Matt Barnes: 2010 Orlando Magic fell short because of leadership

The Orlando Magic sparked a bit of debate this week.

With the release of the poster and trailer for the upcoming The Matrix: Resurrections movie, the team’s Brazil-based account presented a binary choice and sparked debates among fans. Making Magic fans choose between the 1995 and 2009 Magic, the franchise’s two NBA finalists, is always a difficult choice.

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This is always an unfair ask. Fans still look back wistfully on these teams and the eras they represent. These teams are the standard-bearers for the franchise. Everyone gets compared to them.

But the secondary debate quickly grows off this one. It may be held only among hardcore fans and observers of the team: Was the 2009 Magic even the better team of that era? The 2010 Magic had the same 59-win record and reached the Eastern Conference Finals before falling short to the Boston Celtics.

That season, the team entered with championship expectations after their trip to the NBA Finals in 2009. They reloaded after losing Hedo Turkoglu to free agency by acquiring Vince Carter and added to their depth by adding Ryan Anderson, Matt Barnes, Brandon Bass and Jason Williams.

It was a completely transformed team that still found itself on the door of a title. It is easy to forget they not only swept through the first two rounds of the playoffs in dominant fashion, but also finished the season 33-8. They were a truly dominant team.

The mystery then is how did they fall short? Why did they trail the Boston Celtics 3-0 and scrambled to get the series to six? How did this team that might well be the best team in franchise history not bring home the title?

Whether the 2010 Orlando Magic could have won a title or was even better than the 2009 Finals team will be a debate for Magic fans to have for all time. Matt Barnes offers his thoughts on what went wrong.

Starting small forward Matt Barnes joined the team before that 2010 season and believed the team was good enough to win a title. But there were cracks in the foundation. One that he saw as a reason for him joining the team but only became clearer as the team go put under pressure.

On the latest episode of Forgotten Seasons, Barnes discussed why that team was special and what ultimately derailed the team:

Barnes said he joined the Magic after watching them in the 2009 Finals and seeing them lose their cool and toughness during the Finals series. He said he watched Trevor Ariza get inside their heads by walking into their huddles without getting pushed away.

In fairness, this young Magic team probably got a bit over their heads in the Finals. Some players have admitted the stage finally got too big for them.

But Barnes said when the Magic opportunity came around, he saw a chance to give them the toughness they needed. As the Kobe Bryant incident proved, Matt Barnes did not back down from anyone.

Barnes said the cracks were already apparent.

Dwight Howard was not a great leader for the team. He was always looking to have fun and did not always bring a level of seriousness the team needed from its best player. Jameer Nelson was the actual leader of the team.

That was something the team could not overcome for the whole trip. Especially with some of Stan Van Gundy’s apparent weaknesses.

Barnes called Van Gundy the best Xs and Os coach he had ever been with. But he also said you could see hints of the “Master of Panic” that Shaquille O’Neal said of him.

Most Magic fans think the team fell short in the Eastern Conference Finals because of the long layoff between the end of the series with the Atlanta Hawks and the series with the Boston Celtics — a period of six days.

Barnes said in preparing for the Celtics, the Magic changed a lot of their offense. While some adjustments are certainly expected heading into the conference finals, Barnes said he and other teammates felt Van Gundy tinkered a bit too much.

That certainly adds some fuel to the fire that the layoff hurt the team. It gave them too much time to think and they overthought their series.

Then again, the Magic lost Game 1 by just four points and Game 2 by just three points. The games still came down to key plays at the end. Those plays certainly had an impact on the team moving forward, especially Vince Carter after his missed free throws at the end of Game 2.

How much did that play a factor? In a series of such narrow margins — the Magic would win Game 4 in overtime too — it probably did not help in the end.

The team was incredibly close on and off the court. It was a good time for the team and they were extremely close to winning a title. Everyone acknowledges that.

But titles take something a little bit more than that. It was clear how close the Magic were but how fragile the whole thing was built. And with the Miami Heat assembling their super team the next summer, the Magic’s window closed quickly.

Still, the 2010 team will be one of the brightest spots in Magic history. And a team that is certainly worth remembering.