Orlando Magic News for October 28th: The Team Has Already Printed Its Championship T-Shirts
by Evan Dunlap on Oct 28, 2008 4:04 PM EDT
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PrintJohn Denton writes that Dwight Howard and his Orlando Magic teammates are unhappy the national media have overlooked them as championship contenders:
Even though Orlando won 52 games last season and possesses one of the game's great players in center Dwight Howard, the Magic are not being looked at as championship material by most. All 10 of ESPN.com's NBA analysts picked the Magic to repeat as Southeast Division champions, but finish no higher than fourth in the Eastern Conference. And none of them had much faith in the Magic making much noise come playoff time against the likes of Boston, Detroit and Cleveland.
Undoubtedly that comes as harsh news to a Magic team that has quietly printed up T-shirts that read "2008-09 NBA CHAMPIONS," to serve as motivation for a season that already has a distinct Finals-or-bust mentality.
Championship t-shirts already? Yikes. I like the attitude, though. There's no reason why people should write-off the Magic.
To that end, I've decided to keep track of the various preseason predictions some outlets have made regarding the Magic. Here's the link to the special Third Quarter Collapse feature page.
Paul Lukas of Uni Watch gives us his NBA season preview. He seems to have warmed up to the Magic's new uniforms. He also notes that each team that plays on Christmas Day, as the Magic will, is slated to wear a special patch. Cool.
Brian Schmitz lists his Top-10 All-Time Magic players. The overall selection is right, but the ordering is off, in my opinion. Darrell Armstrong should be higher than 10th, and as much as I love Dennis Scott, he shouldn't be 7th. But those are minor quibbles.
That's all. In case you missed it, check out this photo of Rashard Lewis wearing Horace Grant's goggles, and a 1995 NBA Finals hat, as part of the Orlando Sentinel's "Meet the Magic" photo gallery. Great work, Gary W. Green and co. Fantastic photographs.
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… I think two players need to take things personally and have a chip on their shoulders this season. Nelson & Pietrus. All I’m hearing is that the Magic have two back-ups in the backcourt, and I’m sure Nelson/Pietrus is hearing this too. Well, they need to do something about it because yes, the Magic go as far as Dwight but I think more-so, the backcourt is really going to determine how far the team goes this season.
Also, I think the team itself needs to take those predictions and have a complete chip on their shoulder. They need to do something to shut the detractors up, and one thing that would help is a deep playoff run. They’re going to give ‘Bron the benefit of the doubt, simply because he single-handedly took the Cavs to the Finals already. Coupled with the Mo Williams signing, the Cavs are the trendy pick to breakthrough in the East. Do I think that’ll happen? Well, I’ll say that with ’Bron, ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!!!
Deep playoff run. That’s really what the Magic need to this year to shut up the haters and start having bandwagon by which people can hop onto.
Contributing Writer for DePaul's Scout.com website.
Class of 2009 - DePaul University
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