Orlando Magic can grab some needed attention at All-Star Weekend

The Orlando Magic’s trio of young players have touched down in Cleveland for their time in the spotlight.

The NBA’s Rising Stars Game featuring Cole Anthony, Jalen Suggs and Franz Wagner along with Saturday’s Slam Dunk Contest with Anthony will represent the most time in the national spotlight the Magic will see all season.

It makes this weekend a big one for the Magic culturally. This is their players’ chance to put the nation on notice even in an exhibition game. And, for sure, all three will have their chance with the potential for their teams to meet in the championship game of the Rising Stars mini-tournament.

Rightly or wrongly, the All-Star game exhibition can have a major impact on how players are perceived around the league.

It is a way for a lot of them to get noticed. Especially for young players on these losing teams in the Rising Stars game.

Plenty of future All-Star players have announced themselves on the national stage in this showcase game.

The Orlando Magic will have a chance to grab some attention at All-Star Weekend and begin building back their fan base and wake a sleeping giant.

All Magic fans have done is complain about how the national media has overlooked them. All Magic fans have done is express frustration for how they are even overlooked in their own building.

The frustration among longtime fans — and the kind of fans who would read a blog like this — are palpable. The Magic hope the team will develop into a contending team. But that is still far off. Nobody is buying it quite yet. The bandwagon is empty.

That is not just for local fans at the Amway Center. It is seemingly easy to forget the Magic exist.

The question everyone has for this team is how do they wake up? How do the Magic tap into their long-dormant fan base and generate interest and momentum? How do they take advantage of the growth happening all around them?

Orlando’s interminable rebuild since Dwight Howard left a decade ago has cost the Magic a generation of fans — all at a time when Orlando was growing as a city in major ways. It has helped turn UCF into a major player in college athletics as the program jumps to the Big 12 in a few years. And just look at the devotion and growth with Orlando City as an example of how the sports market has changed.

The NBA is different from MLS — few fans have other MLS attachments before arriving in Orlando where the NBA has a much deeper history. And college is a lot easier to build allegiances with and poach fans away from.

But the Magic have lost fans. It is clear every time major opponents come to the Amway Center.

This has been one of the prevailing storylines of the season from a fan culture standpoint. Miami Heat fans invaded the Amway Center for boisterous “Let’s go Heat” chants on the same day the Orlando Magic were hit with a COVID outbreak within the team. Philadelphia 76ers fans serenaded Joel Embiid with “M-V-P” chants as the Sixers pulled away in the fourth quarter.

Orlando got some measure of revenge when Jalen Suggs shouted down some Chicago Bulls fans with a “This is a Magic city” as the Orlando Magic waltzed to a home win.

Players are certainly aware they have work to do on the court to win fans back to the Amway Center.

This is not some new storyline, however. When the Magic are good, fans are loud and boisterous. When they struggle, the mood in the Amway Center is quite different.

Players knew of the transplant nature of fandom in Orlando even during the glory days. While Magic fans embraced and filled the Orlando Arena and the Amway Center, players certainly took notice of how invading fans made their presence felt.

Former Magic guard J.J. Redick cracked a joke at Magic fans’ expense on his podcast with Marcus Smart when he said he would rather play for fan bases that boo their team when they play poorly rather than being in the arena with a sense of apathy.

He jokingly said as he made this statement, “I’ve played for some fan bases where apathy would be the best word to describe it. I’m not talking about the Orlando Magic. Yes, I am.”

Redick backtracked some when Magic fans got a hold of this, saying he was playing to the Boston crowd for the podcast and he has nothing but love for Orlando. Celtics fans likely still remember which franchise closed the Boston Garden and which team ended their 2008 title defense.

Still, the point stung. And, at this moment, it is hard to argue.

Especially since moving into the Amway Center and dealing with the excess of losing, there is definitely a feeling of that apathy.

Even when Howard was in town, fans had a reputation for staying in the lounges a bit too long. And longtime fans have complained about how cavernous the Amway Center is and how it does not trap noise the same way the old Orlando Arena did.

Then again, the Magic have not done much to fill the Amway Center with noise and fans eager to see the Magic.

Orlando has not advanced out of the first round since moving into the Amway Center. The team has had homecourt advantage in a series just once since 2011, the first year in the new building.

The Magic are again facing another long drought without winning a playoff series — they went from 1996 to 2008 before winning a series between the Shaquille O’Neal and Dwight Howard eras.

Fans ultimately want to support a winner if they are going to spend their disposable income on a sporting event.

This is not just an arena issue. Orlando struggled to sell out home playoff games during the Tracy McGrady era, despite having one of the best players in the entire league and a hometown player at that.

Still, it is clear fans will come when they have a reason to.

The Magic’s 2019 playoff run got a huge boost from a Magic fandom eager to see the team return to the playoffs and invested in their journey to break a seven-year drought.

As the Orlando Magic erased a 16-point deficit against the Memphis Grizzlies late in the season, coach Steve Clifford lauded the fan support and said he told the team this is what the Orlando crowd can do for the team. It got loud and the Magic earned a lot of respect.

It can be done. It just takes time to build.

What this All-Star Weekend represents is a chance to begin taking those steps forward and to get some needed national notoriety. It is an exhibition and the Magic’s players will be looking to have some fun. But they are also representing a team that is hoping to take the league by storm at some point in the near future.

They can at least grab some attention.

They need to serve notice that Orlando is a sleeping giant on the court. Representing the franchise well and returning home with some buzz would go a long way to reinvigorating the fan base.

Ultimately, the Magic are going to have to win to get everything back — both the national respect and the attention and boisterous support of fans in Orlando. It has to be built brick by brick and win by win though.

And there is a chance to get a big win this weekend and start to stir some momentum and pride again for Magic fans.