A decade after he left Canada for his hometown team in Orlando, Tracy McGrady said he could understand why Toronto Raptors star Chris Bosh might want to return to the United States when he becomes a free agent this summer.

“Maybe he wants to start off fresh with another franchise, or maybe he’s doing it for tax reasons,” McGrady said Friday, before his New York Knicks tipped off in Toronto.

“I’m not speaking (for) Chris Bosh, I’m just saying (for) the individual that wants to move on. There’s different reasons why a guy wouldn’t want to play here.”

Toronto took McGrady with the ninth overall pick in the 1997 NBA Draft, when he was still a teenager right out of high school. His ascent to stardom was only beginning when he left the Raptors after the 1999-00 season, returning home to Florida as a free agent to play with the Orlando Magic.

Bosh is set to become a free agent this summer, part of a banner crop that will include the likes of LeBron James and Dwyane Wade. Bosh, who has spent the entirety of his seven-season NBA career with the Raptors, has kept his intentions a closely guarded secret.

“Some guys do it for different reasons,” McGrady said. “He’s been here for quite some time now, and he’s personally been successful. The team really hasn’t done that much.”

Bosh was not available for comment Friday morning because he missed the team’s usual pre-game workout with what was described as “an upset stomach.” The 25-year-old was to be evaluated in the afternoon, having already missed Toronto’s previous six games with a sprained left ankle.

McGrady was said to have been courted by both the Chicago Bulls and the Miami Heat when he was weighing his future in Toronto. The native of Auburndale, Fla., said at the time he chose Orlando so he could be closer to home.

He went on to lead the NBA in scoring twice, in 2002-03 and 2003-04, and has been a seven-time NBA All-Star Game selection. But he has never won a playoff series in seven attempts.

The Knicks acquired McGrady in a trade last month to position themselves to be players in the free agent market this summer. New York took on the 30-year-old’s US$23-million salary because his contract is expiring this year, which will give the team plenty of space under the league’s salary cap.

Speaking with reporters in the visiting dressing room at the Air Canada Centre Friday morning, McGrady described his rookie season with the Raptors as “definitely a challenging moment in my life.”

“It was very tough,” he said. “I was 18 years old, and I wasn’t even legal when I came up here. I think the legal age was, like, 19. But I was up here, just me and one of my buddies, in a foreign country not knowing anything about this place.”

LeBron James isn’t honoring the greatness of No. 23, but manipulating Michael Jordan’s marketing savvy. The changing of his jersey number as a nod to M.J.’s basketball career is a purely fictional cover story. It’s a tribute to Jordan all right, but more like a cynical ode to his business sense. James wants to grow his global brand and push product; flooding the market with a fresh jersey number does the job.

Between now and then, James ought to spare us the fantasy that moving from No. 23 to No. 6 is about anyone or anything else.

All about Michael?

This is all about LeBron.

When LeBron James should be most concerned with taking Kobe Bryant’s(notes) NBA title, he’s making a bid for his standing as the No. 1 seller of NBA jerseys. James watched Bryant make the switch from No. 8 to No. 24 and how it moved him to the top of the list. For the past two seasons, James has finished second to Bryant. No more, James decided. Kobe gave him the blueprint for selling out stock, and now LeBron’s embraced it.

Looking back, Bryant never tried to turn his jersey change into some magnanimous gesture. He switched numbers, and that was that. He wanted to sell jerseys, and he did. He never pretended it was a genuflection to anything but commerce.

Somehow, James has boxed himself with this ridiculous story about how no one should ever wear No. 23, and he’s the first to give it up and maybe everyone else should follow him. This was met with a roll of the eyes, with everyone asking: Wait, you’re giving up No. 23 to take … No. 6?

What about Bill Russell and his 11 NBA championships? Jordan, the greatest ever, cleared a path for the worldly basketball star. But Russell was a black star in turbulent Boston in the 1960s. He anchored the greatest dynasty in the sport’s history, and they’ll remember him as the most dominant defensive player to ever live. In the end, James and everyone else understand this has nothing to do with Jordan or Russell, with No. 23 or No. 6. This is business, and he’s insulting everyone’s intelligence suggesting it’s something else.

