Orlando Magic Top 30: The Most Under-Appreciated Player in Orlando Magic History

24. Scott Skiles (1990-1994)

The last image of Scott Skiles with the Orlando Magic became fevered tweets that buzzed across phones in the morning of a June day.

The team’s management was looking to build off a solid, but still disappointing 35-win season and had devoted its attention to the NBA Draft Combine and finding the next piece to their puzzle. A puzzle that was still taking shape.

Skiles was not there. Unknown to everyone at the time, his fight with management and to some extent ownership was already cracking through the surface.

There was supposedly a summit between general manager Rob Hennigan and the head coach to try and repair the relationship. That was seemingly the Hail Mary from team CEO Alex Martins to keep this thing afloat.

Skiles had a reputation for being hard-nosed and a bit stubborn in his ways. It might be fair to say that the same approach and discipline that made his teams overachieve is also what ultimately drives them mad.

When Orlando hired Skiles to be the head coach, the assumption was that he would give the team that sense of order it needed and then it could move on to the coach to really foster the contender Martins promised.

Of course, Skiles drove his team wild in just one year.

Live Feed

FanSided

A 19-13 start gave way to a two-win January and another lost season. Orlando improved by 10 wins — a solid improvement. But still felt the sting of disappointment. Other reports suggested he struggled to connect with an incredibly young roster and had to be talked into finishing out the year.

That is when Skiles did the unthinkable. He suddenly resigned after one year. Hennigan had to leave the Combine in Chicago and return to Orlando to deal with the fallout and begin searching for a new coach.

Skiles disappeared into the sunset. The lasting image for this former Magic legend was one of him quitting on his team. Or abandoning his team.

For a generation of fans, Skiles will be the guy that bailed off a ship that was already leaking. Or perhaps as the only person who saw the iceberg the franchise was steering into — or perhaps already failed to avoid.

What few talk about now when Skiles’ name comes up is that he was one of the most accomplished players in Magic history.

That hard-headedness gave the team a needed edge in its early days. His grit and hard work endeared him to fans making him one of the most popular players in franchise history. . . until the decision to resign in 2016.

In a Magic uniform, Skiles won the league’s Most Improved Player Award in 1991, set the NBA record for assists in a single game after dishing out 30 against the Denver Nuggets in December 1990 and even dared to take on Shaquille O’Neal in a fistfight to get the rookie to focus and take the game seriously (good luck with that one).

Skiles’ decision to depart Orlando as a coach will sully his final Magic legacy. And that will make his playing days all the more under-appreciated.

Skiles was the exact kind of player fans want to cheer for — selfless and feisty. He never took any guff from anybody.