What we learned about the 1995 Orlando Magic from “Blue Chips” oral history

Penny Hardaway and Chuck Daly did not get along

"Orlando Sentinel columnist Larry Guest: Daly opted out, even though he had two more years on his contract for some pretty good money. I was there at Daly’s house an hour or so after he announced that he was hanging it up. Penny sent over roses to Terry, who is Chuck Daly’s wife. [When] she [learned] it was from Penny Hardaway, she took the flowers and put them right in the trash. That was a pretty vivid indication of how Penny was regarded in the Daly household."

The oral history goes into the supposed player coup that ousted Brian Hill.

The Magic were a disaster that first year after O’Neal, and Hill could not reach his star player in Anfernee Hardaway. The team was drifting below .500 and a change needed to be made. Whether it was a player vote or however Hill was deposed, something very bad happened. The team quit on their coach.

The relationship with Hardaway and Hill did not seem to be so bad as the relationship between Hardaway and the Magic’s next head coach, Chuck Daly.

Daly accumulated a 74-58 record in two seasons at the helm. He finished .500 in his only full season, missing the Playoffs. In the lockout-shortened 1999 season, Daly helped the Magic to the top record in the East, but they lost to the 76ers in the first round. Daly left after that season.

Clearly this anecdote suggested Hardaway and Daly were not on the best of terms. And so a second straight head coach was killed off by Hardaway, and it was becoming clearer that the Magic and him needed to part ways.

Hardaway played 19 games in that first year under Daly, experiencing the first of his knee and ankle issues, and bounced back to play all 50 games in the lockout season. His scoring average dipped to 16.0 points per game in those final two years in Orlando.

Something was off about Penny and he knew it. His coach may have taken the brunt of it. And since Daly was a hard-driving coach, he probably grated on Hardaway who was almost certainly playing hurt those two years.

It was time to separate and both the Magic and Hardaway knew it at that time as the Magic’s golden era came to an end.

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