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McGrady 'highly disappointed' Durant left OKC for Warriors

Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images Sport / Getty

Former seven-time NBA All-Star Tracy McGrady has been open with how he regrets leaving the Toronto Raptors after just three seasons to sign a big contract with the Orlando Magic, knowing that if he had stayed north of the border, he and his cousin, Vince Carter, could have created something truly special.

Now working as both an analyst and ambassador for the game, McGrady gets to watch from afar as some of today's biggest names dictate their own futures through free agency.

The biggest move of the offseason saw four-time scoring champion Kevin Durant join the 73-win Golden State Warriors, which T-Mac hardly approves of.

"I was disappointed in the move to Golden State," McGrady said in a phone interview with Complex Sports' Chris Gaine. "I wasn’t disappointed that he left, I mean he’s a free agent, he’s able to go wherever he wants. But I just think having a team now coming off a championship run and you have the champs down 3-1, and they come back and defeat you. I just think as a competitor, you would come back and try to dethrone them with the same team."

After nine seasons with the Oklahoma City Thunder and just one Finals appearance, Durant decided to take his talents to the Bay Area on a two-year, $54.2-million contract, joining forces with back-to-back MVP Stephen Curry, as well as fellow U.S. men's Olympic team members Klay Thompson and Draymond Green. By doing so, the 27-year-old left behind a roster that not only won at least 55 games four of the last six seasons, but featured a fellow top-5 talent in Russell Westbrook.

"You’re playing with a top-five point guard in Russell Westbrook. I mean to me, I think OKC is a championship-caliber team. They displayed that; they just had a major collapse in the Western Conference Finals against Golden State," McGrady said. "But I was highly disappointed that he chose Golden State to go and play for the other team. I wanted him to stay in OKC."

The makeup of the league has undoubtedly changed since McGrady called it a career. The salary cap has hit record heights, providing teams the financial freedom to put together rosters the way Golden State has. If McGrady had things his way, the NBA's biggest stars would be more evenly distributed to level the playing field.

"They’re awful," he said of superteams. "I think it’s bad considering they tried to change things in the (collective bargaining agreement) to stop all of the superteams. And with the $93-million salary cap, you’re not going to be able to stop that. Teams have so much money to spend on players, it’s like AAU basketball nowadays in the league. Whereas when I was playing you had a superstar on the Orlando Magic. You had a superstar in Boston in Paul Pierce. You had a superstar in Philadelphia in Allen Iverson. You had a superstar in Toronto in Vince Carter. You had Ray Allen, a superstar in Milwaukee. That made it such a competitive league and the guys I was with, everybody didn’t team up. We were all trying to beat each other’s a**."

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