Orlando Magic Shooting Month: Shooting trades the Orlando Magic regret

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Mike Miller, Orlando Magic, Toronto Raptors

The Orlando Magic’s eyes were wide for something else when they traded a young Mike Miller. (Photo credit should read TONY RANZE/AFP via Getty Images) /

Orlando Magic Shooting Month: Shooting trades the Magic regret

Goodbye ROY

The Orlando Magic needed all the help they could get in the Tracy McGrady era.

With Grant Hill’s contract sitting like an albatross around their neck and Hill on the bench struggling to get back onto the court with his ankle and foot injuries, the Magic had to find value wherever they could. If there was a failure in McGrady’s four-year run, it was their inability to play the margins.

And they, frankly, squandered their one success.

Mike Miller was the last piece of the Anfernee Hardaway draft night trade, delivering that final first round pick in the 2000 Draft. And Miller quickly made his mark, winning Rookie of the Year and becoming an ace shooter to pair with McGrady.

Miller averaged 14.1 points per game and shot 38.0-percent from beyond the arc in three seasons with the Magic. He would develop into a better shooter throughout the course of his career. But he was a fantastic shooter in Orlando too.

He averaged 11.9 points per game and shot 40.7-percent from beyond the arc helped the Magic reach the playoffs as a 7-seed in McGrady’s first year in Orlando and helped Miller win Rookie of the Year.

Miller and McGrady were fast and close friends on the team. And their partnership only grew as it became increasingly clear they had to rely on each other (with help from Darrell Armstrong at point guard) as the Magic struggled to put together a solid roster.

It made the move in February 2003 all the more strange.

Miller and McGrady were at a season ticket holder event that night and there was no whiff of a trade. But there it was a few hours later that evening and Miller was shipped off to Memphis and McGrady was clearly peeved — his first game after the trade, he scored 52 points in three quarters in a win over the Chicago Bulls.

On paper, this seemed like a decent idea.

The Magic traded Mike Miller for another shooter in Gordan Giricek. Giricek averaged 11.7 points per game and shot a decent 36.6-percent from beyond the arc. Even with his time in Memphis, he was a clear downgrade from Miller.

The real idea may have been getting Drew Gooden. Gooden was the fourth pick in the previous year’s draft and was considered one of the better rookies that year. He averaged 12.1 points per game with the Grizzlies before the trade.

After the trade, he averaged 13.6 points per game and 8.4 rebounds per game, finally giving the Magic an inside presence they missed throughout the McGrady era. Orlando finished the season 16-11 to solidify their playoff spot, albeit finishing eighth.

Everyone should know what happened in the 2003 Playoffs series with the Detroit Pistons.

It turned out Drew Gooden was not the answer — especially when the team brought in Juwan Howard the following summer as their big free agent and neither player wanted to play center creating a lot of awkward fits.

This was almost certainly a case where then-general manager John Gabriel was overthinking things. This was a trade where the Magic clearly devalued the shooting they had and thought it was replaceable — not to mention risked alienating their star by trading one of his best friends on the team.

This did not clearly make the Magic better, even though they played well after the deal. Everything collapsed on the team the next season as the Magic fell to 21-61, lost their star and had to restart their team (getting the first pick helped with that).

But here was a case where the Magic’s goal was to get some size and post help. They did that but sacrificed shooting to do it. And that may have cost them the most.