Magic Doubters At It Again

The Magic doubters are out in full force. Many of the questions about the Magic were discussed last week. You can see that here. Now, Bill Simmons is back at it. After the 2nd round of the NBA playoffs last season, Simmons told his readers not to think that the Magic were good because they beat a depleted Celtics team. Never mind that Orlando’s All star PG Jameer Nelson missed the series and that starting SG Courtney Lee was injured, missing the first 2 games and never quite looked like the same Courtney Lee that was very impressive in the first round. The Magic defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers in 6 games to win the Eastern Conference Championship, move on to the NBA Finals and prove Simmons wrong.

Simmons has a new article discussing the NBA offseason that can be found here. I do like the set-up of Simmons’ article, Almost Famous is a good flick, and it does contain some humor and valid points, but I disagree with some of the contents of Simmons’ work. He has a positive thing to say about the Magic’s offseason concerning the deal that brought them Vince Carter but then immediately negates it.

So Orlando makes the Finals with an unconventional lineup and a style that confounded just about everybody. They flip three backups for Vince Carter, seemingly solving their hole at shooting guard that Kobe exploited so brutally. (I had them as the favorites in the East after that trade.) What possessed them to spend $50 million on Gortat and Brandon Bass over just bringing back Turkoglu and making another run at the title? Now they’re just a conventional NBA team with conventional guys in conventional positions … um, that’s not how you made the Finals, fellas. This would be like “Lost” saying, “We have the hottest show on TV — what if we sent the entire cast back to 1977?” OK, bad example.

I agree that the Magic had a huge hole at SG. How do you think they allowed Delonte West to burn them in a few games? I do like that Simmons is one of the few writers that actually is in favor the Vince Carter trade. Rather than compare Carter to Turkoglu, he compares Carter to last season’s SGs, which is what he should be doing. He acknowledges that the Magic got a steal giving up only Lee, Tony Battie and Rafer Alston for an All-Star SG.

The opinion that Simmons has on the Turkoglu situation isn’t just held by Simmons, this seems to be the general consensus. It’s been stated many times, but apparently still needs repeating; the Magic did not sign Bass and re-sign Gortat instead of bringing back Turkoglu. The Magic offered Hedo a 5-year, $45 million deal that he turned down to instead sign with the Toronto Raptors. Toronto has a big Turkish community and his wife urged him to sign there. Simmons also fails to acknowledge that the Magic just signed a pretty good SF in Matt Barnes. Barnes will make this team much tougher and add much needed defense. He can stroke the 3 when he is left alone which makes him a perfect fit.

Bass was not brought in instead of Turkoglu

The Magic were never that unconventional. Sure, they created matchup problems and they shot a lot of 3-pointers, but they only had one player playing out of position. Rashard Lewis played PF and is more of a SF, but at 6’10, that’s not really a stretch. Everyone else played their natural position. The Magic did have a play-making SF in Turkoglu, who is an excellent passer and ball handler. They lose him, but they gain a go-to scorer in Carter and return their All Star PG who can make those plays instead. Turkoglu often fell into funks and at times was a liability, especially of defense. Turkoglu shot worse from the field and from downtown than at any other time in his career last season and his scoring average dipped from 19.5 PPG in 2007-’08 to 16.8 PPG last season. It sank to 15.8 PPG in the playoffs. Don’t get me wrong, Hedo is a good player and a big part of the Magic’s success, but he wanted to leave and he is far from this irreplaceable player that many are making him out to be.

People considered the Magic unconventional mostly due to their 3-point shooting and they’re ability to create “matchup problems” against Cleveland No one really gave thought to the idea that Orlando was simply a better team than Cleveland. Before Nelson’s injury, they were still very much in contention for the #1 seed in the Eastern Conference. They started 33-8, before eventually finishing 59-23. This indicates that their record would have rivaled Cleveland’s had Nelson not been hurt. Anthony Johnson started several games (some without a backup before Tyronn Lue was acquired) before Rafer Alston was traded to Orlando. It took Alston a few weeks to get back into rhythm before Orlando started rolling again. The Magic still try to get the ball into the paint on every possession and pride themselves on excellent defense – two things that are very conventional. Just because Orlando will play slightly more conventional basketball doesn’t mean that they won’t be a better team.

(Andrew Melnick is Howard the Dunk’s lead blogger.Subscribe to his RSS feed and add him on Twitter to follow him daily. Check out his ACC Football preview here.)