The idea that James is honoring Jordan is, well, pure mythology. In a lot of ways, LeBron’s working to distance himself from him. Truth be told, they are rivals far more than confidants. With different lines of shoes, they are competing for power within Nike. They’ll be competing in the Eastern Conference, where the Charlotte Bobcats have beaten the Cavaliers two of three times this season and could be an opening-round opponent. They’ll be competing in collective bargaining talks, owner versus player.

The New Jersey Nets are struggling. They have the league’s worst record at 6-53. Because of that, they’re last in attendance.

To combat this they’ve tried a few bizarre promotions over the years. First, they gave away tickets to unemployed workers, and also gave them career advice. Then, if you bought a 10-game ticket plan you got a jersey that featured not just a Net, but also an opposing player.

This Friday, the Nets will unleash another in their long line of minor league-esque promos:

Their latest promotion will be unveiled Friday, when the Nets play the Orlando Magic. New Jersey residents 18 or older who attend the game will get a coupon that they can redeem at a Roni Deutch Tax Center to get their state income tax done free.

No one likes doing their taxes, but is it worth having to go to a Nets game? At just a $29 value, I’m not so sure.

But you have to admire the gumption of Roni Deutch, the eponymous tax attorney offering the promotion. She says, “The hallmark of a strong company is one that aligns with young companies. I’m a betting woman, and I think the Nets are going to win a championship this decade.”

One of the best things about being a veteran Winter Olympian is that you can trick younger colleagues into crazy pranks.

Just ask long-track speedskater Ryan Bedford, who was duped into shaving and dyeing his hair to resemble an American flag by older teammate Chad Hedrick.

Hedrick came up with the idea of both men sporting matching cuts but backed out after seeing the bizarre results of Bedford’s follicle surgery.

“Chad is one of the senior guys on the team, so he can get away with it,” said Bedford. “We were joking around last night and he said: ‘Let’s do something crazy.’

“He came up with the idea of the shave. We weren’t really thinking that it would end up like this. I’m the one who gets to look weird.”

The 23-year-old Bedford, from Holland, Mich., finished 12th in the 10,000-meter event Tuesday.

A Canada-Russia clash doesn’t need any subplots. This rivalry has sold itself for 37½ years.

But like it or not, the bitter rivalry between Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin is impossible to ignore, whether it’s when the Pittsburgh Penguins and Washington Capitals clash or in the pair’s only international meeting in the 2005 world junior championship. Now, the NHL stars are set to face off in one of the biggest games they will ever play against each other in their careers.

“We know there’s a lot of storylines and that’s a huge one,” Team Canada winger Jarome Iginla said after an 8-2 win over Germany on Tuesday night. “Canada-Russia, the history there, Sid-Ovechkin, for sure. But as players, we’re not sitting there watching and wondering about [them]. We want to win that game. We’re not looking for [Crosby] to just do it by himself.”

Ovechkin has been a one-man wrecking crew in these Olympics, as his big hits on Zdeno Chara and Jaromir Jagr have been the highlights in a very physical Games for him.

“I’m sure he’s going to hit one guy, if not more. I wouldn’t be surprised,” Crosby said after Tuesday night’s win. “But that’s part of the game and it’s going to be tough, it’s going to be a battle. It’s part of the game, and we expect that. I don’t expect us to be intimidated; it’s going to be tough, though.”

We’d love to tell you what Ovechkin had to say about the big game with Crosby and Team Canada, but the Russian superstar once again did not speak to any media after Russia’s practice Tuesday. Guess he’ll do his talking on the ice Wednesday night.

Another subplot in Wednesday’s game sees Crosby face off against Penguins teammates Evgeni Malkin and Sergei Gonchar.

“It’s something that we probably thought sooner or later would happen,” Crosby said. “It’s not a huge surprise. I’ve played against Orps [Team USA's Brooks Orpik] and now it’s Geno and Gonch. You know what? That’s what we expected, and we’re going to play hard. I don’t expect them to let up, and from my side, I don’t think it’s going to happen. It’s going to be intense.”

Ovechkin, Malkin, it doesn’t matter. It’s Canada-Russia, and Crosby grew up watching those games. Now he’s part of one.

