Blew Eyes (One Blew East, One Blew West)

This past week Tracy McGrady announced his retirement from the NBA. You're probably thinking to yourself that he retired in 2008. You're also probably thinking that Kim and Reggie are still together and that Tiger Woods is a family man. The last few years were a long way from the days when he was the only player on the Magic, or when he partnered with Yao to make one of the most dangerous 1-2 combos in the NBA.

You will remember him for his ability to dunk with the same ferocity that Kobayashi applies to eating hot dogs or the time he scored 62 points against the Wizards or the fact that he is Vince Carter's cousin, but not me. The thing I'll remember most about him was the same thing that made him so successful, his lazy eye.


For normal people having a lazy eye is a bad thing, but for a basketball player it is actually an advantage. Basketball is a game of deception, so if the opponent can't read your eyes to see where you are looking, they don't know what you're going to do. The lazy eye allowed him to see the floor in a different way. He never met a shot he didn't like. There could be three defenders in his face, but in his eyes they were three feet to the left. Sure there were games when people would say he was too selfish or he didn't look to make the open pass, but what those people don't realize is that having a lazy eye actually reduces your vision. So it's not that he didn't want to pass, it's that he couldn't see.

Tracy McGrady is the first NBA player in history to have more than 18,000 points, more than 5,000 rebounds and more than 4,000 assists with a lazy eye. Which should make him a lock for the hall of fame someday. Hall of Fame or not, he owes his whole career to his lazy eye, because without it he would have just been average.