Can you feel the Magic?

As expansion franchises go, the Orlando Magic is a pretty lucky team. Since their inception in 1990, they’ve managed to find themselves playing in the NBA finals, the conference finals and are perennially a playoff team. Names such as Tracy McGrady, Shaquille O’Neal and Penny Hardaway have all spent some of their prime years in Orlando. Even if it hasn’t brought them a championship, the Magic have always been a team headed in that direction. This season, however, something is different. This season the Magic seem to have lost their direction. The franchise that has been, on several occasions, the brightest face for the future of the NBA, seems to be lost somewhere between the lottery and a first round exit in the playoffs.

Since 2001, a string of injuries and bad luck seems to have kept the Magic from reaching their potential, as a team that boasted two of the leagues future greats, in Grant Hill and T-Mac. After McGrady forced a trade to the Rockets for Steve Francis and spare parts, the Magic are left in a rather precarious position. Francis is a player capable of having a team built around him, and when you trade the player that you’ve built your team around, you want another piece to build around. He’s in the prime of his career and isn’t the type of player that gets better with age. While some point guards can continue to play past their prime, ones who base their game around scoring, like Gary Payton, tend to be best suited for the bench in the twilight of their career. Franchise is still nowhere near that point, but its coming, in the not too distant future. Same goes for Grant Hill, whose twilight could happen any day if he steps on his ankle wrong. Then there’s Dwight Howard, the newest #1 draft pick to grace the team with his presence. Howard will be a superstar in the not too distant future. Think of him as the next Amare Stoudamire, only with better rebounding and defense.

So where does that leave the Magic? They have essentially three different building blocks to put this team together. All three pieces are going to be peaking, or have peaked, at different times. With the exception of Howard, it’s going to be tough to trade any of those pieces. One school of thought says that you should just let the team play and miss the playoffs, thereby accumulating draft picks. When the major contracts come off the books then you sign whoever’s available. While teams like Atlanta and New Orleans have failed using this strategy, Orlando, because of its superstar to be, might just be able to pull this off. But then you’ve got to deal with an unhappy Francis and Hill. Guys like that don’t want to spend their time waiting for the team to grow. Francis is still young enough that there could be some overlap between his prime and Howard’s. The long and short is, the Magic should probably take a proactive approach to improving this team. Their history shows they will, but how does a team like this do it?

The best option is to trade for players who will be in their primes at the same time. The Boston Celtics provide the Magic with a partner that can mutually benefit from a trade of this type. A trade of Steve Francis and parts for Ricky Davis, Delonte West and Raef Lafrentz could make an immediate impact for both teams. For Boston, it gives them a legit starting point guard and another star to pair with Paul Pierce, who’s also ready to win right now. The Magic get a younger replacement for Francis’ scoring, in Davis, as well as a young point guard prospect, in West. Lafrentz isn’t a bad player and playing bench minutes, backing up Howard and Kelvin Cato, should keep him in better shape to avoid injuries. His contract expires the same year as Francis’ so they’re not going to betting too much relief there, except that Lafrentz earns several million dollars a year less than Francis does.

Another option is to trade for another star to pair with Hill and Francis. This team, with another star, would instantly be back in contention. Trading Dwight Howard, though unorthodox, could give the Magic that extra firepower they need to be a contender today. A trade of Howard, Tony Battie and Hedo Turkoglu to the Jazz for Mehmet Okur and Carlos Boozer would accomplish just that. With a frontcourt of Boozer and Okur, the Magic would have both the offensive and defensive power to compete with teams in the East. Although it’s tough to imagine this win today scenario panning out for the Magic, since it almost never works when teams try it, since teams need time to develop together. A team built around Howard that will begin to hit their stride in two to three years then, seems to be the best option.

The point of all this is that the Magic, as a franchise that seems to enjoy winning, need to step up and make some moves to get themselves outside the shadow of mediocrity. A team that spends the way this one does to win, even if its attempts to do so are foiled by injuries or free agents leaving, obviously wants to be more than mediocre. If they can make the right moves to put a team around either Howard or Francis, they could be right back in the hunt for a championship either today, or tomorrow.