Orlando Magic: Their All-decade least liked starting five

The Orlando Magic did not have much to cheer about from the years 2010-2019, but who makes up their least liked starting five?

The start of a new decade has brought with it renewed hope that the Orlando Magic can continue to climb up the Eastern Conference standings. This after a previous 10-year stretch that brought with it a lot of misery. A terrible period that saw all manner of head coaches come and go, and that failed to yield one sure-fire superstar from their repeated trips to the lottery.

There were the veterans in it for the paycheck and the puzzling free agent acquisitions that looked like a bad fit on paper, and went to be just that on the court too. But who exactly where the most disliked players at each position in what was a stretch in which the Magic began as contenders, before falling all the way to the bottom of the pile and remaining there for seven years?

Not the worst players, although that would be a hard list to compile as well, but rather the ones whose time in Orlando either didn’t go or end well. Some are pretty obvious without thinking too hard about it. Then again, with the organization so bad for so long, deciding who was unfortunate enough to end up on this list wasn’t easy either.

Going with a traditional five-man lineup also meant that some players managed to escape purely because another guy who played the same position had a worse run or ending with the Magic. Think you can guess the five players who are about to be mentioned in the slides ahead? Read on to find out.

Center – Dwight Howard

Where else can we start but at the center position and Dwight Howard? Time is a great healer, and Howard is having his best season in years with the Los Angeles Lakers, as a backup who does all the things his coaches wanted him to do at his previous stops after the Magic without moaning about his role.

Howard even participated in the Slam Dunk competition at the All-Star weekend in Chicago recently, proving that his public image has been repaired somewhat. He was also seen shaking hands and chatting with the Magic’s Aaron Gordon, and fans didn’t seem to really care. Back in 2012 though, this was a wildly different story.

The tale of Howard has been told countless times already, but there is no escaping the fact that his desire to leave the franchise, first for the Brooklyn Nets before being traded to the Lakers, was what led to the many, many terrible years that followed. The Magic may have never won a title with Howard as their best player. They’d had their chance back in 2009, but because of the way he forced his way out, that fact is forgotten about.

The Magic were ahead of their time, playing four shooters around Howard in a style closer to what we see in the league today. The front office of the time did make some questionable moves after that 2009 run though, and Howard can’t be blamed for the fact that a team so close to winning it all lost their key guys and traded for Gilbert Arenas.

What he can be blamed for however is voicing his desire to leave, before changing his mind because of the kind of candy the Magic had on their team plane. Clashing with then-head coach Stan Van Gundy, before getting his wish to leave the organization, being sent to the Lakers instead of the Nets. That was bad, and everything that followed was a direct result of that. He’s the obvious choice for this team.

A special mention must go to Bismack Biyombo. Signed to a four-year, $72 million deal after a couple of good playoff games for the Toronto Raptors, his fit right away next to Vucevic was bad. Signing him made no sense, and it stopped the Magic from using the money in other areas where it was badly needed. Screening and rebounding was really all he did, and his time in Orlando personifies how bad things were there for a number of years.

Power forward – Jeff Green

Jeff Green‘s 69 game tenure with the Magic in 2016-17 was, not a good one. He was paid $15 million to spend one season in Orlando, and was the very personification of mailing it in. The Magic as a whole were bad, but it is hard to remember a time where Green even smiled on the court, and his body language was terrible.

He averaged 9.2 points per contest and was an ugly 27.5 percent from deep. He did this while averaging 22.2 minutes per game. Green did nothing to endear himself to Magic fans, but looking back this wasn’t all his fault. In fact, he has gone on to be perfectly fine for the Washington Wizards and Utah Jazz since departing Orlando and has just landed with the Houston Rockets.

There was no incentive for Green to ever do anything more than show up and collect his bloated paycheck. He started only 11 games and was a part of a crowded rotation that featured Serge Ibaka (until he was traded for Terrence Ross), a younger Aaron Gordon who they were trying to feature, and Mario Hezonja who they were hoping wasn’t going to turn into a bust (he did).

Add in the confusing Vucevic/Biyombo tandem, and a head coach in Frank Vogel who struggled to make the disjointed roster fit, and it is no wonder Green didn’t seem engaged. The Magic limped to a 29-53 record, while also having the second-worst offensive rating (103.7) in the league, and with that Green was back out the door.

Green could have so easily been left off this list, and instead found himself alongside the countless others who played for the Magic in the past decade who were simply just there. All he had to do was not look like he’d rather be doing literally anything else than play basketball and get paid millions to do so.

Fans knew that this version of the Magic was really bad, and most nights that season they were tough to watch. What didn’t help was having a mercenary show up for the bulk of one season to take their money and provide nothing on the court but an expression of sadness. Then again, it was the front office who offered him that kind of money, and he was right to take it.

