When, oh when, will T-Mac return?

From the Houston Chronicle:

A week and four practices after Tracy McGrady returned full-time to Rockets workouts, coach Rick Adelman said there is no timetable for McGrady's return.

McGrady, 30, said last week he expected to make his season debut soon, pointing to four road games this week.

“It's just a process,” Adelman said. “I can't tell you what the timetable is, but he's practicing, he's working. That's what we're going on. We'll figure that (the timetable) out when we get to it. He looks OK. He looks all right. He's just got to keep pushing himself and try to take each step.

“You put him on the floor, you want him healthy.”

I'm not like a lot of people.  I've never had a problem with T-Mac.  From where I stand, it seems as if T-Mac tried to continue playing when his body was shutting down and he clearly wasn't able to give 100%.  Even though he probably went about it the wrong way, with his team never knowing when he was going to suit up or when he'd sit a game out, I felt McGrady attempted to play through an injury that a lot of NBA players never would have.

I'm certainly not one (looking at you, Bill Simmons) to think McGrady specifically opted for microfacture surgery to get out of being traded.  Players never fully recover from microfracture surgery; they can still come back to nearly full strength, but even successful recoveries like Kenyon Martin and Amare Stoudemire never regain all of their explosiveness.  Knowing what microfacture surgery does, and what the recovery time is, I don't think any NBA player in his right mind would ever, EVER opt for microfacture surgery unless he really needed it.

That said, is anybody surprised T-Mac didn't make it back for that Nov. 18 timetable he set about a month ago?

(h/t Ball Don't Lie)