Tracy McGrady believes the constant criticism older players direct at today’s NBA stars can be traced to one thing above all: money.
In a recent appearance, the Hall of Famer argued that the generational friction is less about skill, toughness or style than about how dramatically player salaries have changed over time. As McGrady put it:
“It’s the money. Did you realize in the 90s, Reggie Miller and Michael, they were only making $2-3 million? And they were the top guys… it’s the money.”
The core of McGrady’s argument is easy to understand. In the early 1990s, Michael Jordan’s listed salary was $2.5 million in 1990-91, while league salary data from that era shows top players were often paid in the low single-digit millions. Reggie Miller, meanwhile, became one of the league’s marquee guards in that decade before salaries later exploded across the board. McGrady’s broader point is that former stars see today’s players making vastly more money and, consciously or not, measure the modern game through that lens.
At the same time, his specific example compresses a decade that changed dramatically. Jordan was indeed making around $2.5 million in 1990-91, but by 1996-97 and 1997-98 he was earning more than $30 million per season, far beyond the rest of the league. So McGrady’s line works better as a reflection of the early-1990s salary landscape and the broader pay gap between eras than as a precise summary of the entire decade.
Still, the larger idea resonates because it cuts through a lot of the usual debate. McGrady was essentially suggesting that resentment, or at least irritation, can grow when retired greats watch modern players earn contracts that would have been almost unimaginable for many stars a generation earlier. In that sense, his quote was not really a basketball take at all. It was a human one.
That is what makes the comment interesting. McGrady was not arguing that older players are always wrong when they critique the modern game. He was arguing that the tone of that critique may have less to do with fundamentals than many people admit. Sometimes, in his view, the debate about eras is really a debate about value, recognition and who got paid what.
And whether one agrees with him or not, McGrady’s theory has the virtue of sounding uncomfortably plausible. The game changes. The money changes even faster. And sometimes that alone is enough to make every comparison feel personal.
