Orlando Magic: 10 stars you forgot played for the Magic
By Luke Duffy
2. Shawn Kemp
As hard as it is to think of Ewing in a different jersey, the same absolutely applies to Shawn Kemp. Hard as it is to believe, he actually finished his NBA career with the Orlando Magic. The fact that he was only 33 makes this even crazier. Kemp’s star burned bright, he was a six-time All-Star, it just didn’t burn for as long as it should have.
He made his name with the Seattle SuperSonics and was arguably the second-best player in an NBA Finals matchup that featured Michael Jordan in 1996. One year removed from that he was sent to the Cavaliers, in a deal that if the Supersonics still existed as we know them now, they would surely still be kicking themselves over.
Kemp would be an All-Star one final time while with the Cavaliers, before the wheels came off alarmingly quickly. It is slightly ironic that he came to the Orlando Magic the year after Ewing was done (2002-03), to play with mostly the same band of misfits as Ewing had. There must be something in the water about legendary big men who made their names elsewhere finishing their careers with the Magic.
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Unlike Ewing however, Kemp wasn’t quite as bad. It was just hard to believe that somebody who had dunked on everybody earlier in his career could regress that much. Kemp played in all but three games that season, starting on 55 occasions. His numbers of 6.8 points and 5.7 rebounds were pedestrian.
Once the year was done, he was replaced by Juwan Howard on the roster. A fitting end, in Magic history anyway, for Kemp. From there that was his professional career in America done, despite a couple of failed comeback attempts. There was some time spent in Italy but one of the weirder careers in league history ended with the Magic, which is something of a theme here.