Orlando Magic Daily Podcast Episode 92: The greatest players in Orlando Magic history with Aaron Goldstone
The Orlando Magic will celebrate their 30th anniversary season this year. We look back at some of the greatest players in team history to celebrate.
The 30th anniversary season of the Orlando Magic is sure to stir up some nostalgia. Especially with the death of longtime owner Rich DeVos, there are sure to be plenty of remembrances and look backs at the team’s history.
The team has already announced it will wear Classic Edition jerseys calling back to the blue alternate jerseys they wore starting in the 1995 season. The team will surely have plenty of other callbacks and recognitions for the team’s history throughout the season.
Each anniversary does bring up a new avenue for debate. Who is the best player in Magic history? Where do you rank the other great players in team history?
We tried to tackle that question a few years ago on Orlando Magic Daily. And our pals at Orlando Pinstriped Post are starting to reveal their list of the top 30 players in Magic history.
Even with a few years in between the lists, there are a lot of similarities.
The top four in Magic history are fairly obvious — Shaquille O’Neal, Dwight Howard, Tracy McGrady and Anfernee Hardaway. Even the rest of the top 10 are fairly uniform featuring all-time great players like Nick Anderson, Dennis Scott and Jameer Nelson.
From there, our lists begin to diverge. Our poll from a few years ago was a crowd-sourced poll of Orlando Magic Daily staffers while Aaron Goldstone of Orlando Pinstriped Post is endeavoring to rank all the players himself.
There are plenty of debates when it comes to the top 30 list.
How do you value players who spent a short time in Orlando over players who were role players with the team much longer — the great Pat Garrity or Steve Francis debate? How do you measure the disappointing tenure of a player like Grant Hill? Do fan favorites get a boost for the bigger impact they had in the fan base? How do you rate current players still with room to grow?
These are always part of the formula for ranking the best players in Magic history. While the list is always evolving, there are a lot of similarities. The lists become a great way to discuss some strong players in Magic history and how Magic history comes together.
With the 30th anniversary season set to begin and Aaron coming up with his own list, he joined the Orlando Magic Daily Podcast to discuss his list and how we evaluate the greatest players in Magic history:
On This Episode:
- Who is the best player in Orlando Magic history?
- Nick Anderson’s impact on Orlando Magic history and his place just outside the top four
- How to place Darrell Armstrong and Nick Anderson on these lists as fan favorites and impactors only with the Magic
- Where Scott Skiles and Bo Outlaw fit in as longtime role players vs. players who starred with the team for a short time
- Grant Hill’s place in Orlando Magic history
- Where does Nikola Vucevic fit in Orlando Magic history? What is his ultimate legacy with the team? And will he go underappreciated for what he did?
- How much has Aaron Gordon risen in Magic history in the last few years?
- How do we handle recency bias in our polling and our lists as Magic history continues to evolve?
- What do you make of the Orlando Magic’s offseason and the direction the team is headed?
- Assessing the Orlando Magic’s point guard situation
Be sure to follow Aaron Goldstone on Twitter @aarongoldstone and check out the rest of his list on Orlando Pinstriped Post.
Grant Hill's determination to play was his downfall. dark. Next
Be sure to subscribe to Orlando Magic Daily’s daily podcast, Locked On Magic, on Panoply, iTunes, Stitcher and TuneIn.