T Mac Tanked Interview with Celtics to avoid being drafted by them

[footey]

Celtics were very interested in drafting T Mac in 1997.  Celts had 3rd and 6th pick.  T Mac said that he didn't want to play for the Celtics because he didn't want to play for Pitino, it was nothing personal against Boston. Said he knew Pitino was brutal as coach at KY (where he was being recruited previously) and his workout with the Celtics for the draft was by far the most brutal one.

So he purposely did poorly on his interview. They of course ended up taking Billups at 3 and Mercer at 6, and T Mac went 9th to the Raptors. 

Another interesting what "could have been", and "thanks for nothing, Pitino!!"

https://twitter.com/ringer/status/1684960370010783744?s=20

[Roy H.]

I don't blame Pitino for holding an intense workout, or being intense at Kentucky.

I blame his personnel moves. 

Tmac tanking interviews to avoid working hard is a sign of his immaturity at the time.  He lacked grit and grind, and arguably did for much of his career.  It's probably why he never won a playoff series in his career as a rotation player.

[footey]

I don't blame Pitino for holding an intense workout, or being intense at Kentucky.

I blame his personnel moves. 

Tmac tanking interviews to avoid working hard is a sign of his immaturity at the time.  He lacked grit and grind, and arguably did for much of his career.  It's probably why he never won a playoff series in his career as a rotation player.

o
I don't either.  But who among us would not have preferred to have an immature Tmac on the Celtics rather than Ron Mercer? He managed to make the Hall of Fame.

[Roy H.]

I don't blame Pitino for holding an intense workout, or being intense at Kentucky.

I blame his personnel moves. 

Tmac tanking interviews to avoid working hard is a sign of his immaturity at the time.  He lacked grit and grind, and arguably did for much of his career.  It's probably why he never won a playoff series in his career as a rotation player.

I don't either.  But who among us would not have preferred to have an immature Tmac on the Celtics rather than Ron Mercer?

Definitely agree there.  Although, full disclosure, I was a big Ron Mercer fan coming out of the draft.

But yeah, what could have been.  We probably would have still sucked, which means we still land Pierce the next year.

?
Antoine
Pierce
McGrady
Billups

But, Pitino was never patient enough to have a seen that core reach its potential.

[footey]

I don't blame Pitino for holding an intense workout, or being intense at Kentucky.

I blame his personnel moves. 

Tmac tanking interviews to avoid working hard is a sign of his immaturity at the time.  He lacked grit and grind, and arguably did for much of his career.  It's probably why he never won a playoff series in his career as a rotation player.

I don't either.  But who among us would not have preferred to have an immature Tmac on the Celtics rather than Ron Mercer?

Definitely agree there.  Although, full disclosure, I was a big Ron Mercer fan coming out of the draft.

But yeah, what could have been.  We probably would have still sucked, which means we still land Pierce the next year.

?
Antoine
Pierce
McGrady
Billups

But, Pitino was never patient enough to have a seen that core reach its potential.

Gotta be honest, I liked Mercer too; I didn't know who the heck Tracy McGrady was back then LOL!!

[Birdman]

I thought Mercer was going be our savior..I still got his jersey! Both at UK & Boston

[Who]

I was a big Mercer fan as well.

Future All-Star or so I thought.

[obnoxiousmime]

I don't think it was a lost opportunity because chances are McGrady would have pouted and left anyway, like he did in Toronto. The Celtics as a franchise was in a prolonged down stretch and they needed talent that was willing to stick around. I don't remember the exact rules, but it wasn't like it is now where most drafted stars will at least stay into the second deal because you give up too much money otherwise. That means today you can draft a 19 year-old and feel pretty confident you'll have then under control at least 6-7 years into their career. Obviously Pitino being horrible was also a thing, but I'm saying separate from that it made sense to be wary of taking McGrady.

[jambr380]

Was there really any chance we would have taken TMac over Mercer? Mercer was a UK guy who had just finished playing under Pitino. At the time, people thought we got a steal by Pitino downplaying how good Mercer was so that he dropped to us. And Mercer actually was a good player for us...until we traded him for Danny Fortson and Eric Williams. That trade actually worked out fine as Mercer didn't go on to blow up like Billups did. But, I just don't think we were ever really in on TMac anyway. Even the two teams after us went another direction.

