Orlando Magic vs Miami Heat: A comparison of the two
By Luke Duffy
3. Star players
Traditionally Orlando has been the team to either lose their best players (Shaquille O’Neal, Dwight Howard), watch them go down with injuries (Grant Hill), or never even get them in the first place (Tim Duncan).
The Heat, on the other hand, have always at least been in the mix to land top players (most recently meeting with Kevin Durant before he signed for Golden State). Their Big Three era of James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh helped usher in the “superteam” world we live in today.
But if you look at both team’s current rosters, the Heat are still on top in this category. In Dragic, they have a player who has appeared in an All-Star Game. Whiteside too has been on the cusp of playing in that exhibition game on a couple of occasions.
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The Magic have no such individual, although Gordon continues to work his way towards this goal. If we’re talking about this coming season as the only factor in determining who has more star players, it is still the Heat.
Whether they’ll go on to have better seasons than some Magic players remains to be seen, but they do fall under the category of star in more ways than Magic players do. On top of this, they also have two players in Justise Winslow and Wayne Ellington who they will expect much of.
It is possible that one of them does this, particularly Winslow who promised so much when he was drafted (and was ironically a player who could have been useful to Orlando’s own rebuild).
The unpredictable nature of the Magic’s roster however means that he we revisit this question before next season, we may get a different answer. For now though, this category belongs to the Heat, although Orlando finally has the potential to one day soon be relevant in this area again.