| 26 August 2010
ESPN is completing its late summer predictions, paneling their crew of experts and writers to put in their votes, and predictably Miami is a big favorite. Everyone is enamored with the Heat and the trio that is there. On paper, it is hard to argue that Miami will not win the East and be a favorite to win the title.
But don't think Orlando is not lurking in the background. ESPN's experts consider the Magic to be the second best team in the Eastern Conference by a healthy margin. The Heat are, as expected, the favorite garnering 71 percent of the votes in the poll. Orlando comes in second with 16 votes (17 percent) and Boston in third with 10 (11 percent).
For the title? Orlando is a distant third with only five votes. The ESPN panel overwhelmingly picked the Lakers to repeat and win their third straight title.
That will be the argument for the season. Can the battle-tested, built from the ground up, known chemistry teams -- Orlando and Los Angeles -- defeat a team hastily built in one summer? It is a question that will probably shape the future of the NBA (new collective bargaining agreement notwithstanding).
Orlando has that chemistry. The core has been together for three years now. Even the new players that were brought in during the Magic's summer of change in 2009 have been with the team before. That comfort should mean there are less hiccups then early last season. And still the team won 59 games, the same amount as the chemistry-rich 2008-09 team. So why not think, at least for the regular season, Orlando could be better?
The Magic made little tweaks aimed at shoring up weak spots last year and replacing players lost to free agency. Orlando made its splashy moves, for better or for worse, last summer. This is the team the Magic will go forward with.
And Orlando is still a very good team. But the one element that was missing was the underdog feeling. Shaquille O'Neal was wrong when he called the Magic a "front runner" two years ago while he was still with Phoenix. Orlando is not a front runner.
The team is a dogged fighter who wants to prove everyone wrong. The Magic are like Seabiscuit. You have to hold them back and have them look into the eye of their opponent before zooming past them.
That might have been the big thing that went wrong last year (besides Rashard Lewis getting sick at the absolute wrong time). Orlando got comfortable being the favorite. Against teams like Charlotte and Atlanta, that does not matter. The Magic were clearly the better team. But against equal teams -- like Boston -- Orlando quite possibly needed that extra motivation and edge to overcome them.
It is not an excuse and no one should use it as one. But we all know Dwight Howard is very sensitive to what the media says about him (or at least it appears he is with his comments to the media). He is the team's leader and he is definitely motivated by media doubting him and his team.
J.A. Adande agrees in his pick for the Magic to win the Eastern Conference: "They tried playing the 'nobody respects us' card for the past two seasons and maybe it will finally take effect now. Dwight Howard was a dark horse MVP candidate last season, but now that LeBron is in South Beach, Dwight can no longer be considered the best player in the state of Florida. Take that, plus the humiliating first three games of the Eastern Conference finals, and if Howard and the Magic don't enter 2010-11 in vengeance mode, then they never will."
There is probably not a truer statement. The Finals loss clearly was not motivating enough. Orlando may have thought it could waltz back to the Finals. The Eastern Conference Finals loss may snap the team into "vengeance mode" as Adande calls it. And he is right. If the Magic do not come out firing and ready to prove they can dominate still, and then deliver in the postseason, they may never do it.
At that point we can talk about rebuilding and bringing in Chris Paul or Carmelo Anthony or whoever. This team deserves another chance because of the so-called "vengeance" factor. If Miami wins, then we will know that strategy works, right?
Answering that question about established team chemistry is coloring everything about this season. Alfredo Berrios of ESPN DePortes says that will be Orlando's advantage in winning the title:
"I believe the Magic will play as a more cohesive unit, and have more depth than the Heat. Plus, they have Dwight Howard, a strong center who will give the Heat a lot of problems should they meet in the conference finals. If the Lakers face the Magic in the Finals, I don't think they'll have the upper hand like they did two years ago, especially after Orlando beats Miami."
Orlando is back to being the underdog. And that is perhaps exactly where the team needs to be to bond together and push through when things get tough. Something the Magic did not do last year.
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