The NBA Playoffs have moved to the conference semifinals and the real contenders for the championship have emerged. These are the teams that have the formula locked down that have the pieces to the puzzle figured out. Whether that gets them to the ultimate goal of winning a championship is something to be determined in the next month and a half.

There are certain things that each of these teams have in common. Certain types of role players that become necessary to winning a title.

The obvious thing that each of these teams have, with some exception, is a superstar player. The Heat have LeBron James. The Spurs have Tony Parker. The Warriors have Stephen Curry. And the Thunder have Kevin Durant.

These are all players that can change the game just by their very presence on the court. Orlando had that in Dwight Howard. And having one of these players makes life all the easier as Howard made even teams of also-rans relevant in the Playoff race.

Orlando is banking on the Draft at the moment to get that kind of a player. More specifically, the 2014 Draft since it does not seem that there is that franchise-altering player in this year's draft.

That does not mean the Magic should not be looking for or have found the pieces that will fit the final puzzle and vision Rob Hennigan sees.

Already, Orlando has some intriguing young players that could easily become part of the Magic's long-term plans if they continue on their upward trajectory.

So what are these secondary pieces, so to speak, the Magic could amass as they wait for their next superstar to really kickstart the drive back to a championship? When you look at the teams that are still left in the eyar there are several similarities.

Yesterday, the Pacers and Knicks played Game Two of their first round series, putting a very clear spotlight on a special anniversary. Nearly 20 years ago on May 7, Reggie Miller completed one of the most incredible late-game scoring performances in scoring eight points in about nine seconds for Indiana's surprising Game One victory.

That was just the first game of NBC's double header that afternoon. And while no opera was sung -- or ESPN 30 for 30 documentary -- was made about the second game, it was just as exciting.

Eighteen years ago yesterday -- May 7, 1995 -- the Magic played their first game in the second round of the Playoffs against Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. The young and plucky Magic were going up against the resurgent Bulls and the greatest player in NBA history, fresh off his baseball sabbatical.

Enter Nick Anderson:

In Susan Slusser's recap of the game for the Orlando Sentinel she wrote that the Bulls should not have been surprised by the Magic's late-game steal. Orlando after all pulled off a similar escape at the end of the regular season when Nick Anderson tipped a pass to Anfernee Hardaway.

It was very beautiful. Penny was off to the races, and I've seen that before. I knew he'd either get fouled or we'd score. And he dished it to Ho Grant, who took it home

Has it really been 18 years since this magical game happened, perhaps the most memorable Magic win in team history?  Orlando went on to win the series in six, defeat that team from Indiana and move on to the NBA Finals.

More videos after the jump!

For those wondering where Anfernee Hardaway has been since retiring from the NBA, he has been back in his hometown of Memphis. Aside from the stray local commercial (he owns a franchise in a local pizza restaurant, I believe) and the stray TNT appearance alongside former teammates Dennis Scott and Shaquille O'Neal, we do not see much of Penny Hardaway.

He has been quite active in basketball however, even away from his second home of Orlando.

Hardaway bought a piece of the Memphis Grizzlies under new principal owner Robert Pera's group. But the big work Hardaway has done has been in the community he grew up in.

Yes, the stories are true. Hardaway is indeed a middle school basketball coach, coaching the very team that he played on when he was growing up in Memphis. There is more to the story though. And that part of the story is developed in CNN writer Wayne B. Drash's book On These Courts.

The book chronicles Hardaway's return to Memphis and his middle school, Lester Middle School, to coach at the request of his friend Desmond Merriweather. The assistant coaching gig became permanent however when Merriweather was diagnosed with colon cancer. The story, originally published on CNN, drew lots of attention and was expanded for this book.

Shannon J. Owens of the Orlando Sentinel caught up with Hardaway with his book officially hitting book stores this week. Here he explains what he hopes readers get from this story:

First of all, they gave Desmond 24 hours to live when he first got diagnosed at the hospital and he’s still living. The first thing is to just have faith that God can make anything possible. That’s the first thing I want people to understand. The second thing is, no matter who you are and where you are in life is, God can always send a blessing and I’ve been a blessing to that neighborhood and to that school to inspire those kids to want to do more, be better people, be better students, to be better basketball players and do something positive in life.

