Orlando Magic Top 25: Notes on our all-time greatest teams

Orlando Magic Daily ranked every team in Orlando Magic history. Here are some notes and observations on our final results.

This week the staff at Orlando Magic Daily got together to rank every team in Orlando Magic history.

As I noted in my introduction to the series each day, Magic history is full of a lot of highs and lows. The team, in its short history, has celebrated some all-time great stars including two hall-of-fame players who wore their jersey. The team put together one of the great teams of the 1990s and then one of the great teams of the 2000s. Both teams still resonate in the larger NBA cultural zeitgeist, particularly the 1995 team which got an ESPN 30 for 30 documentary.

How we judge who is the best, though, is a different matter.

Do we take into account their historical impact? Is it a straight statistical comparison between the two teams? Is it a matchup between the two teams? How do you value in-season and Playoff success?

These are all questions to leave up to individual voters. It is why there is some wisdom in the crowd (although some potential biases, which I will get into in a bit).

With the final results of our poll now complete, I thought it would be good to take a step back and explain our process and analyze some trends I noticed in our polling.

As noted each day, seven members of our staff submitted their rankings of each team in Magic history. I had them number them 1-28 (one for best, 28 for worst). I then assigned a point value (28 for a first place vote, 27 for a second place vote and so on) and created a ranking of the teams. This is the ranking you saw presented. I broke ties by regular season record first and then by how far the team advanced in the Playoffs.

Here were our final results:

The first thing to notice is that there was a three-way tie for the top team in Magic history. The debate among most Magic fans goes between the 1995 team and 2009 team, the two teams that made the Finals. Both teams defined whole legacies of Magic basketball.

The 2010 team gets some love too. Some of us (myself included, I am one of the two who voted them No. 1) consider the 2010 team to be better than the 2009 team that went to the Finals.

All three teams were very clearly in the running for the best team. And obviously, they all tied. So the debate should rage on even after our list. And, honestly, it should. Everything was so even between those three teams.

It is that close. And, as I said on Locked On Magic on Friday, the debate seems fluid as the conversation bounces between what the teams accomplished, nostalgia, impact and where the team goes next.

It is easy to listen to and agree with arguments for any team. And that is the main point of all this. This is just one list. And the list is very close. Just because we did not pick your No. 1 team does not mean they do not deserve a claim to the throne. And it does not mean attitudes will change as time goes on.

Admittedly, there is a recency bias involved here. Most of our writers, admittedly, skew on the younger side. I myself was just six years old when the Magic made the Finals in 1995. I remember the run, but not nearly as vividly as the mid-2000s with Tracy McGrady or the 2009 Finals run. A lot of my memory had to be reformed in watching old games again. But the grind of those seasons resonates less with me simply because of fading memories. That will surely happen with 2009 as we get further away — and perhaps other teams take their place.

Further, there is a tendency to want to impose current models and trends in play on older teams. It is true the 1995 team played a very modern style with more shooting, but it is hard to see that team succeeding in the same way under a modern style. Just like it would be hard to see the 2009 team succeeding in 1995. Each team is a snapshot of its moment in history.

So know that your argument for best team of all time is perfectly valid. No one here is arguing with you (so do not @ me . . . or do, we love to hear your thoughts).

The biggest “snub” I heard about was the 1999-2000 team — the Heart and Hustle team. This is one of the most beloved teams in Magic history just because of how surprising the year was. It endeared itself to fans because it embodied that moniker.

The 2000 team finished 12th in our list. The reason for it certainly had to do with the fact the team missed the Playoffs. In fact, the 2000 team ranked the second-best team that did not make the Playoffs (behind only the 1993 team, which was Shaquille O’Neal‘s rookie year). It finished ahead of four teams that made the Playoffs. So it is fairly represented among the best teams in Magic history.

I was among the group that ranked it 12th, which was the highest anyone rated them.  They were a scrappy bunch, but lacked a defining characteristic or longevity. The Magic broke that team up. They always get our recognition. But ranking them among the best teams in the franchise’s history gets tricky. They were a .500 team that missed the Playoffs. Maybe among the best of that group that finished around the .500 mark.

Orlando Magic

The final point to make off our list is to note where the Magic are currently.

Without a doubt, this is currently the worst five-year stretch in Magic history. The team has not made the Playoffs for a franchise-long five years and has not had an All Star in that time, also a franchise long.

And that struggle is reflected in our rankings.

All five teams in the current rebuild finished in the bottom nine. And our worst team of all time was the Magic’s 2013 season, the second year of the current rebuild. That, again, may be some recency bias. I personally voted for the 1992 season as the Magic’s worst team, the year before the Magic drafted Shaquille O’Neal.

But no team, outside the expansion years, has so many teams of the same time period clustered near the bottom. That just shows how good the Magic have been at staying at least mediocre or relevant in the Playoff race throughout their history. These last five years have been a real struggle for the franchise.

This is definitely a list we will revisit again — just like we will revisit the Top 25 players in franchise history list we did last year — every few years. Surely the list will update and change. Nothing should be set in stone.

Next: Who represents Magic on 2K All-Time team?

But we would love to hear what you think of our rankings. Be sure to drop us a line in the comments below or on Twitter @omagicdaily!