul Raja
Make the Conference Semi-Finals: Tracy Mcgrady
Tracy Mcgrady was one of the most exciting scorers of the early 2000s. With his prime split between the Orlando Magic and the Houston Rockets, he’s best remembered for his two scoring titles and for dropping 13 points in 33 seconds to beat the San Antonio Spurs in 2004. However, his teams were never able to find any success whatsoever. Usually plagued with injuries both to him or to his co-stars like Grant Hill and Yao Ming, they were never able to make it out of the first round.
Interestingly, in the 2008-09 season, he went down with a knee injury in February. That year, for the first time since the 1996-97 season when they still had Barkley, Olajuwon and Drexler, the Houston Rockets made it to the second round. They beat the Portland Trailblazers in six games and took the eventual champions, the Los Angeles Lakers, to seven games. That was the toughest series for the championship team, they beat all of their other competitors in five or six games.
There’s a caveat to his playoff record, after retiring in 2012, he signed with the 2013 San Antonio Spurs after the regular season. This team made it to the finals losing to the Miami Heat in a crazy seven-game series. Despite being on the roster, he didn’t really play. He didn’t score a single point for the Spurs so it doesn’t really count.