The Orlando Magic are celebrating their 35-year anniversary this season; 35 years of trials and triumphs; 35 years of cheers and fears and crying-in-our-beers; 35 years that were made possible by names that will will forever be bound together in our reservoir of recollections — Shaq and Penny, T-Mac and the Hockey Guy, Stan and Dwight and, of course, Heart and Hustle.
In honor of this landmark anniversary, here is my 35-for-35 documentary — the 35 most memorable moments in the 35-year history of the Orlando Magic:
1. 1985: A Magical idea is born when Orlando businessman Jimmy Hewitt convinces his friend and then-Philadelphia 76ers general manager Pat Williams that “Orlando is the place to be” if the NBA is going to expand to Florida. With Hewitt’s local connections and Williams’ connections within the league, Jimmy and Pat’s effort to bring pro sports to Orlando is off and running.
2. 1986: The Orlando Sentinel holds a name-the-team contest in which 4,296 entries are submitted. Williams announces that the potential new team will be named the Magic.
3. 1987: The NBA is uncomfortable with Orlando’s list of investors, so Orlando banking and real estate magnate William duPont III becomes the deep-pocketed majority partner the league desires.
4. 1987: The NBA Board of Governors announces that Orlando has been granted a franchise, touching off celebrations all over town. Williams declares: “The birth of the Magic is truly a miracle.”
5. 1988: Matt Guokas, the former coach of the Philadelphia 76ers, is named the Orlando Magic’s very first coach. He takes the Magic through the expansion years and moves to the front office four years later and is replaced by Brian Hill.
6. 1989: Nick Anderson, a 6-6 forward from Illinois who is taken 11th overall, becomes the Magic’s first draft pick. More than three decades later, he still works for the team as a community ambassador.
7. 1989: The Magic win their inaugural preseason game against the world champion Detroit Pistons. Longtime broadcaster David Steele remembers that the team and fans reacted “as if we’d just won the NBA Finals.”
8. 1989: The Magic’s first regular-season game is against the New Jersey Nets and it’s treated like a Hollywood premiere. In the Magic’s historical timeline of the moment, the team claims that “celebrities from stage and screen” were in attendance, but that might be a bit of a stretch. However, former Orlando Sentinel columnist Brian Schmitz thinks he remembers Hulk Hogan being there.
9. 1991: With the existing ownership group on shaky financial ground, the billionaire DeVos family purchases the team. Family patriarch Rich DeVos declares, “We are just the caretakers. The real stakeholders are the fans and community of Central Florida.”
10. 1992: The Magic win the draft lottery and choose Shaquille O’Neal with the first overall pick, ushering in a new era of expectations and excitement.
11. 1993: Having just one of 66 ping-pong balls in the cylinder, the Magic win the lottery AGAIN and acquire Penny Hardaway via a trade on draft night. With this dynamic duo, the Magic become the hottest, coolest team in the league.
12. 1994: The young Magic make their first playoff appearance and even though they lose in the first round to the Indiana Pacers, the stage is set for future greatness.
13. 1994: The Magic acquire free agent Horace Grant from the Chicago Bulls, and his iconic goggles become a symbol of the Magic’s new-found defensive tenacity.
14. 1995: Nick Anderson swats the ball away from Michael Jordan in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinals, and the legendary steal serves as a catalyst for the Magic vanquishing the Bulls.
15. 1995: Led by Shaq and Penny, the Magic blow out the Indiana Pacers 105-81 in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals. Orlando becomes the second fastest team (six years) to advance to the Finals in league history.
16. 1995: Nick Anderson misses four consecutive free throws in Game 1 of the NBA Finals and the Magic go on to get swept by Hakeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler and the Houston Rockets. The sweep is a harbinger of things to come.
17. 1996: Shaq becomes a free agent and the Magic make an initial $4-year, $54 million lowball offer that insults Shaq and his agent Leonard Armato. It doesn’t help that the Miami Heat have just signed Alonzo Mourning, who was drafted No. 2 behind Shaq, to a 7-year, $105 million deal.
18. 1996: The Lakers swoop in and offer Shaq a 7-year, $100 million deal, and the Magic, in a panic, offer Shaq $115 million over 7 years. But the damage has already been done. Plus, it doesn’t help that Armato reportedly wants to market Shaq in Hollywood.
19. 1996: The Orlando Sentinel runs its infamous poll, asking readers whether Shaq deserves $115 million over 7 years. When polling closes, 91.3% of 5,111 participants voted no. The U.S. Olympic basketball team is training at Disney when the poll comes out, and Shaq’s Olympic teammates tease him relentlessly. As author Jeff Pearlman writes in his book about the Shaq-Kobe Lakers: “Charles Barkley refused to hold back and told Shaq: ‘You bring glory to this redneck, one-horse town, and this is what they think of you? Get out as soon as you can. Bleep these people.’ ”
20. 1996: Shaq signs with the Lakers and calls Orlando a “dried-up little pond” on his way out of town. Nick Anderson remembers his father calling him on the phone right after news broke Shaq was signing with the Lakers. His father’s first words: “Your championships just left for L.A.”
