Tracy McGrady and Shaquille O’Neal seem to be one in the same. Neither can get the role or money (or affirmation?) they so desperately covet, and each will likely face the same choice: play for a team they actually want to play for in a limited role for a small salary, or sign with a non-competitive team to indulge their own inflated senses of self-worth.
It’s up to them, though it’s possible that one of either McGrady or O’Neal’s preferred teams will eventually blink. The Chicago Bulls, for instance, are still an unlikely destination for T-Mac, but they still remain at least kind of open to the idea of signing him. Though to their credit, they still insist on doing everything on their terms. From Marc Stein, writing at TrueHoop:
As of Friday morning, Chicago had not completely ruled out the signing of Tracy McGrady.
Miami’s signing of Eddie House extinguished one of the Bulls’ other prime options and thus helped keep alive the possibility of McGrady scoring the deal from the Bulls that he so badly wants, as chronicled here. Chicago, though, continues to look at other options such as Keith Bogans and Roger Mason.
...If the Bulls ultimately do relent and commit to a T-Mac experiment, since they do need another scoring threat on the perimeter, it’s believed that they will insist on McGrady accepting a non-guaranteed deal for next season so they can let him go at any time without financial hesitation if they deem the experiment to be failing.
For his part, Derrick Rose could take T-Mac or leave him. It really doesn’t seem to matter all that much to him either way. So, we’re not all that far from where we started. Teams aren’t so much courting McGrady as he’s courting them, but Chicago -- and Miami, and the other teams on his list -- don’t seem to be all that interested.