Welcome to the fourth installment of 30 Teams, 
30 Years, 30 Drafts featuring the Orlando Magic. This series takes you through each of the teams’ draft picks from 1978-2008 and evaluate how they fared. The Magic are a fairly long-tenured franchise and they have had their fair share of draft booms and busts, including the impressive selections of Shaquille O’Neal and Penny Hardaway in back to back drafts. Their score is well below the astounding score we saw from the Celtics the other day, but solid in its own right for such a young franchise.
Total Score: 2.861
View the previous teams and their scores here:
Boston Celtics – 3.885
Philadelphia 76ers – 2.561
Toronto Raptors – 2.659
Let us know in the comments below who you think their best and worst draft picks were.
To see how the score was calculated, check out the intro post here.
[table id=102 /]
1- Brian would change his name to Bison Dele late in his NBA career. He retired before the 99-00 season with $36.45M and five years left on his contract. In July 2002 he disappeared in the South Pacific on his catamaran “Hakuna Matata” and his to believed to be murdered by his own brother who forged is signature to buy $152,000 worth of gold. His brother would die of an intentional insulin overdose before the full truth could ever be revealed.
2- TNT is currently lobbying with David Stern to get their own amnesty. If they do, rumor has it they are likely to use it on either Shaq or Reggie Miller.
3- 10 year old me had an irrational love of Penny Hardaway. So much so, that I had over 20 of his rookie cards, which would have really paid off if his career wasn’t such an injury plagued tragedy. Let’s just all agree that if healthy he would have been a surefire Hall of Famer before I get angry. I mean, he had two first team All NBA appearances in his first three seasons.
4- Keon Clark has sadly had a difficult time in life after basketball. At a hearing for weapons and marijuana charges he admitted he was a recovering alcoholic who had never played a game sober in the NBA and would usually drink during halftime of games. Not much is known about Keon after 2006, but let’s hope he is healthy somewhere.
5- Miles Simon’s had an incredible run in the CBA in 01-02. In which he won player of the week four times, Newcomer of the Year, League and Playoff MVP awards. Something tells me he would give it all away to have more than 5 games in the NBA.
6- Despite own of my favorite underground NBA stories of all time, “Are you ready for Maggette” (trust me, look it up) Maggette seems to be a genuine good guy as far as pro athletes are concerned. He had the “Uh Oh, Maggette-O Kids” Program (somewhere Tas Melas is smiling) which bought hundreds of kids to Clippers games for free. Runs a wildly successful basketball camp, and has the “Corey Cares Foundation” to help the underprivileged as well as numerous charitable donations as well. Good job by you, Corey.
7- Somebody felt it important to know that Laron scored over a 1,000 on his SATs, under the old 1600 SAT format. If that deserves a mention I should get my own page for my score.
8- Mike Miller’s wikipedia page tells us that he is an avid lover of animals and tells us about the pets he has owned. This includes the revelation that he used to own a monkey named Sonny, who would apparently escape and ride his dogs around the neighborhood.
9- God I hate Dwight Howard. I’ve spent most of the summer referring to him as “He who shall not be named”. That being said, he’s the best center of his generation, so it’s impossible not to project him as a Hall of Famer. However my hatred will give him the minimum 15 points for a Hall of Famer. I don’t foresee there being many arguments on this.
10- Since he is 27 years old and just recorded his first 10 rpg season, we will assume he gets another at some point down the road.
11- J.J. Reddick will get those last 54 games to get to 400 unless he suffers a career ending injury this season.