“I mean, that’s a big rivalry, we all know it. It’s something that everyone was talking about before the Olympics and whether they thought it would happen in the quarterfinals or whenever,” Crosby said. “The fact is, we’ve got a big quarterfinal game and the fact that it’s them just adds more to it. I expect it to be a pretty incredible atmosphere.”

Five reasons Canada will win

1. Physicality: No team in this tournament can match the Canadians in terms of their size and physicality. Rick Nash has been a force and likely will play with Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf again, and they will be a factor in disrupting a Russian defense that could be susceptible to an aggressive forecheck. It wouldn’t be surprising to see that trio on the ice against Alex Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin and Alexander Semin, the Russians’ big line. Canada coach Mike Babcock likes to match strength against strength.

On the back end, the big Canadian blueliners — Shea Weber, Brent Seabrook and Chris Pronger — will have to make life miserable for Ovechkin, Ilya Kovalchuk et al, by punishing them in the corners and stopping them from cycling the puck and setting up scoring chances.

“We can play rough-and-tough style, I’m not worried about that,” Jarome Iginla said. “But you know what? We’ve been getting, I thought, more physical and we’ve been skating better each game.”

Americans report:

Chris Rudge, the CEO of the Canadian Olympic Committee, plopped down at his daily morning media briefing here and got right to it.

“We’re going to have questions about Own the Podium,” he acknowledged. He then launched into an unprompted five-minute defense of the $118 million government-funded albatross on the Canadian team.

The much hyped program declared that the Canadians would win the total medal count at the Vancouver Games – a boast that was not just bold but struck many as rather un-Canadian.

Eleven days into the Olympics and Rudge has all but conceded the standard won’t be met, declaring, “It would take a miracle.” The United States has 24 total medals. Canada is tied for fourth with nine.

“We’d be living in a fool’s paradise if we said we were going to catch the Americans and win,” Rudge said. “We’re going to be short of our goal, I’ll readily admit that.”

The issue is compounded because the goal had been out of character for the nation. This is a country where many see value in simply doing your best, not in pursuing domination as the Americans, Russians, and Chinese do.

Worse, it was taken by the rest of the world as semi-playful trash talk, and with each victory by other nations’ athletes, fans and wise-cracking media (cough, cough) have enjoyed poking fun at it. If Canada was uncomfortable with the promise, it appears even more uncomfortable with a backlash that most nations would have recognized as predictable. Canada was naive not to see it coming.

Consider ever-aggressive Russia, which promised an even grander medal total of 40. It currently has eight, yet no one is fretting over it. It’s the nature of a big prediction, and that wasn’t the nation’s first.

Canada’s own athletes have helped fuel the controversy. Speedskater Denny Morrison originally blamed the Own the Podium program – which provided more resources to coaches and national sport federations – for his 13th-place finish in the 1,000-meter speedskate because he wasn’t allowed to train with his friend Shani Davis of Team USA. Morrison later played damage control and took full blame for his result. “I was speaking with a lot of emotion,” he said.

Skeleton racer Mellisa Hollingsworth broke down in tears after finishing fifth in her race. “It’s haunting,” she said. “It’s sad.” Since the performance was not terrible, her reaction – in which she said she felt like she let her country down – was seen as a sign of the increased pressure that the medal count had put on the athletes. Hollingsworth has also backtracked on her comments.

“It was very, very painful for me to watch Mellisa’s comments to the press right after the race,” Rudge acknowledged.

For a while, Canada could brush off such failings by focusing on gold-medal prospects in men’s hockey – far and away the most followed of the sports. But the team, which struggled through pool play, will now have to play the Russians not in a dream final but in the quarters – and, of course, it lost a highly anticipated game Sunday to the United States.

“It’s frustrating to outshoot the other guy and not win,” Rudge lamented.

Yes, poor, poor Canada. Even its mighty hockey team can’t catch a break.

For the most part, despite some highly publicized gaffes and a luge track that was built too fast, these Games have been a grand success. Downtown Vancouver has been packed each day with fans, the spirit of revelry is everywhere, and the backdrop of a beautiful corner of the world has been breathtaking.

Yet hanging over everything is Own the Podium. If only the officials hadn’t made such a public pronouncement. If only they had tempered expectations. Thirty medals, for Canada? A nation of just 33 million people?

