More Spurs...and Tracy McGrady?

There's some un-Spur like happenings in San Antonio.  The team that is the model franchise of team play and good behavior is having some chemistry and off court issues.

Stephen Jackson was just flat released Friday.  According to this article on Yahoo by Adrian Wojnarowki, Jackson was released because of disagreements with Popovich over playing time and his overall role on the team.  After the release Jackson tweeted "Thanks to all my fans for the support and love,...I would never say a player is better than me when I know their (sic) not.  Not for no one."  Not sure what Jackson meant by that, but I'm guessing he didn't like the fact that one of his teammates was getting more playing time then him. 

With Manu Ginobilli still out, Boris Diaw recovering after surgery, and Tony Parker still not 100%, the Spurs once deep team is now short on players....not a good thing with the playoffs starting this weekend. 

So today the Spurs came out of nowhere with a surprise move by signing Tracy McGrady.  Yes, that McGrady, the same one that left the league after 2011-12 season after suffering knee injuries. 

My first reaction was, "What the heck are they thinking?"  McGrady is now 33 and averaged 5.3 points, 3 rebounds, 2.1 assists in his last NBA season playing for the Hawks.  McGrady can't possibly contribute to a playoff run this season...could he? 


Digging into the stories, I found out that McGrady was playing in the CBA this season...no not that CBA, but the Chinese Basketball Association...for the Qingdao Double Star Eagles.  A quick Google search got me to asia-basket.com, and saw that Qingdao is in last place with a pretty dismal 8-24 record.  Clicking on the Stats tab, what I saw really surprised me and made me think, "well maybe McGrady might be able to help the Spurs."

McGrady played in 29 games for the Double Star Eagles.  He played 31.6 minutes a game and put up a stat line of;  25.0 PTS, 5.1 AST, 7.2 REB, 1.6 STL.  Yea I know, not exactly against the best competition, but it does show that his knees are at least serviceable...especially if he played in a limited role, say 20ish minutes a game.  He also shot .561 from the field and a respectable .333 from 3-pt range.  Looks like McGrady could be a good spot up shooter....perfect for the Spurs offensive scheme. 

While it's unknown how much McGrady can contribute from a standpoint of creating his own shot against NBA talent, it seems he can still shoot the rock and his knees are at least healthy enough to play 31.6 minutes in 29 games.  The unknown is if he can find a grove with the rest of the Spurs players having less than a week before the Playoffs.

It's going to interesting to see if McGrady give the Spurs some productive play, help them out of the first round, and buy some time for everyone to get healthy to make a push to the NBA Finals.