About the Orlando Magic

The Orlando Magic is a professional basketball team and one of seven teams in the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference of the NBA. The Orlando Magic play in TD Waterhouse Centre in Orlando, Florida, and wear jerseys of blue, white, and silver. The team takes its name from Walt Disney Worlds Magic Kingdom, which is also located in Orlando.

Nearly four years before the team sank its first basket, local developer and banker Jim Hewitt began promoting the idea of an NBA team in Orlando. He then lured Philadelphia 76ers General Manager Pat Williams to Florida. Williams went to work selling Orlando Magic T-shirts, caps, and other memorabilia and persuaded locals to make $100 deposits on season-ticket reservations.

All of this was done to impress the NBA with a show of support from central Florida basketball fans. On July 2, 1986, Hewitt's group was one of five that each put up $100,000 to be considered for an NBA expansion team. The payoff came nearly a year later, on April 22, 1987, when the NBA Board of Governors voted to add four new teams: Charlotte and Miami for the 1988-89 season, and Orlando and Minnesota for 1989-90. The price of admission  into the league was $32.5 million per team.

The Magic did exceptional in the NBA draft during the franchises first five years, selecting guard-forward Nick Anderson (1989), forward Dennis Scott (1990), center Shaquille ONeal (1992), and guard Anfernee Penny Hardaway (1993). These young stars popularized the franchise and launched the Magic to the 1995 NBA Finals. ONeal was an immediate force in the NBA, ranking among the leagues top scorers in each of his four seasons with the team.

Orlando won only 18 games in its first season, but with rookie Dennis Scott joining Nick Anderson and veteran point guard Scott Skiles in the 1990-91 season, the team improved its record to 31-51. The Magics luck in drafting top players continued in 1992, when the team won the rights to the number-one pick in that years draft of college players. The club selected Shaquille ONeal, a 7-ft 1-in (2.1-m), 301-lb (136.5-kg) center who left Louisiana State University after his third year.

ONeals impact on the team and the NBA was instant. In his fourth professional game ONeal amassed 31 points and 21 rebounds. He also became the first player in NBA history to win player of the week in his first week in the league. For the season the Magic logged a 41-41 record, but the team didnt make the playoffs.

Because it had the best record among all non-playoff teams, the Magic owned only one lottery ball out of 60 to win the top pick in the 1993 NBA draft. But the Magics name came up first, giving them the first pick for the second year in a row. The club selected forward Chris Webber and then traded him to the Golden State Warriors in exchange for the rights to Anfernee Penny Hardaway and three future first-round draft choices.

The young, talented Magic amassed a 50-32 record in 1993-94 to finish second in the Atlantic Division. However, Orlando was beaten in the first round of the playoffs by the Indiana Pacers. ONeal ended the regular season ranked first in the league in field-goal percentage (.599), second in scoring (29.3 points per game), and second in rebounding (13.2 per game).

In the 1994-95 season the Magic amassed 57 wins and captured the franchises first Atlantic Division title. In the playoffs the Magic defeated the Boston Celtics, the Chicago Bulls, and the Pacers to advance to the NBA Finals Championship. Against the Houston Rockets the series was billed as a battle between ONeal and veteran Rockets center Hakeem Olajuwon, and the more experienced Rockets swept the Magic by winning four straight.

The Magic compiled 60 wins the following year, but in the playoffs the Bulls beat the Magic in the conference semifinals. After the loss, ONeal signed a free-agent contract with the Los Angeles Lakers. After the lockout-shortened 1999 season, Anderson and Hardaway were also traded, and the club entered a rebuilding era under new coach Doc Rivers.