Retrospective: Ranking the Orlando Magic’s Top “Big 3s”
The Orlando Magic have had some major talent come through The City Beautiful, but which trios rank the highest in team history?
Long before the NBA embraced the Miami Heat’s “Big 3” of LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade, there were Big 3s. The Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers of the 1980s featured trios who were legendary and unforgettable.
Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish were unarguably one of the greatest frontcourts in NBA history. The Lakers had the best playmaker ever in Magic Johnson and blessed him with a No. 1 overall pick in James Worthy and the NBA’s all-time leading scorer in Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Both teams are legendary and provide a blueprint to winning basketball.
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But as we will see the Magic at one point had something nearly equivalent, which we will never know the proper place of. The Magic’s history is riddled with many “what-ifs” and maybe that is to be expected from a team that has come close twice but never secured a banner for the Amway Center to hoist.
Oh, there are Eastern Conference title banners, but Magic fans have never tasted the ultimate experience of winning the whole enchilada.
However, even with the crestfallen spirits Magic fans carry, there is no denying some great talent has come through and the Magic have put together some great “Big 3s.”
This slideshow will take a look at the best five of those, though there is some player-overlap since we are working with just a 26 year team history at this point.
Josh Cohen of OrlandoMagic.com ranked two of Orlando’s “Big 3s” in the top-70 of all-time NBA trios. There is little argument that both of those trios belong at least that high, so we will examine why that is the case now in looking at the top trios in Magic history.
Next: The early excitement