Victor Oladipo made major strides this year and is legitimately becoming a true NBA shooting guard. But where does that rank him all-time amongst Magic shooting guards?
The Magic have had a strange mix of players at the shooting guard position in their 26-year history.
Only two Magic 2-guards have become NBA All-Stars, and one has been a scoring champion (twice). But beyond the top of the crop, the Magic have had a number of middling talents at the wing positions in franchise history.
To that point, it makes it easy for a second-year guard like Victor Oladipo to rank much higher than he would had the franchise history been richer at his position.
Oladipo has yet to win a major award, having been arguably snubbed for the Rookie of the Year award in 2014. But he has shown an ability to take over games seen in few guards in Magic history. Let’s see how much that alone is worth.
Next: #10 Otis Smith
10. Otis Smith
era, but as a player he was more of a fan favorite.
He is remembered as a very athletic and exciting shooting guard that the Magic were lucky enough to snag from Golden State in the expansion draft of 1989.
Smith’s career was tragically short due to knee issues, but he posted more than 13 points per game while also averaging two assists and about five rebounds per game with Orlando.
Smith had a number of clutch baskets, and he was a solid go-to option in close games since he could usually at least get the ball into the paint to make a play.
In the expansion season, he hit 49.2 percent from the field and has similar win shares to Gerald Henderson of the Charlotte Hornets and Speedy Claxton.
He was not outstanding, but he was a very good shooting guard who basically had to retire right as he should have been entering his prime.
And when it is all said and done, as a GM he helped construct a championship caliber team.
Next: #9 Jason Richardson
no longer on the scene.
Instead, the Magic saw a guy who seldom looked like the borderline superstar he once was.
Richardson became much more of a 3-point chucker with the Magic, no longer relying on his once explosive legs to get him to the basket.
His scoring average plummeted 5.4 points per game from his 2011 campaign in Phoenix, and his 3-point percentage began to fall, despite having Dwight Howard to suck the defense in.
He played 19 games this past season in Philadelphia, but has little left in the tank.
In his prime, he averaged 23.2 points per game for the Warriors in 2007. But in Orlando. Richardson was just not that caliber of player, hitting 40 percent from the floor in his second season with the Magic.
It paints a picture of mediocrity, but he did what he was acquired to do: hit threes on Howard kick-outs.
Next: #8 Anthony Bowie
Anthony Bowie originally joined the Magic on a series of 10-day contracts in the 1992 season. He was eventually signed for the remainder of the season and stayed around in Orlando for a productive career.
Bowie’s best season came in that first year, when he posted 14.6 points, 3.1 assists and 4.7 rebounds per game while playing 33 minutes a night.
That 52-game stint locked him into the NBA for another six seasons, none of which were quite that productive. But Bowie still saw 16 minutes a game in the hey day when the team reached the Finals in 1995, and he averaged five points per game as a member of that team. He basically provided very solid relief behind Nick Anderson.
Next: #7 Arron Afflalo
Arron Afflalo provided proficient two-way play for the rebuilding Magic. At the time he was obtained from the three-team deal jettisoning Dwight Howard, he was billed the center of the rebuilding effort.
That did not turn out to be true, but Afflalo provided a string of two seasons of solid play for a woeful Magic team before being dealt to Denver for Evan Fournier.
Afflalo is now starting shooting guard for the Portland Trail Blazers in the 2015 postseason (he has replaced Wesley Matthews who is out for the season).
Afflalo is not flashy, but he makes up for that in efficiency. He shoots high percentages, and was on the cusp (with some incremental improvements) of nearly entering the elusive 50/40/90 club.
His defense fell below its former lock-down level prior to coming to Orlando — but that was largely a product of having to shoulder a much larger offensive load.
Afflalo was one of the older main pieces of the rebuild, so his talent turned into a cheaper and nearly as productive Evan Fournier (whose consistency issues keep him out of this slide show). It would have been nice to see Afflalo play a major role when this team arrives at contention, but general manager Rob Hennigan felt going with younger options in the backcourt made more sense given the lack of ascent by the team thus far. And he needed to free the time for the budding Victor Oladipo.
Also, Fournier is a very nice prospect who could be a staple in the second unit for seasons to come.
Afflalo averaged 18.2 points, 3.4 assists and 3.6 rebounds per game in his second season with the Magic, after having posted 16.5 points per game in 2013. Orlando’s defensive rating while the team was on the floor was 112 both seasons, and in the second year the Magic posted a 110 offensive rating with him present. In 2014, his PER was 16.0, which ranks him above the league average at shooting guard in efficiency.
All around, those were two very solid seasons sort of wasted away on a poor Magic team. Afflalo will be part of a very talented Portland backcourt when Matthews returns, with Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum manning the other two spots in the four-guard rotation.
