He was "excited" about playing a more up-tempo style with Rick Adelman and thrilled with the prospect of having more of the Rockets' offense brought to him, rather than having to trigger so much of it.

He believed he would get his wish to have Bonzi Wells back and stopped mid-thought to stomp any flickering life left to the rumor that there had ever been a rift between him and Mike James, his former and once-again teammate. His back, McGrady said, was still fine. He described himself as still in game shape.

But as always with the recent Rockets, the bottom-line reality tempered everything else. McGrady said he was still too disheartened from the Rockets' first-round loss to watch the NBA Finals.

"Not because the Finals weren't that good, but I couldn't watch it," McGrady said, speaking at the opening of a learning center at Ross Elementary School.

"It was just disappointing because we put ourselves in a great position against a really good basketball team (the Utah Jazz), and we failed."

Wanted: help for Hayes

With that in mind, McGrady suggested that as encouraged as he has been with what he has heard about Adelman and as pleased as he is about James' return, general manager Daryl Morey still has work to do.

"Obviously, we don't have a power forward now but Chuck Hayes," McGrady said. "I'm sure the organization is in the works of getting us another power forward. I still think we need a guy on the perimeter that can create, play defense. We need a guy that can rebound. All these things I speak of, the organization is aware of, and I'm sure they're working on."

Offense shifting gears

Though he made his admiration for former Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy clear, McGrady said he was happy with how the changes will affect him.

"He (Adelman) is more of an up-style-type tempo coach," McGrady said. "That's beneficial to me. He seems like he is a pretty nice guy, a laid-back guy.

"It's going to be interesting to see when you have a 7-6 guy (Yao Ming) out there, 300 pounds. It's going to be tough to get up and down the basketball court. We'll see how he structures that and see if he can make it fit.

"(Running the offense) really doesn't have anything to do with Jeff's system. That's what I had to do. We had nobody to do that. I had to be on the ball. I had to make plays. Mike James is a good addition to our team because he can create his own shot; he can create for his teammates. I'm looking more to playing off the ball and getting a lot more easy baskets. I used to hate playing Sacramento when Rick was the coach because there was just so much offense, it was hard to guard those guys."

That does not mean, however, that McGrady, twice the NBA's scoring champion, has his eyes on Kobe Bryant's scoring title.

"I'll leave that to Kobe," McGrady said. "I'm trying to win now. I'm trying to get what he already has, and that's three rings."

As upbeat as he sounded, McGrady did not claim the Rockets were there. Yet.

For now, it is enough to be heading in that direction.