Who is the Orlando Magic’s rival?

The Orlando Magic are a team growing and on the rise. They have teams they are chasing down and teams they are fending off. Who is their rival?

Feel the hate flow through you, Magic fans.

It is time to take a little trip to the Dark Side, and think about who the Magic hate the most and who they have to compete with and beat where they want to go.

Rivalries are a multi-faceted. They are both a product of geography, animus between fans, animus between players on the team, a certain amount of revenge and, of course, something real on the line.

The Magic have had their fair share of rivalries in their past. The Magic and Pacers were a heated battle in the mid-1990s with multiple Playoff battles. The Magic and Cavaliers and Celtics were nasty rivals in the late 2000s as the Magic competed for titles.

You see a pattern here though.

When the Magic were really good, they had some incredible rivalries. The good teams are typically the ones with the rivals with any lasting power — Paul Pierce and Masai Ujiri’s Raptors notwithstanding.

A good rivalry again takes something real at stake along with some personal animus. Perhaps even manufactured animus.

And again, the Magic do not have a lot of either meaningful games or manufactured hatred. The focus has largely been on themselves during this rise and rebuild.

However, some games in the last three years have stood out. The Magic have started to build some strong distastes for some teams and certain wins have meant more. Certain losses (and repeated losses) have sent opposing fans into a frustrated frenzy.

For now, these are the teams the Magic can call “rivals.” Or at least continue to develop some sort of budding rivalry with as they continue to get better.

Next: That team down south