Tracy McGrady is one of the rare athletes who successfully transitioned from high school to the NBA. T-Mac, like most high school phenoms, found it difficult to make the jump to the big league. When the Toronto Raptors selected Mac 9th overall in the 1997 NBA Draft, he was 18 years and 160 days old, making him the 7th youngest player to be drafted.
However, while McGrady eventually arrived in Springfield after retirement, the beginning of his voyage was not simple. And he believes that most of today’s rising stars are grappling with similar challenges. Because of this, McGrady proposed in 2013 that the NBA compel players to spend two years in college before being eligible to play professionally.
“I actually think they should implement having these guys go to school for two years,” McGrady told the crowd. “Is it been a year now? Because the league is so young, you should attend school for at least two years. The One-and-Done Rule Following the success of Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, Jermaine O’Neal, and McGrady, more high school students followed suit. The trend peaked in 2004, with eight high school players selected in the Top 20, followed by nine in 2005.
However, with the NBA’s 2005 Collective Bargaining Agreement, high school players were no longer granted immediate entry into the league. Instead, the new rules, which went into effect in 2006, required players to be 19 years old during the draft year and one year away from high school graduation, unless they were an overseas athlete.
“It was pretty difficult becoming a man so early and competing against grown men,” McGrady confessed. “You’re the best player on the floor in high school, and then you play against the best players in the world.” Also, the shift to living independently, coping with travel, dealing with different climaxes, arriving in places at 2 or 3 a.m. and then waking up the next morning for shootarounds and practices. “I mean, it was a cultural shock.”
Mac defends himself as an exceptional case. Mac went on to remark that he probably would have benefited from attending college. He stated that if he had played two years in the NCAA, he could have been more prepared for the NBA. But he doesn’t regret skipping college because he had an Adidas contract waiting and multiple lottery teams interested in drafting him. “But listen, we don’t talk about the guys who failed to get out of high school. We don’t talk about it. We just talk about myself, Kobe, Kevin Garnett, Jermaine O’Neal, LeBron James, and Dwight Howard. These are rare. T-Mac explained, “There are more guys who fail.”
The two-time NBA champion may appear hypocritical in his stance, but he is correct. Overall, only 41 high school players have been drafted into the NBA. Only ten high school draftees have made at least one All-Star team, and only three have been inducted into the Hall of Fame, with LeBron set to become the fourth. That is truly few, making them the exception rather than the rule.
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