Next: #6 Courtney Lee
6. Courtney Lee
It may befuddle some how a replacement-level talent like Courtney Lee could enter the annals of all-time shooting guards, but it really should be rather obvious as to why.
Prior to suffering a face injury in the 2009 playoffs, he was starting for a championship caliber team as a rookie.
Lee made a big defensive impact and was considered NBA ready after spending four years in the NCAA at Western Kentucky.
Orlando selected him with the No. 22 pick in the 2008 draft, opting to go with a player whose prospects were thought to be far less sketchy than many players selected before him. He was NBA ready.
In his first NBA season, he started 42 games in 77 appearances, averaging 8.4 points, 2.1 rebounds, 1.2 assist and 1.0 steals.
The numbers were not so gaudy, but the eye test revealed the makings of a future contributor, as he is proving now in Memphis.
In the first four games of the playoffs against the Sixers, prior to his injury, he averaged 15.8 points and two steals per game, as the Magic split the first two games. When he returned nearly a month later against the Boston Celtics, he was rusty and his momentum was lost.
Lee, Rafer Alston and Tony Battie were dealt for Vince Carter and Ryan Anderson, and the Magic may be entirely responsible for Lee more or less stagnating as an NBA player since leaving Orlando.
His defensive talents are still valued, but he was becoming a system player for Stan Van Gundy whose potential was revealing itself with mature play under postseason pressure.
The Magic took a step backwards at 2-guard in the long run, but the caveat was that Ryan Anderson had developed into a very solid power forward in the meantime. Anderson is more valuable than Lee in both contract and win-share, so the move would still have to be deemed a ‘win’ overall.
Now 29 and with the Memphis Grizzlies, he is serving a major role in the Playoffs with the current injuries faced by Mike Conley and Tony Allen. Lee has responded by averaging 16.5 points per game while shooting 65.7 percent from the floor and 60 percent from three. That’s one nice stretch of games.
Next: #5 Mike Miller
5. Mike Miller
Mike Miller had his best few NBA seasons (except a standout 2007 year in Memphis and his Finals performance in 2012) in his first three seasons with the Orlando Magic.
In 2001, he won the Rookie of the Year award while averaging 12 points, four rebounds and 1.7 assists per game, helping the Magic make the Playoffs. He followed that up with improvements in his second season to average 15 points, three assists and four boards per.
Miller was a solid point-forward, 2/3 hybrid, and a playmaker. He was much more dynamic player in Orlando than what he has been in his injury-plagued recent seasons.
While averaging 16 points per game his third season, he was dealt to Memphis in the deal that brought Gordon Giricek and Drew Gooden. He went on to win Sixth Man of the Year in Memphis while stringing together two very solid seasons before becoming a bit of a journeyman.
He played a role off the bench for Memphis last season but missed 30 games this year for the Cavaliers and has not played in the postseason.
In light of what became of Gooden and Giricek, this stands out as a rather perplexing loss by the Magic. Miller was on a rise to what became a good prime in the NBA, and the Magic got middling replacement-value players in return.
Next: #4 Vince Carter
4. Vince Carter
It is somewhat bittersweet to come to Vince Carter as the fourth best shooting guard in Magic history. He was at the beginning of the end for the Magic’s championship runs.
The Magic did not actually get much better replacing Courtney Lee with Carter (the same 59 wins) and the Magic fell short of their championship aspirations, falling to the Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals. Carter played a somewhat critical role in that frustrating defeat.
What was most frustrating about Carter was that he could autopilot a game and still put up 25 points, leaving most to wonder what he would be doing if he played with some intensity and fire. But that largely became the story of his career. He was so good that he could put up numbers while barely breaking a sweat.
Carter has persisted in the NBA simply because he can put the ball in the bucket. It is no different than the ancient Dominique Wilkins doing it until age 39 (who also made a final pit stop in Orlando for 27 games before finally retiring).
Carter had his moments in Orlando, games where he looked like the prime Carter of his early Raptors years when he would take over games. But the Magic got Carter on the tail end of his prime, and his devolution as an NBA player was beginning to take hold, even accelerate.
At age 33, he averaged 16.6 points for the Magic while hitting 36 percent from three, but this is a guy who averaged 24 points or better in six NBA seasons and was the main star of a Playoff-caliber Nets team the year before. It stands to reason that after putting up 27 in his third NBA season, he had the talent to lead the league in scoring.
But that just never happened. And it certainly did not in Orlando, where he saw 30 minutes per game and made Magic fans wish Lee was still in the fold, wondering what could have been had Courtney continued to blossom in a more favorable system than the woeful New Jersey Nets team he became a part of.
