What we learned from Orlando Magic Madness 2020
Sorting the Magic’s Second Tier
The debate about Jameer Nelson’s debate had me thinking about the whole second and third tier of Magic players.
As I said throughout the tournament, the ordering of where players are is pretty set. Shaquille O’Neal, Tracy McGrady, Dwight Howard and Anfernee Hardaway are the top four. The next group and the group after that is where things are interesting.
I just described how Nelson surprisingly fit higher in the second tier than I initially believed. I also noted how weak the bubble in the second tier is.
We are talking about Nick Anderson, Jameer Nelson, Rashard Lewis, Hedo Turkoglu and Darrell Armstrong. Dennis Scott is probably in this group too. Nikola Vucevic is in this group too. But asking Magic Twitter to vote on Nikola Vucevic is not advisable — he is extremely unpopular in some online circles to the point that he is vastly underrated in his Magic history (really the first time the fan base has turned its back on a star player rather than the other way around).
Those are all very nice role players with a few All-Star and All-Star-caliber players thrown in there. It is a good group full of players that are beloved in Magic history.
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But after that? There is an extreme drop off. And that might be why the tournament felt so lopsided.
Evan Fournier is probably knocking on the door to enter the second unit. He is in the top-10 in scoring average and has quietly put together a very consistent long stint with the Magic. Like Vucevic, fans have not come around to him for whatever reason.
Fan favorites like Bo Outlaw, J.J. Redick and Scott Skiles fit into this third tier. As do short-term stars like Rony Seikaly, Vince Carter and Steve Francis. These players had solid seasons or made a cultural impact on the team but did not do a whole lot else. And many of them are lost to history.
This is the biggest group, but even this group struggled to separate itself in our tournament.
Maybe it is just how I spread the players out that they did not face each other. Maybe the players who did meet were a battle of popular players against unpopular players (Dennis Scott defeated Evan Fournier by 3-to-1).
There can be objective arguments that some players were better than others. But subjective elements like impact and popularity play a role here too in separating and placing these players within history.
The second and third tier are really messy. There are players who should be in the second tier clearly who are not because their impact was muted or short-lived. And for fans, the decisions are fairly easy.