Happy wife, happy life is how the saying goes. Tracy McGrady will agree.

The basketball legend, nicknamed T-Mac, was drafted into the NBA by the Toronto Raptors in 1997. He was just 18 years old at the time and had played high school basketball for North Carolina’s Mt. Zion Christian Academy. He signed a three-year rookie contract valued at $4,689,480, per Spotrac.

This was not, however, his first lucrative contract. Just ahead of the 1997 draft, his talents landed him a $12 million shoe endorsement deal with Adidas, as AFROTECH™ previously reported.

Making that kind of money at 18 came with its learning curves. McGrady grew up in a household with his mother working as a custodian at Disney while his grandmother was a custodian at his elementary school for three decades. No one in his family earned over $40,000.

“You can only imagine I’m 18 years old. I don’t have a family that has taught me financial literacy. I don’t know anything about it. So all of this is just trying to figure this out on my own,” McGrady admitted during an interview with AFROTECH™, conducted at a private reception on Feb. 8, hosted by Diverse Representation and William Morris Endeavor (WME) during Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans, LA.”I’m maneuvering through a world that I have no experience in. I don’t know who’s gonna guide me. It’s trial and error to maneuver through a crazy world where money is passed around on the table.”

McGrady was able to find trusted individuals to steer him in the right direction during his early career. These advisors included Sunny Vicaro, a mentor, and CleRenda Harris, his now-wife whom he met at a Lexus dealership while she worked behind a receptionist desk. If you’re wondering, the meet did lead to the purchase of a Lexus truck.

McGrady goes on to admit he views their connection, which blossomed into marriage in 2006, which was his smartest career move.

“My wife, she’s on top of my business,” he mentioned.

McGrady received his first big NBA contract in 2000 with the Orlando Magic. He signed a seven-year deal valued at $92,960,250. It was CleRenda who encouraged him to hire auditors in addition to the financial advisors he had already employed.

“You have these financial advisors. You don’t know what they’re doing, because there’s so much money. You don’t know what they’re investing in. You don’t know what money is being moved around. You don’t know if they’re popping in. So early on in my career, my wife suggested that we have an auditor come in and audit our financing,” he said. “I never would have thought about anything like that. I was really just concentrating on my craft just trying to be the best basketball player I possibly can be. And I had somebody on my on my side that was taking care of really important things so I could just concentrate on basketball. My wife was just she was you know, she’s incredible.”