Hardaway is steeped deeply in Magic lore, but the memory of him as one of the best players in the league throughout the mid-90s has largely been forgotten. Hardaway though is not out and about trying to reclaim that former glory. He said he was enjoying retired life of playing golf and traveling.

Kyle O'Quinn immediately became a fan favorite back in summer league. He went toe to toe with top-10 pick Andre Drummond and declared, I don't care when you got picked. O'Quinn set the tone as a player who was going to work hard and grind in the lown post. The kind of player every team needs at some point.

His stat line of 4.1 points and 3.7 rebounds per game in limited minutes were modest. He had a double double against the Knicks in a return to his native New York and then another against the Bobcats a few weeks later. It was great to see O'Quinn take advantage of the opportunity when it was presented to him.

Unfortunately, the life of a second round pick is done on a year-to-year basis. As good as O'Quinn was, his future with the Magic is dependent on a lot of things -- free agent acquisitions, draft picks, training camp work out.

O'Quinn will certainly be with the team in training camp in October. He seems likely to play in Summer League again for the Magic too.

O'Quinn embraced the Magic's youth movement and the opportunity to improve in low-stakes games. O'Quinn told Bob Molinaro of The Virginian-Pilot that the learning was the key for him during his rookie season:

We could do nothing but grow. It was one of those years where you couldn't do too much wrong. I'm not saying we enjoyed losing, but every day you learned something.

That was indeed the point of the season for the Magic at this stage of the team's rebuilding. O'Quinn did not play much at the beginning of the season as he learned the finers points of the NBA game. But he showed that grit and a feathery touch from the perimeter as the season went on. The Magic surely want to see how he develops and continues to grow.

Magic fans certainly appreciated O'Quinn's efforts. He won the team's Aleve Hustle Player of the Year award, as voted on by the fans.

O'Quinn will have a lot of work to do this summer to continue his development and improvement. Just like every other Magic player. It will be interesting to see how he comes into Summer League and what improvements he has made.

To little surprise, the Magic were left largely out of the running for many of the NBA awards passed out this year. Being the team with the worst record in the league, it was going to be pretty clear that the Magic would be largely ignored. These awards tend to go to players on teams with, say, winning records.

The winners were not surprises either. LeBron James was a near unanimous winner of the MVP award. Damian Lillard won Rookie of the Year. J.R. Smith was the league's Sixth Man of the Year, edging out Jamal Crawford. And Paul George won the league's Most Improved Player of the Year Award.

Except for Nikola Vucevic in the Most Improved Player race, the Magic had little hope of getting recognition in the awards races. And it turned out that would be the case.

Vucevic and Arron Afflalo were the only players to receive any votes in the NBA's awards season voting. J.J. Redick also received votes for Sixth Man of the Year.

Vucevic finished fourth in the race for Most Improved Player behind George, Greivis Vasquez and Larry Sanders. Vucevic took advantage of increased playing time this year in scoring 13.1 points and 11.9 rebounds per game, amassing the third most double doubles in the league this season including three 20/20 games and the franchise-best 29 rebounds against Miami.

Afflalo, surprisingly finished 21st in the Most Improved voting.

However, the shocker was that neither Maurice Harkless nor Andrew Nicholson were among those voted on for Rookie of the Year. Harkless came on strong at the end of the year after struggling to find his way at the beginning of the season. Perhaps he did not have the yearlong consistency of John Jenkins, who finished with the least amount of votes. However, it still seemed like Harkless should have gotten at least one vote.

Better luck next year when Harkless tries to get to All-Star Weekend for the Rising Stars Challenge, a competition that Nicholson participated in with Vucevic this year in Houston.

Of course, it is tough to break into voting awards when your team is at the bottom of the standings. Whatever improvement or success Orlando might have had went largely unnoticed to the national media it would seem.

Over the next few weeks Orlando Magic Daily will be taking a look at the things that went right and wrong this season as Orlando ended its season with its first Lottery season in six years.

