| Magic Out, Bright Future Ahead? |
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| Written by Ryan.W | |
| Friday, 16 May 2008 | |
 Throughout NBA history, teams have gone through series of change, one year a team maybe the cream of the crop, the favorite for the NBA title or just obviously one of the best teams in the league and it may stay that way for the foreseeable future, but unfortunately, it all must end at some point. Players get old, franchises fall apart (Chicago Bulls, New York Knicks), and general managers go from genius status to the hot seat.
The Orlando Magic are a perfect example of that, back in the early 90s the Magic were one of the up and coming teams with two of the most talented young players in the NBA in Shaquille O’Neal and point guard phenom Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway.The combo of O’Neal and Penny quickly became one of the best duos in the NBA, the perfect combination of power and quickness, O’Neal absolutely dominated the paint with extremely powerful posts moves which was seemingly an unstoppable force in the middle and Penny playing like Magic Johnson reborn with impressive passing ability and knack for scoring which made him near unguardable and a mismatch for any opponent. Once Michael Jordan retired at the end of the ’93 NBA season, the Magic were the team to beat in the East competing with the aging bad boys of Detroit, Patrick Ewing’s New York Knicks and Reggie Miller’s Pacers. With MJ playing baseball the Magic were so young, talented and motivated that the only thing stopping them was the Houston Rockets who they met in NBA finals, but it seemed obvious that Shaq and Penny were the new kings of the East. Well, just like every franchise, egos and money always ended up getting in the way once a team starts having success and the Orlando Magic was no different. In 1996, Shaq became decided to sign with the Los Angeles Lakers after rumors of the big fella being unhappy with teammate Penny Hardaway and the Magic. After Shaq left Orlando, Penny sustained a knee injury and was never the same which resulted in the Magic’s steady decline into one of the worst franchises in the Eastern conference and the NBA. Before the 07-08 season began, the Orlando Magic made some pretty bold moves to make sure their new superstar center Dwight Howard would stay for the long haul so they could build a winner in Orlando once again. The move was getting sharpshooter Rashard Lewis from free agency to add to an already talented back court of Hedo Turkoglu and Jameer Nelson. Getting Lewis proved to be a great acquisition, the Magic were able to win 52 games during the regular season to become the #3 seed in the Eastern conference playoffs. The biggest problem the Magic have faced over the last two seasons have been facing the Detroit Pistons in the playoffs who have now knocked them out of contention for the Eastern conference crown two years in a row. Although the Magic have made HUGE progress in improving their team, the Pistons are just too good and way too talented for the Magic as of right now. The Pistons have been the best team in the East for the past decade getting to the Eastern conference finals 6 times in a row and beating the seemingly unstoppable Lakers in the NBA finals in 2004 when everyone had counted them out. In the coming years the Magic will be a force to be reckoned in the East as Dwight Howard is quickly turning into the best big man in the game (much like Shaq back in the day, but in shape), Hedo Turkoglu becoming a big scoring threat in the starting lineup and Rashard Lewis continuing to be a very consistent shooter and secondary scorer. As the Boston Celtics become stronger (and older), LeBron James gaining more experience and better players around him and teams like the Atlanta Hawks and Charlotte Bobcats continue to improve little more every season the Eastern conference will slowly, but surely be a tough and entertaining conference yet again.         Set as favorite Bookmark Comments
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