While Carter may have been disappointing, he’s still better than all but three talents to play shooting guard in Orlando.
Next: #3--surprise!
3. Victor Oladipo
Victor Oladipo has played just two seasons for the Orlando Magic, but he has earned his way high on the rankings.
The reason, simply, is that he is more talented than most of the 2-guards in Magic history, perhaps even surprisingly so. Oladipo was billed a primarily a defensive talent when selected No. 2 overall in the 2013 draft, but he has blossomed into a great two-way player.
At times in the 2015 season, he took over games. He outplayed James Harden in a Magic win. And he looked like a guy who could eventually become a franchise talent.
But that is where it gets dicey with Oladipo and the Magic: Is the team still not in search of a legitimate No. 1 option and superstar? Or is Oladipo that guy?
It was easy to go back and forth between thinking he is simply a reserve All-Star type or a future superstar. He was typically at least above-average for his positions, but the actual greatness of Oladipo did not come in sustainable stretches.
Part of that may be due to the lack of talent surrounding him, at this point. So often defenses could collapse on Oladipo.
Oladipo did become a true shooting guard in his second season, and the Magic experimented far less with him running the show. The main reason that happened is because he drastically improved his shooting and also because the team brought aboard Elfrid Payton to be the point guard of the future.
Together with Payton, Oladipo can help the Magic have one of the best backcourt tandems in the Association. At this point, its future is as bright as Boston’s rotation of Marcus Smart, Avery Bradley and Isaiah Thomas. The hope of both groups is to reach the height of Washington and Golden State’s high-scoring backcourts.
The current NBA is a guard-dominated game, and these teams with brilliant young backcourts will be the ones contending. That has to be the hope for the Magic at this point.
Next: #2 Nick Anderson
2. Nick Anderson
Nick Anderson was the first ever draft pick of the Orlando Magic, with the No. 10 overall in the 1989 draft.
He went on to have a great career in Orlando and was the first Magic player inducted into the team Hall of Fame.
Anderson nearly averaged 20 points per game twice for the Magic, but being a part of an expansion effort rendered his best years ones without All-Star bids.
By the time the Magic brought Shaquille O’Neal and Penny Hardaway aboard, Anderson became a third or fourth option, a role player — but an absolutely instrumental one.
The Magic squeaked by the Chicago Bulls to advance to the Finals on a steal Anderson made creeping behind none other than Michael Jordan. It was the pinnacle of the Magic’s team history and of Anderson’s career.
In the Finals, he had an abysmal time trying to seal Game One at the free throw line, and his career went into a descent following that game.
But Anderson still had a “local legend” aspect to his lore, and Magic fans remember Anderson as the only player in NBA history to ever score 50 points coming off the bench (against New Jersey in the 1992-93 season).
He gave the Magic a legitimate young star — even if he was not a superstar — until the team acquired Shaq and began to embark on its glory years. Anderson has been kept around as a community ambassador and he’s held off-court positions with the Magic for a decade now.
Next: #1 The Only Magic player to lead NBA in scoring
Tracy McGrady is arguably the greatest scorer in Orlando Magic history. T-Mac had his best years in Orlando and single-handedly kept the Magic relevant until the talent surrounding him was just so weak he could not do it anymore.
He wanted out, and the Magic obliged by trading him to Houston, while spending its No. 1 pick on Dwight Howard, ushering in a strange rebuild.
It was strange only in the aspect the Magic were unusually competitive for a team that just shed its superstar.
But that does not speak to just how dominant McGrady was.
In 2003, he led the league in scoring with 32.1 points per game, while playing nearly 40 minutes a night. He followed that up with a similar effort in 2004, seeing again 39-plus minutes a night while averaging a league-high 28 points per game.
But the Magic won just 21 games and fired Doc Rivers 11 games into the season after the team started out 1-10. It did not get better with Johnny Davis leading the team to 20 wins in the next 71 games.
McGrady could hardly be blamed with a roster that featured very little talent and no real second option to speak of (Drew Gooden? Pat Garrity? Juwan Howard? Even Tyronn Lue?). The next season in Houston he would see 40-plus minutes per game as the Rockets tried to build something around McGrady and Yao Ming.
But McGrady’s back and body were worn out from doing too much, too soon, and he began to decline and sit more games out. With the Magic, however, he was nothing short of amazing. McGrady hit shots that most players would never attempt, and so often a “Don’t take that!” was turned into a slack jaw at a highly impressive and contested mid range jumper.
He was a lot like Kevin Durant with even more athleticism as a 6-foot-9 shooting guard, and McGrady turned out to be the prize signing of the summer of 2000 (not fellow legend Grant Hill, whose career was chronically stunted due to injuries).
Next: Where does Elfrid Payton rank among point guards all-time?