Bob Cook

Tracy McGrady’s body, career and on-court reputation are in tatters.

The Houston forward returned to action Saturday against San Antonio, even though he had to leave practice Thursday because of the gimpy knee that has kept him out of the last 11 games, has prevented him from finishing a game since Dec. 15, and threatens to slow him down the rest of the season.

It’s not a good sign when you see body parts you didn’t know existed on the injury report. Did McGrady know he had a popliteus tendon until he strained it? Did anybody know they had a popliteus tendon until McGrady strained his? Didn’t Popliteus Tendon once open for Judas Priest?

Plus, if the Mayo Clinic web site is to be believed, McGrady’s other left-knee injuries — a bone bruise and patellar tendinitis ("jumper’s knee") — can take months to heal.

As McGrady misses more time, the whispers grow louder that the Rockets are better off without him, which their record shows they are — 13-15 with McGrady (including a 7-14 stretch), 7-4 without. Rumors swirl that McGrady wants to be traded (rumors he and the team deny).

But whether he wants a trade, who wants McGrady? He has long dogged accusations, sometimes from people within his own organization (particularly in his previous stop in Orlando), that he is soft, has a poor work ethic, dilutes team chemistry, and has no killer instinct.

McGrady has never played more than 75 games in a season since 2002-03, and his teams are 0-6 in playoff series. Along with his knee issues, McGrady missed about half of the 2005-06 with a bad back. Would you pay about $22 million a year through 2010 for this package? OK, Isiah Thomas, you would, maybe.

McGrady’s cousin Vince Carter, another player whose superstar status shrank over time into a strangely unsatisfying career as a mere star, once was called "half man, half amazing." On Jan. 7, as McGrady healed, the Detroit News anonymously quoted a Pistons’ player calling McGrady, "half man, half a season."

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Ouch. That’s a real kick in the popliteus tendon.

So, McGrady is an old man at 28, the tank starting to run dry after 11 seasons in the NBA. His career certainly is not over. But the flashy, smooth player who could wow us scoring 13 points in the final 33 seconds in one game (as he did on Dec. 9, 2004, in a win over the Spurs, who were up eight points with half-a-minute to go), who led the NBA in scoring twice, who became the first Rockets player to have 2,000 points, 400 rebounds and 400 assists in a season — he doesn’t exist anymore.

The unfortunate thing is, McGrady’s physical downfall is happening just as it appeared the petulant, confounding player who made us scratch our heads by tanking his final season in Orlando as the Magic fell to 21-61, who begged out of international events for "security reasons," who threatened (perhaps not seriously) to retire unless the zone defense was outlawed, and who surmised he might play pro baseball in a few years — he might not exist anymore, either.