[footey]

I don't think it was a lost opportunity because chances are McGrady would have pouted and left anyway, like he did in Toronto. The Celtics as a franchise was in a prolonged down stretch and they needed talent that was willing to stick around. I don't remember the exact rules, but it wasn't like it is now where most drafted stars will at least stay into the second deal because you give up too much money otherwise. That means today you can draft a 19 year-old and feel pretty confident you'll have then under control at least 6-7 years into their career. Obviously Pitino being horrible was also a thing, but I'm saying separate from that it made sense to be wary of taking McGrady.

McGrady together with Antoine and Pierce (who was drafted one year after TMac) would have been a lot of fun, and could have been pretty interesting nucleus for early 2000s team. 

[Who]

I don't think it was a lost opportunity because chances are McGrady would have pouted and left anyway, like he did in Toronto. The Celtics as a franchise was in a prolonged down stretch and they needed talent that was willing to stick around. I don't remember the exact rules, but it wasn't like it is now where most drafted stars will at least stay into the second deal because you give up too much money otherwise. That means today you can draft a 19 year-old and feel pretty confident you'll have then under control at least 6-7 years into their career. Obviously Pitino being horrible was also a thing, but I'm saying separate from that it made sense to be wary of taking McGrady.

Yeah, it was guys like McGrady that led to the rule changes in the rookie scale contracts from 3yrs to 4yr length contracts. Previously, it left teams in a difficult bind with the high schoolers because they typically sucked for the first year or two and were only starting to break out in their 3rd and final season. Just like McGrady did with Toronto. That 3rd year when he went from a 15mpg guy to a 6th man of the year candidate in the first half of the season to a starter & future All-Star caliber player in the 2nd half of the season. So they only real had half a season of high level play with McGrady before his contract came up and that made it difficult to deal with the money.

I don't remember if they had restricted free agency back then either. They may not have. I don't remember Toronto having a choice to match the contract offer or not. I don't think they had restricted free agency. So that might be another rule change that came in afterwards.

Then there was all types of shenanigans going on in the background with Toronto and McGrady. The coach (Butch Carter) was linking his extension to McGrady's and saying McGrady would only sign if he was the coach otherwise McGrady would walk away. Trying to leverage the organization. Muddied the waters and confused the whole situation.

Plus, T-Mac wanted to go home to Florida. He wanted warm weather not cold winters. Although he did consider Chicago but I believe Orlando was always his first choice. And he wanted to be the man instead of the #2 to Vince. T-Mac likely would've been the #2 to Pierce here in Boston at that same stage in McGrady's development. Heck, probably the #3 behind Pierce and Toine. So both the weather and the basketball situation would've made it highly likely that McGrady would've bolted for Orlando anyways even if Boston did select him instead of Mercer.

[Surferdad]

I was a big Mercer fan as well.

Future All-Star or so I thought.

So did Pitino, remember "the backcourt of the future".

[Donoghus]

I thought Mercer was going be our savior..I still got his jersey! Both at UK & Boston

I have his Celtics jersey too. Found it on eBay years ago. Once wore it to Lollapalooza.

I think you’d be hard pressed to go back to 1997 and find anyone at the time that was upset with the Celtics drafting Mercer. He was an established commodity as far as college basketball went and the general feeling was that Pitino hookwinked everyone. The kid was a core member of a team that went to back to back national title games and had plenty of exposure.  McGrady was a big risk/reward question mark.

[Roy H.]

I thought Mercer was going be our savior..I still got his jersey! Both at UK & Boston

I have his Celtics jersey too. Found it on eBay years ago. Once wore it to Lollapalooza.

I think you’d be hard pressed to go back to 1997 and find anyone at the time that was upset with the Celtics drafting Mercer. He was an established commodity as far as college basketball went and the general feeling was that Pitino hookwinked everyone. The kid was a core member of a team that went to back to back national title games and had plenty of exposure.  McGrady was a big risk/reward question mark.

I think that's right.  I was way more questionable on Billups at #3.  Pairing college teammates in Mercer and Antoine seemed like a coup.

[Moranis]

Once a loser, always a loser.