T-Mac: Dwight Howard 'wants to be Hollywood'

You can go home again. But then Tracy McGrady left. McGrady, who grew up 45 minutes from Orlando, moved from Toronto to the Magic when he became a free agent in the summer of the 2000. It looked as if it would be a long partnership. "My heart is here," McGrady said at the time. "There's no place like home." Home, though, didn't work out quite as McGrady had planned. Yes, he won two scoring titles with the Magic, but the team never made it past the first round of the playoffs. By the summer of 2004, McGrady wanted out. The Magic then shipped him to Houston. "I didn't want to leave, obviously," the swingman says now, referring to how he had hoped it would work out in Orlando, just up the road from his Auburndale home. "But it's a business. Circumstances weren't right." In an interview with FOX Sports Florida, McGrady looked back at his Magic days and touched upon why so many NBA stars have wanted out of Orlando in the past 15 years. Star center Dwight Howard is the latest, having followed Shaquille O'Neal in 1996, Penny Hardaway in 1999 and McGrady. McGrady, whose Atlanta Hawks play host Thursday to the Miami Heat, threatened to opt out of his contract and leave as a free agent, essentially meaning he asked to be traded in 2004. He said it wasn't practical to stick around considering the direction of the franchise. "I wasn't winning at all," said McGrady, whose Magic were bogged down by injuries to Grant Hill and who went 21-61 during his final Orlando season of 2003-04. "It was first-round playoff and we were out of there. And I felt like they weren't improving the team. Four years of that was real tough on my body." But the Magic did end up drafting Howard in June 2004, five days before McGrady was dealt. "I didn't know anything about him," McGrady said of how he felt at the time. But what if McGrady had sought to stay in Orlando? Any regrets he couldn't have been paired with Howard? "No, because Yao is just as good," said McGrady, referring to Houston center Yao Ming, whom he played with from 2004-10, a period when both McGrady and Yao had injury problems and the Rockets never reached expectations. Now, Howard has said wants to be traded. McGrady, 32, has been watching the developments from afar. Howard would become the second dominant center to leave the Magic in his prime. O'Neal bolted to the Los Angeles Lakers as a free agent in 1996. "Are they winning down there? Are they competing for a championship? That's the reason," McGrady said about why the Magic have developed a reputation for not being able to hold onto stars. "That's why we play the game, to win a championship. Shaq obviously felt that, with his personality, he didn't fit down there. So he wanted to go to Hollywood, which worked out for him. Dwight is kind of on that same cusp with the same personality. He wants to be Hollywood. He's just that type of dude." While the Magic never have won an NBA title, they did advance to the Finals in 1995 with O'Neal and with Howard in 2009. But McGrady believes the Magic should have kept the 2008-09 gang intact. "I don't understand why they broke up that team," said McGrady, referring primarily to the free-agent departure of forward Hedo Turkoglu, who, interestingly, was replaced by Vince Carter, McGrady's cousin. "The chemistry was great. They traded Turkoglu (in a sign-and-trade) or didn't sign him back Why break that up when you go to the Finals and you've got a good thing going on?" If Howard departs, he would add to the haul of stars having left Orlando since 1996. O'Neal, Hardaway, McGrady and Howard have combined for 17 All-Star appearances, three scoring titles and four rebounding titles with the Magic. However, it must be said Hardaway's departure to Phoenix in a 1999 sign-and-trade was one of good riddance considering his attitude had gone south and injuries were putting his career in decline. McGrady won scoring titles with the Magic in 2002-03 and 2003-04. And he did it while driving coaches batty with less-than-desirable practice habits. "I'm just not a great practice player," McGrady said. "That's what I wasn't. I was a gamer. You put me in a game and the lights are bright and the stands are filled. That's just what I was. But you practice, get up and down and do this. That wasn't my thing. "The crazy thing about it is there's a lot of players like that. People are so scared to really voice who they are. They want to be politically correct. Just scared to see what other people's perceptions are When you have God-given talent, I think that that kind of hinders your practice habits and that's what I think it did to me. Had I not been so talented, I probably would have busted my (butt) in practice." McGrady, though, has to work harder now. Injuries and age have robbed him of much of his athleticism. McGrady, averaging 10.0 points for the Hawks, did light up the Heat last Monday for 13 of his 16 points in the fourth quarter of a 100-92 win. But it was back to reality the next night when McGrady had just two points at Chicago.