Retrospective: Ranking the Orlando Magic’s Top “Big 3s”
2) Dwight Howard / Jameer Nelson / Hedo Turkoglu (2008-09)
This trio was largely responsible for Orlando’s second franchise trip to the Finals in 2009. Two of the three made the All-Star team that season, along with power forward Rashard Lewis. The reason for including Jameer Nelson and Turkoglu over Lewis was that both were superior playmakers responsible for creating one of the most difficult to counter lineups the Magic have had.
Teams had to pick their poison, and for all that Dwight Howard is, a lot of his success was dependent on Nelson setting him up. Even James Harden does not do as well in Houston.
Nelson’s assist figures were perpetually lower than they could have been and deceiving, due to the fact a lot of his “shots” were actually nothing more than lob passes for Howard to clean up. Assists that never were.
Nelson was a small guard but it scarcely was taken advantage of. We’re not going to draw a comparison to Muggsy Bogues necessarily, but Nelson’s lower body strength made him difficult to exploit. He played his rear off and the hustle was infectious.
Nelson may never have received boatloads of accolades, but he did not let that affect him. He was hardly in the game for pure glory and he embraced his role as Howard’s friend and sidekick on the court.
It worked so well.
Turkoglu will be remembered as one of the most versatile forwards in Magic history. He developed in Orlando by and large and spent his most productive NBA seasons with the Magic. Turkoglu’s game was slow, even unorthodox, but his seemingly awkward approach was difficult for defenders to find solutions to.
Turkoglu became a vaunted fourth-quarter killer, and so often his seemingly impossible fade-away jumpers made pretzels of the net. He may have declined to become nearly worthless now in his waning years, but his ball skills more than compensated for all of his athletic shortcomings.
Turkoglu even found ways to cover the best 3-men in the NBA, despite lacking much lateral quickness. He absolutely maximized his talent to become the versatile point-forward Stan Van Gundy helped carve him into.
This team was heavy underdogs and knocked off LeBron James and the Cavaliers in James’ first stint in Cleveland. Turkoglu and Lewis gave that Cavs team so many insolvable problems, but Orlando was no match for the L.A. Lakers as Kobe Bryant went on to win yet another ring in his illustrious career.
An interesting “What if” of course, is to take that 1995 Magic team out of its era and wonder if it could have secured a ring in 2009. I think we all know the answer to that is “Probably, almost definitely, yes.”
Next: Global Darlings