Not to say that he and Yao Ming were completely brothers-in-arms on the court — not with McGrady struggling to adapt to Rick Adelman’s half-court offense. But McGrady’s 2006 marriage to his longtime girlfriend (with whom he has two children) and his recent efforts on behalf of the war-ravaged people of Darfur spoke to a mental maturity McGrady had not often shown.

McGrady has spent some of his injury down time promoting the cause of the Darfur, whose people fled their civil-war-torn region in Sudan for other African nations, including Chad, where McGrady spent part of his summer sleeping in a tent within a refugee camp. "It was the most challenging thing I ever did, but it was the best thing I ever did,"

McGrady told students recently at his old high school in Auburndale, Fla., to rally them to help the people of Darfur. "Our problems are nothing compared to what they have. They struggle to eat. They struggle for their protection."

McGrady got interested in Darfur through teammate Dikembe Mutombo, who told him about it as McGrady donated money to a hospital Mutombo built in his homeland of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Chicago Bulls’ Luol Deng, a native of the Sudan. McGrady’s own personal assistant told the Houston Chronicle that McGrady’s trip to Chad ripped the veneer off of his "pampered lifestyle." A documentary McGrady produced on Darfur should be ready for release by spring.

Tracy McGrady, humanitarian? It’s happening, faster than you can say Bono.

If indeed McGrady is reaching the beginning of the end of his NBA career, McGrady is cementing his status as a player who hardly wasted his talent, but who lacked the will and drive to put it to its fullest use. But if he remains committed to his work for the people of Darfur, McGrady might cement a status as someone who left the game as an admirable ballplayer, for all the right reasons. His on-court reputation might suffer, but his off-court reputation is getting better and better.

Now isn’t that a kick in the popliteus tendon.

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