Kyle O’Quinn says goodbye to Orlando Magic family

Kyle O’Quinn is off to the New York Knicks next season. It is a difficult departure for a fan favorite and locker room fixture of the young team.

For Orlando Magic fans, Kyle O’Quinn was a fan favorite. His energy and hustle along with his personality were an instant connector between him and the fans.

He connected with teammates too as a gregarious personality. When his teammates did well, he was off the bench cheering them on. And they were happy when he was successful too.

When guys like this hit free agency, they tend to command some attention. And O’Quinn did, getting too far past the Magic’s price point in restricted free agency.

This past weekend, it was reported the Magic agreed to a sign-and-trade deal with the Knicks that would send O’Quinn to his hometown Knicks on a four-year, $16 million deal. Orlando played O’Quinn sparingly at the end of last season and it was clear he was no longer part of the future plans.

O’Quinn is excited to move on, as he stated in an interview with Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders. But he is sad to leave his Magic family:

"I texted all of those guys yesterday and I was FaceTiming with a lot of them. I talked to [Nik] Vucevic – he texted me from some wild number that had a plus sign and, like, 47 numbers. I talked to all of them. I love those guys. Those were my first NBA teammates and I can honestly say that I love those guys and I’ll consider them friends for life. It’s going to be tough not having them around and doing everything without them. When we would land in the city, I would immediately knock on Vooch’s door. I would get on the plane and Elfrid [Payton] and Aaron [Gordon] would bring me Chipotle. And it wasn’t even rookie duties, it just a friendship thing and we were all so tight. I’ll miss Moe [Harkless] – getting on his nerves, him getting on my nerves and singing together in the locker room with him. Man, I love those guys and had so much fun with them. They made going to work fun. I’m bottling all of [those emotions] up and accepting the fact that I’m going to another team and being excited about the new opportunity, but it will be very, very, very, very, very hard to leave Orlando and leave those guys. A lot of us are really cool with each other and we made a promise that we’d be friends for life and we’re going to stick to that. Later this summer, I think we’re all going to try to get together to grab dinner and hang out. I can’t wait to see them and we’ll stay close."

O’Quinn added this in an interview with Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel:

"I love everybody there [in Orlando]. I love my whole team: the GM on down to the guy that cleans the bathrooms. I loved everybody there, and I think it was a mutual feeling. It was the feeling that I loved every day coming to work. So it’ll be definitely different going to the Knicks, but this is what you have to deal with as far as being in this business."

Indeed, the Magic team took on a very college-like atmosphere thanks to the closeness in age of many of the players. O’Quinn was actually one of the older players on the team since he spent four years in college.

It is the nature of the business that a player like O’Quinn — on the rookie minimum as a second round pick — was going to cash in and get his payday somewhere else. Even with restricted free agency. O’Quinn’s uneven third year prevented him from getting the guarantee from the Magic.

In O’Quinn’s interview with Kennedy, he admitted the plan was not even to go home to New York. But they showed a major commitment to him in offering him the four years guaranteed. The Magic were not willing to go that far, and few other teams seemed willing to do so too.

For O’Quinn, he was impressed too with Phil Jackson’s specific interest in him and the opportunity to play with a superstar player like Carmelo Anthony.

In all likelihood, O’Quinn will be playing behind Robin Lopez at center for the Knicks off the bench. That should be a more defined role than what he had with the Magic where Dewayne Dedmon appeared to beat him out for that position.

Summer brings changes to every team, and this is one of the unfortunate ones for a fan favorite of Magic fans.

Next: Orlando Magic take care of their own in retaining Tobias Harris