Does McGrady have old magic?

Tracy McGrady remembers when it wasnt cool to be in Atlanta during basketball season. It's a sports town, but it was football and the Braves, said McGrady, who spent the first seven years of his NBA career tormenting the Hawks with the Toronto Raptors and Orlando Magic. The Atlanta Hawks were the last thing people wanted to come and support, because the Braves were so good, football was going well. Everybody loves football. Basketball is a little bit different. You've got to be winning in certain cities to fill the stands. A lot of franchises go through droughts, but this is a team that's on the rise. He believes that he can keep that rise going and has one year to prove it, having signed a one-year contract for the veterans minimum with the Hawks. I feel like I fit in with this team, said the 32-year-old McGrady, who is beginning his 15th NBA season. Having an All-Star like Joe Johnson and Al Horford and having a player like Josh Smith, their core guys really had me wanting to be a part of their group. It says a lot about Coach Drew, for him to be a first-year coach and take this team to the second round, with the teams that were in the East and being able to get over that hump and beat Orlando, I just felt like I could add to it. Everything feels good, he added. I feel confident in what I can do this season and help guys win ball games." The Atlanta Hawks share that confidence, which is why they are taking a flyer on the former two-time NBA scoring champion. It's the kind of flyer a team takes when it finishes 26th in a 30-team league in scoring and may see its fourth leading scorer and arguably its best three-point shooters free agent Jamal Crawford leave the next. While last year's Hawks were a little light offensively, they were good enough to finish fifth in the Eastern Conference they'd have finished second in any other division but the Southeast, which was won by eventual NBA finalist Miami and saw powerful Orlando come in second. In the playoffs they knocked off favored Orlando in the first round then took Game One of the Eastern Conference Semifinals in Chicago before falling in six to the Eastern Conference regular season champion Bulls. While McGrady's playoff history is well-known, so is what he can bring to the table on a regular basis when he's healthy, which he says he is. The Hawks are counting on the latter. We're going to look to him to be one of the vocal leaders, said forward Josh Smith. He's a guy that has experienced things. One thing that hes experienced is a short season like the Hawks are heading into. Everything is so condensed, said McGrady, who was 19 and in his second season in the league, with the Toronto Raptors in 1999, a 50-game sprint. The travel is pretty bad. It's heavy and it's tough on your body. A 66-game sprint is probably the last thing McGradys body needs, as it has suffered plenty. Since 2005-06, he's suffered back, elbow, ankle, knee and shoulder injuries and until last season, had played as many as 70 games in a season once (2006-07 in Houston). His 2009-10 season split between Houston and the New York Knicks was a nightmare. But last season was a renaissance, of sorts. He played in 72 games for the Detroit Pistons, and while his 8.0 points per game didn't garner references to finding the fountain of youth, the season also slowed the talk that he's done. Hawks Head Coach Larry Drew believes that if used the right way, he can be a major contributor. "It's important that we get him the ball pretty much in his sweet spot," said Drew. "I don't want him to have to work as hard getting to where he gets to operate. We have some things that we'll do to get him where he can be effective." His teammates believe in their new veteran teammate. He can create a lot of mismatches, said Smith, admitting that McGrady was his favorite player in high school. He's playing a little point guard so he can definitely get some looks down there on the blocks against somebody else's point guard. He's a pretty good passer as well. "T-Mac still demands double-teams on the post," added guard Joe Johnson. "I see him being a vocal leader, a guy that can come in and play big minutes. A guy that can come in and distribute, can score as well and lead by example. He's been doing that for the last three or four days of camp." McGrady believes that this off-season further helped him recapture his old form. "In the last two years I haven't been able to have a normal off-season my off-season consists of rehabbing and just trying to get my body in shape, get my knee strong," he said. "This off-season I just went back to my original off-season workouts and that's just conditioning and playing basketball. I've never been a guy to play basketball in the off-season. I've always done my individual work by myself and with my trainer. This season I took a different approach: to get in shape, strengthen my knee and play basketball with some of the guys. My body feels great." He certainly feels younger, than his teammates are making him feel. "He had his old shoes on. I said, 'Hey, Marvin Williams, remember when we used to wear those in high school?'" said Smith, with a laugh. "He was like, 'C'mon man. You guys are making me feel old.'" "It's been like that the last two years, last year when I played with Mike Bibby, now playing with Tracy McGrady, said point guard Jeff Teague. I used to wear his shoes when I was younger, now he's on my team. He looked at me the other day and said, 'You make me feel old. Man, you were eight when I first came into the NBA, Teague continued. I told him, 'Yeah, but you were only 16. You're not the usual type of player." Johnson took up for his fellow 30-something. "He's not even old," said Johnson, who turned 30 in June. " He's like 32. That's not old. He's just been in the league since he was 17. So yeah, he's old in basketball age, but he's not old. He's 32. It's kind of funny to say that." McGrady admits that he's flattered to be around so many who present stars who idolized him. "That's cool. I appreciate me being able to inspire those guys and them looking up to me when they were younger," he said. "Now I'm a fan of those guys because they're great players. That's how it works out. If you take care of your body and you put your work in on the basketball court, you have guys along the way come up to you and say they appreciate you and they watched you when they were at a certain age. That's a great feeling to have because I was that same player."