21. 1997: With the team struggling the season after Shaq left, Penny Hardaway leads a player mutiny to get Coach Brian Hill fired. NBC’s Peter Vecsey reports the player revolt at halftime of a nationally televised Magic-Bulls game. On his way to the locker room after the game, Hill is whisked into an arena mop closet by former Magic general manager John Gabriel, who briefed him on Vecsey’s report. Hill is fired a few days later.
22. 1997: The Magic go big-game hunting and offer their coaching job to two legends — then-Bulls coach Phil Jackson and the recently retired Chuck Daly, who led the famous “Bad Boys” Detroit Pistons to two NBA titles and coached the original U.S. Olympic Dream Team. Daly accepts the Magic’s big-money offer, but he and Penny don’t get along and Daly only coaches two of the three years on his contract before retiring for good.
23. 1999: The Magic take a chance and hire young, charismatic former NBA point guard Doc Rivers to be the team’s head coach. In his first season, Rivers coaches a Darrell Armstrong-led team of no-names and misfits to a .500 record and they go down in Magic lore as “Heart and Hustle.” Rivers is named Coach of the Year.
24. 2000: After a series of wheelings and dealings to clear cap space, GM John Gabriel signs two of the NBA’s premier free agents — Grant Hill and Tracy McGrady. Hill arrived in town on crutches — a foreshadowing of his injury-plagued Magic career, but T-Mac turns into one of the NBA’s most electric superstars.
25. 2000: San Antonio Spurs free agent star Tim Duncan visits Orlando at the same time as Hill and he, too, nearly signs with the Magic. There is one problem: the Magic fail to win over Duncan’s longtime girlfriend Amy Sherrill, who asks coach Doc Rivers if she would occasionally be allowed on team flights to games. Rivers informs her that, like most teams, only players and staff travel on the team plane. Duncan stays in San Antonio, where Spurs coach Gregg Popovich is agreeable to the occasional request from players to bring significant others and family members on road trips.
26. 2004: The Magic hire former hockey player John Weisbrod as their general manager and it goes about as you would expect. Weisbrod goes over like a snowplow in a tulip garden, trades McGrady and “resigns” a year later.
27. 2004: Weisbrod did one thing right. The Magic win the NBA Draft lottery for the third time in history and Weisbrod and his assistant GMs — Otis Smith and Dave Twardzik — make the controversial decision of drafting young high school center Dwight Howard over proven college standout Emeka Okafor. Stephen A. Smith and Dick Vitale both rip the Magic’s decision. Howard goes on to become the most dominant big man in the game. Okafor becomes a solid but unspectacular pro.
28. 2005: The Magic let Brian Hill out of the mop closet and bring him back as head coach to restore some much-needed discipline and structure into the team. He stays for two years and leads the Magic back into the playoffs.
29. 2007: The Magic hire Florida Gators legend Billy Donovan as the head coach, but Donovan changes his mind almost immediately and returns to UF. As it turns out, Donovan’s about-face was a blessing in disguise because the Magic end up hiring the franchise’s greatest coach — Stan Van Gundy.
30. 2007: Magic GM Otis Smith signs free agent Rashard Lewis to an exorbitant $118 million deal, but it pays off. His 3-point shooting spreads the floor for Dwight Howard and sets the stage for perhaps the most lethal inside-out combo in the league.
31. 2009: The Magic advance to only the second NBA Finals in team history, blowing out host Boston in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals and then vanquishing LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Finals. The Magic ultimately lose 4-1 to the Kobe Bryant-led Lakers in the Finals
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32. 2010: After years of negotiating with city and county officials, the Magic move into the state-of-the-art Amway Center. An Orlando Sentinel columnist (me) refers to it as “The Dwight House” — thinking Howard would be in Orlando for years to come. Little did we know that the “Dwight House” would soon become the “Dwightmare.”
33. 2012: In one of the most awkward, surreal post-practice media sessions in history, Stan Van Gundy reveals that Dwight Howard has gone to team management and requested that Van Gundy be fired. Howard, unaware of what was happening, walks into the middle of the media scrum and puts his arm around Van Gundy as if they are best buddies. Within months, Howard is traded and Van Gundy is fired.
34. 2012: Rob Hennigan is hired as the youngest GM in the league and the first iteration of a Magic rebuild — a composite rebuild that is still ongoing more than a decade later — begins. Hennigan didn’t do a lot right, but he did acquire Nikola Vucevic in the Dwight Howard trade, and “Vooch” would go on to become an All-Star and a key trade piece to the Magic’s current rebuild.
35. 2022: The Magic win the NBA Draft lottery and team president Jeff Weltman selects Duke’s Paolo Banchero with the first overall pick, and Banchero goes on to be named the NBA’s Rookie of the Year. Paired with 2021 lottery pick Franz Wagner, the Magic appear to have one of the best young rosters in the league.
And, so, there you have it. These are my top 35 Magic moments, but yours are undoubtedly different. After all, memories are like snowflakes — none are exactly the same.
It’s time now for the Magic to continue their journey and provide us with a whole new list of memorable moments.
After all, there is one memory that is missing from the first 35 years.
A championship memory.
As the team commemorates 35 years of unforgettable moments from the past, let us hope that an even more Magical future awaits.
Email me at mbianchi@orlandosentinel.com. Hit me up on X (formerly Twitter) @BianchiWrites and listen to my Open Mike radio show every weekday from 6 to 9:30 a.m. on FM 96.9, AM 740 and 969TheGame.com/listen