Americans report:

A Danish curler was brought to tears after a boisterous Canadian crowd intentionally distracted her during crucial shots in her team’s match against the home nation. With the crowd stomping and making deafening noise, Denmark skip Madeleine Dupont missed two potentially game-winning shots and tearfully blamed the fans for it afterward. Canada won the match 5-4 in an extra end.

Such boorish fan behavior is normally considered unacceptable in the genteel world of curling.

After the match, Dupont told reporters:

“I could not control the weight on the last shot in the 10th. It should have been way slower, but when there are 6,000 people yelling, it’s pretty hard to find out how hard you kick off. It’s just so hard to focus. You’re trying, but it’s just not the same as if it was silent.

“If they were yelling this much when Cheryl was throwing, that would be more fair. You can’t hear anything. You can’t hear what your skip is saying. You can’t hear what your sweepers are saying. You just have to do your best under the circumstances – and we did, but it was hard in the 10th.”

There’s nothing wrong with cheering loudly before and after points, but fans need to respect the etiquette of whichever sport they’re watching and act accordingly. A luger knows he’s going to hear cowbells ringing while negotiating turns at 90 mph, yet it wouldn’t be fair if a spectator rang one during Evan Lysacek’s free skate. If a curler is used to silence, a curler deserves silence.

Even the Canadian curling team agrees. Skip Cheryl Bernard said of the boisterous fans at the rink:

“I’m guessing 75 percent in there don’t know the game that well and they’re just there to cheer. You have to give them something for that, but I think we need to have it a little bit quieter for the opposition because it’s uncomfortable for them.”

That’s more an indictment of the knowledge of fans rather than poor sportsmanship. Canadian fans will have a shot at redemption this week as their team plays in the medal rounds. Hopefully they’ll cheer on their hometown teams with passion, just not during the other team’s shots.

Americans report:

They had flooded downtown in red sweaters, filled the streets with Canadian flags and held up signs all over the arena declaring things like “Our Home. Our Game” and “Canada is Hockey Country.”

It wasn’t just a hockey game the United States won here 5-3 Sunday. For the Canadians, it was supposed to be a moment to reaffirm national sporting pride, to show their dominance in their obsession. This was Super Sunday here, hailed as a hockey holiday.

It turns out it was the other side of the border that proved its mettle.

Yes, they can play a little hockey in America too.

“We know we can beat anyone now,” defenseman Brian Rafalski said.

Team USA isn’t the most talented club in the Olympics. It isn’t the deepest or the swiftest or the most skilled. Their coach, Ron Wilson, still is trying to sell the idea that five or six other clubs are better – “I think Canada is the best team,” he said, even after the victory.

It’s what makes this group of players that much more endearing. Here’s a team for America to believe in, a group of well-paid professionals playing with the same all-out, all-in attitude of the college heroes that USA Hockey celebrates best. This isn’t just some collection of all-stars, it’s a team constructed from a blueprint that tried to value heart and tenacity over pure talent.

Team USA general manager Brian Burke wanted big men who would kill in the corner, young players who wouldn’t stop attacking and hungry guys who would play their role and relish the chance to come out of nowhere and shock the hockey world.

Burke wanted lines of players with a grinder mentality, defensive pairings with a physical presence and, of course, one sensational goaltender in Ryan Miller.

Three games, three victories and one dead-silent downtown Vancouver later and the U.S. is on to the quarterfinals as the top seed in the tourney. The U.S. will play the winner of Switzerland-Belarus on Wednesday.

“Before the game we just kept saying, ‘go out and have fun,’ ” Ryan Kesler said. “We came in as the underdog and all the pressure was on Canada.”

Kesler offered the symbolic play of the game when the Livonia, Mich., native chased a drifting puck in the final minute with the U.S. clinging to a desperate 4-3 lead. With Canadian Corey Perry about to control it, Kesler made a dramatic, reach-around swipe, knocking the puck into the open net and silencing, at last, a rocking Canada Hockey Place.

“I was just trying to whack it,” Kesler said. “That’s hockey.”

And that was how the Americans beat the Canadians, with effort, hustle and resourcefulness.