Back in June, Tracy McGrady dropped a bombshell when he revealed that the Chicago Bulls were trying to trade Scottie Pippen and get McGrady during his draft year in the NBA. Michael Jordan however stepped in and nixed the deal. During an interview with Complex, McGrady revealed that he’s actually happy the trade didn’t go down.
via Complex:
Now speaking of young players, when you first came into the league it was revealed this June that in 1997, Michael Jordan nixed a trade that would have sent you to the Bulls and Scottie Pippen to the Raptors. How do you think that trade would have changed the course of NBA history?
I don’t know, man. I know I wasn’t qualified to fill the shoes of Scottie Pippen at the moment, I’ll tell you that. I’m actually glad that Michael vetoed that trade because my career would have probably turned out a little bit differently. I needed to go through the things that I went through in my career, and I’m sure Michael is pretty tough on young players. See what happened to Kwame Brown, and he wasn’t even playing then. So I’m glad I got the opportunity to play up in Toronto for those three years and experience my time up there. But just looking back in hindsight, it would have been pretty damn cool to play with MJ.
Did you ever talk to Michael about that trade?
No. No. You know Nike Jordan guys and adidas guys don’t get along. I don’t know if you know that, but you know now.
Who do you think would have won that trade in the long run had it went through?
I don’t know the other parties that were involved. I don’t know. Looking back, to think that I could have possibly been traded for Scottie Pippen was just unfathomable. Scottie being one of the 50 greatest all-time and what he brought to the Bulls franchise. For them to even consider trading him for an 18-year-old, it was hard to believe that that was even a possibility. So I don’t know.
Was that a big confidence booster as an 18-year-old? Knowing that you could be traded for a Hall of Famer?
No because honestly when everything got vetoed I didn’t even think about it anymore. I had moved on. At the present time, I was like “Can this possibly happen?” Like yeah, I was excited at the time. But once I was drafted by Toronto, I didn’t actually think about being in a Bulls uniform or being traded for Scottie Pippen anymore.
