Lakers nearly drafted Tracy McGrady in 1997

The Los Angeles Lakers could have formed a Big 3 of Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant and Tracy McGrady in 1997, according to a new report. A year after trading for Bryant, Lakers executive Jerry West made a push to acquire the draft rights to McGrady, who was entering the NBA out of high school.

The duo of O'Neal and Bryant dominated the league and helped the Lakers capture three consecutive championships between 2000 and 2003. McGrady, the recently-inducted Hall of Famer, enjoyed his peak years playing for the Orlando Magic and Houston Rockets, after being drafted by the Toronto Raptors.

Tracy McGrady impressed Jerry West at workout

Del Harris, the coach of the Lakers ahead of the 1997 NBA Draft, revealed that McGrady impressed the Lakers with his workout. “I don’t think anybody can look at an 18-year-old and say he’s a Hall of Famer. You couldn’t even do that with Jordan. And Kobe was a young 18 in his first season. He was still in a pretty normal teenage body, compared to when LeBron James came in and had a man’s body.

“McGrady came in the next year with a more mature body and worked out so well that Jerry kind of tooled around with the idea that maybe we should just go ahead and make a deal for whatever it took to get this guy -- even though it’d be a step back in the short term -- to have two guys like this on the same team," Harris told The New York Times in an interview.

The report adds that Harris was reluctant to surrender an All-Star guard such as Eddie Jones for McGrady, another teenager on the roster next to Bryant. “I did tell Kobe there would be a time when there would be some competition between him and Shaq. People asking, ‘Whose team is it?’ and all that. I told him that he had an opportunity to make it work just like Magic Johnson did with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar; Magic publicly deferred to ‘Cap’ every chance he got."

On Monday, the Lakers honoured Bryant by retiring both his jerseys (No. 8 and No. 24). Bryant, who switched jerseys halfway through his 20-year career, captured five championships with the Lakers.