Small forward – Quentin Richardson

If Green personifies a veteran mailing it in while the Magic struggled through an awful rebuild, then Quentin Richardson represents the beginning of the end of the organization as true contenders. The three-year, $7.5 million deal he signed wasn’t a hit on the Magic financially, but his production while with the team was really poor.

Richardson was present for the first two years of the decade, the last two that Howard would be in town and therefore their last couple as contenders. This was a crucial period for the franchise, who after making the finals were trying to get back to the top of the pile once more. The arrival of Richardson at this time was not what they needed.

Orlando Magic

He appeared in 105 games, starting 22 of them, and averaged 17.3 minutes per contest. This was less of a deal in 2010-11, with the finals core of Howard, Turkoglu, Jameer Nelson, Rashard Lewis and Mickael Pietrus still on the roster. Vince Carter was added that year too. So if they could have gotten anything from Richardson, it would have added to their depth for another postseason run.

Instead, he averaged 4.4 points per game during his time with the Magic. 3-point shooting hadn’t taken off league-wide yet, but as we’ve already mentioned, it was crucial for how the Magic were trying to play the game to allow Howard and his limited offensive game to have the required space needed inside to do damage.

Richardson shot only 31.5 percent from deep, taking valuable minutes away from young guys like Ryan Anderson (then only 22, averaged 39.3 percent from 3-point range in 2010-11) and J.J. Redick (26, shot 39.7 percent from deep in 2010-11). Had Van Gundy used them more and Richardson less, would their seasons in those two years have gone any differently?

We’ll never know, but with Howard teetering towards the exit during this period and the franchise still in the mix as true contenders (despite what the Miami Heat were promising down in South Beach), the addition of Richardson, who ironically played for the Heat the season before joining, was a bad miss. Poor on the court, and damaging to their long-term goals.

Shooting guard – Ben Gordon

There were many puzzling additions during the bleakest years of the rebuild, and former high volume scorer Ben Gordon was certainly one of them. He played just 56 games for the Magic, in what was his last stop in the league, and looked cooked from the first moment he stepped on the court for them.

Again it is unclear what the front office where doing in trying to bring in a veteran who at one point in his career could score, as opposed to playing young guys and seeing what they could turn into. Gordon was with the Magic during the 2014-15 season, did nothing on the court, and blocked the development of players like Victor Oladipo and Evan Fournier.

The organization was always destined for the lottery once the regular season was wrapped up (they went 25-57), and the 6.2 points Gordon put up surely got them there quicker, but it came at the expense of playing younger players more minutes.

Really that’s why he makes this team, and as before it is not all his fault. Gordon was brought into a situation he never should have been and proceeded to play like he’d rather be anywhere else, while other players who were going to be important to the Magic’s future sat on the bench. He was only 31 at the time, but the 14.1 minutes he averaged saw him look labored much of the time.

There was a chance Oladipo could have gone here instead, but when push came to shove it seemed too harsh a call. Oladipo struggled with the Magic though, and a lot of fans didn’t mind seeing the back of him. The case to put him in this spot over Gordon is because of what he would go on to become, and how he never looked close to being that while with the Magic. It hurts to think of where the franchise could be now if they still had him.

Point guard – Elfrid Payton

If it seems strange to put the Magic’s all-time leader in triple-doubles (eight) and the owner of the seventh-most assists in franchise history on this list, then you didn’t watch enough of Elfrid Payton when he was running the floor for the Magic. He spent three-and-a-half seasons in Orlando from 2014 to early 2018, and in the two years since has played for three other teams.

Payton’s problem was that he came to represent how stuck in the past the Magic were. At a time when the 3-point boom was really taking off, they drafted a point guard who could not shoot consistently from deep (30.5 percent during his time with the Magic, although in two of his full seasons there he shot under 28 percent).

We’ve already seen how cramped the rest of the roster was through much of Payton’s time with the team, meaning that the fact he could not shoot the ball comfortably was highlighted even more because they needed somebody to create space on the court for others. Payton was most certainly not that guy.

The Rajon Rondo comparisons were obvious, but consistency was where Payton really struggled. He would go through periods where he looked like one of the better players in the rotation, before following that up with terrible shooting performances and largely anonymous games. Defensively he was usually solid though.

Really then Payton is on this list because he embodies everything that was wrong with the Magic during their rebuild under former General Manage Rob Hennigan. Never bad enough to get the first overall pick, but the lottery picks that they did take (Payton, Oladipo, Hezonja) weren’t good enough to accelerate their progress.

The fact the Magic traded for Payton, giving up Dario Saric in the process, doesn’t help either. Saric has hardly gone on to be a star, but it is interesting to think about how he could have helped the Magic. They quickly found solutions to their point guard issue as well, with D.J. Augustin and Markelle Fultz a better combo than Payton ever was with anybody. Who better to run the show for this band of misfits?