National Basketball Association

Orlando Magic Top 25: Comparing our lists

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

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Orlando Magic Daily recently completed its list of the top 25 players in Orlando Magic history. How does our list compare with the one OrlandoMagic.com made?

Last week, Orlando Magic Daily completed its list of the top 25 players in Orlando Magic history. The list generated plenty of discussion and debate over Magic history. There are certainly areas with the list ripe for debate — especially at the top where we nearly unanimously selected Dwight Howard over Shaquille O’Neal.

A big reason we endeavored to do that list was to fill time during this dead time in the season and for news. Whoops, did not mean to admit that.

There was a news hook though. OrlandoMagic.com ran its own fan poll on who the best player in Magic history should be with a top-25 list.

No offense to fans, but they sometimes get clouded by their fandom. Judging by some of the mentions I got when we named Dwight Howard No. 1 (again, nearly unanimously), there are a lot of people unwilling to forgive Dwight Howard for leaving the team in 2012.

The OrlandoMagic.com poll became problematic when Vince Carter won six individual matchups and rose to No. 10 all time in Magic history. Carter is extremely popular, but even at the time fans considered him disappointing. He became the goat for the team’s failures to win a title in 2010. Nostalgia is a powerful drug.

These lists are full of it though. We were guilty of it too — fully admitting it in our analysis of Bo Outlaw he statistically does not measure up but has a lot of psychic value to the team.

How did our list compare with the one fans voted on with the Magic? Where did we differ? Let’s compare our lists:

No.	Orlando Magic Daily	OrlandoMagic.com
1	Dwight Howard	Shaquille O’Neal
2	Shaquille O’Neal	Anfernee Hardaway
3	Anfernee Hardaway	Dwight Howard
4	Tracy McGrady	Tracy McGrady
5	Hedo Turkoglu	Hedo Turkoglu
6	Nick Anderson	Nick Anderson
7	Rashard Lewis	Jameer Nelson
8	Jameer Nelson	Rashard Lewis
9	Dennis Scott	Horace Grant
10	Darrell Armstrong	Vince Carter
11	Scott Skiles	Dennis Scott
12	Nikola Vucevic	Scott Skiles
13	Horace Grant	Darrell Armstrong
14	Bo Outlaw	Nikola Vucevic
15	Grant Hill	Steve Francis
16	Steve Francis	J.J. Redick
17	Vince Carter	Grant Hill
18	J.J. Redick	Victor Oladipo
19	Victor Oladipo	Ryan Anderson
20	Rony Seikaly	Bo Outlaw
21	Mike Miller	Terry Catledge
22	Reggie Theus	Tobias Harris
23	Tobias Harris	Arron Afflalo
24	Ryan Anderson	Pat Garrity
25	Terry Catledge	Jason Richardson

It is really incredible to see how similar the lists are. There is not a ton of disagreement. We had Reggie Theus, Mike Miller and Rony Seikaly in our list instead of Arron Afflalo, Pat Garrity and Jason Richardson. Afflalo was 26th in our voting, Richardson 27th and Garrity 32nd. I am a bit surprised Miller did not crack the Magic’s list or even Cuttino Mobley (although he played only a half season with the Magic).

Not having Rony Seikaly, a very gifted scorer who helped the Magic make the Playoffs in 2017 is very surprising too. Especially considering our panel rated him so highly. Seikaly averaged 16.4 points per game in two seasons with the Magic.

The other notable difference is Vince Carter. He won several days of voting to climb to 10th overall. A mistake the Magic even seemed to put a halt to.

Generally though, it feels like the top-25 players in Magic history are relatively set and relatively well tiered. There is not much debate who should go where or around what number.

Shaquille O’Neal, Dwight Howard, Anfernee Hardaway and Tracy McGrady are the clear top four in franchise history. Hedo Turkoglu, Nick Anderson, Rashard Lewis and Jameer Nelson in the next group of four. Followed by Darrell Armstrong, Dennis Scott, Scott Skiles and Horace Grant. Maybe Nikola Vucevic can climb into that group with another solid year this year.

There is some recency bias for sure. But Victor Oladipo’s relative impact seems properly rated in the late teens. Tobias Harris might deserve some more merit or might just be a fan favorite lost last season.

These are interesting debates, for sure. The Magic have a very nice group of core players that make up their franchise history. The top 10 is fairly set with a core of players tiered throughout.

It looks like our two lists are pretty close. Through the power of crowdsourcing and large sample sizes, it seems we have a pretty solid list of the top 25 players in team history.

Feel free to share your thoughts on these top-25 lists in the comments below or on Twitter @omagicdaily.