Orlando Magic: More disrespect on NBA’s 75th anniversary list

The Orlando Magic are off to an 0-2 start this season, and although this poor beginning shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, the beatdowns they’ve received from the San Antonio Spurs and New York Knicks have not been great for morale early on. Then again, this is what you get when you decide to let young players make mistakes, and limit the input of veterans.

To add insult to injury, the NBA recently released their list of the 75 greatest players of the first 75 years in the league (check out our 75th-anniversary list here). As is always the case, there were those who felt they should have made the cut. Kyrie Irving should probably have been there, while Klay Thompson wasn’t happy being left off either.

We shouldn’t be surprised at this stage, but the Magic were once more left out in the cold during this celebratory time for the NBA.

Why does the national media (with the notable exception of Zach Lowe), and indeed most fans, seem to hate the Magic? They barely get talked about, which is to some extent understandable at this moment in time when you consider they are young and don’t have a true superstar on their roster yet. But they do have among the top young cores in the league, not that you’d know by the way they are discussed.

Even when they are playoff regulars, the praise is still hard to come by, as this list proved. Was it surprising that neither Tracy McGrady or Penny Hardaway didn’t make the list? Despite the unfortunate injury woes of both, it certainly was. Especially when you consider Andre Iguodala advocated for Irving as a top 25 player of all time, never mind 75.

If NBA players are the ones who really understand who the greats are, then why did nobody go to bat for either Hardaway or McGrady? You might remember that Kobe Bryant himself went on record as saying that McGrady was the toughest opponent he ever faced. McGrady never had much postseason success, but with the Toronto Raptors, Magic and Houston Rockets (where he helped spearhead a 22 game winning streak), he had serious standout moments.

If making a case for both of these players is hard, and the injuries have to be accounted for, then the snub of Dwight Howard is absolutely ridiculous. Surely recency bias is at play here, because the newest generation of fans remember Howard as a team-hopping big man, who couldn’t make it work with Bryant, James Harden and others, before fading into obscurity with the Charlotte Hornets and Washington Wizards.

Even if a second stint with the Los Angeles Lakers brought a championship only the other day, in his third go-around with the organization, did he get into it with Anthony Davis. It is clear that Howard has been a difficult individual on a whole host of teams, even if LeBron James got some production out of him en route to a championship in the bubble.

But before he was the superstar who was trying to force his way out of a situation (and doing so nearly as messily as Ben Simmons), Howard was a three-time Defensive Player of the Year. Just being on the roster meant the Magic were a lock to make the playoffs every year, and in 2009 were the reason that we never got a LeBron vs Kobe finals.

Actually, that might be reason enough not to like Howard? All joking aside though, he dragged the Magic to within one series of a championship and was at one point so popular with young fans especially that he appeared as the cover athlete on NBA Live 10. Really there is zero reason why Damian Lillard for example made the list over Howard, as illustrated perfectly by Shane Young.

This is not slandering Lillard either. You’re not asking this writer who his favorite NBA players are because you don’t care, but he has two and they are Lillard and Luka Doncic. So it is nothing personal against him. He has done wonderful things in a small market that doesn’t get as much love as even it should with the Portland Trail Blazers.

The thing is though, by any measurable metric, that Howard did more in an even darker NBA backwater. He made a franchise relevant that isn’t even close to being so unless it has a true superstar. Howard was that, the most dominant of big men at a time when they still ruled the league. Lillard is almost as dominant a guard in an era of heightened guard play, but the key word is “almost”.

What then held Howard back? Truthfully it was probably some combination of playing for the Magic, recency bias and his own troublesome career after he left the organization. His popularity cratered from that point and the league shifted towards guard play. A perfect storm of reasons to overlook the guy.

But you don’t need to be a former player or a “hooper” to know. Dwight Howard isn’t just a top 75 player of all time. He is top 50, a guy with all of the accolades who managed to accomplish them playing in a small market. His legacy with the Orlando Magic is complicated, but if their fans are arguing hard for his inclusion, and they are, then you know it was bad. Maybe by the time Season 100 rolls around there will be more love for The City Beautiful?