Hedo Turkoglu has had an incredible 13-year run in the NBA. Much of that has been with the Orlando Magic. He won Most Improved Player of the Year in Orlando. He raised his family in Orlando. He helped guide the Magic to the NBA Finals with strong performances and a legendary postseason.

All that seems so long ago. Turkoglu has largely disappointed -- whether he was in Toronto, Phoenix or back in Orlando -- following that Finals run in 2009. No season probably disappointed as much as this past one and it likely spelled the end for Turkoglu's career in the NBA. His second chance in Orlando might very well prove to be his last.

The pain for Turkoglu started on opening night when he broke his hand in the third quarter. Turkoglu was 3 for 4 from the floor with six points and two steals in 16 minutes. He came into camp in the best shape in a while and seemed poised to bounce back from his rough seasons and be a leader for a young Magic squad.

Orlando hoped he would so he could increaes his trade value at the very least and help the team get some value in return for him. The organization wanted him to contribute to the team in some tangible way for sure.

The early season injury completely tore away that dream. Though Turkoglu came back, he was never quite right. The conditioning he had from the begininng of the season and in training camp was gone and it was tough for him to get back into shape.

Then the bad news really came. Things got worse for Turkoglu and for the Magic.

Earlier, I linked to a consensus mock draft big board as we begin the countdown to the NBA Draft Lottery. The Magic know only that they will have one of the top four picks. With the best odds at winning the lottery, Orlando should begin running the scenarios of what it would like to see happen should they end up with any of the top-4 picks. 

According to Joe Kotoch of SheridanHoops.com, the best scenario ends with the Magic selecting Kansas sharpshooter Ben McLemore, and possibly trading the No. 1 pick to whoever wants Nerlens Noel most (h/t Evan Dunlap of Orlando Pinstriped Post):

The big news here is this: Sources around the NBA have told SheridanHoops that if the Orlando Magic or New Orleans Hornets win the lottery, they both would be strongly inclined to trade the pick to whichever fellow lottery team wants to pay the most for the right to draft Nerlens Noel.

The caveat for Orlando is that it does not want to lose out on Ben McLemore of Kansas, whom it covets the most, or Trey Burke/Victor Oladipo as a fallback. And it’s not that the Magic don’t like Noel. Rather, they don’t need him, already in possession of a top-tier NBA center on a rookie contract in two-year veteran Nikola Vucevic. Same with the Hornets and Anthony Davis.

To recap, if the Magic were to win the No. 1 pick, they would seek to trade it to whichever team wants Nerlens Noel the most, so long as the Magic trade back high enough to take Ben McLemore or get Trey Burke or Victor Oladipo. If this report is true, then it seems the Magic are looking to Draft a guard, seemingly satisfied with the frontcourt depth with Nikola Vucevic, Andrew Nicholson, Glen Davis and Tobias Harris on the roster.

That certainly makes sense. My opinion, as I stated on the ELOOnline podcast last week, is the Magic are not yet in the position to draft need and need to continue collecting assets and talent. I happen to have Ben McLemore as the top player in the Draft. If the Magic get the No. 1 pick, I doubt they will find a deal that allows them to keep within McLemore's range and they should probably just take McLemore with the top pick overall.

Perhaps this is a bit of a smokescreen and the guy the Magic are really after is one of those "fallback" players. Magic fans really like the idea of bringing Trey Burke in to apprentice under Jameer Nelson for a year before becoming the starting point guard.

There is a long way to go before these scenarios come into play. It appears this is just food for thought to pass the time.

We are in May which means the march to Secaucus is on ahead of the May 21 NBA Draft Lottery. That will air on ESPN at 8 p.m., so mark your calendars.

Beginning later on this month, the Magic and other teams around the league should begin bringing in draft prospects for interviews and individual workouts. There is also the NBA Combine in Chicago where teams around the league will get a close look at the top players in this year's Draft and continue doing their homework.

Likely the Magic are still breaking down and discussing the pros and cons of players all over the Draft and finishing up their evaluations of the top prospects. It is hard to do much projecting until we know where the Magic are picking. All we know is that the Magic are getting one of the top four picks in this year's Draft.

Not a lot has changed, but with less than two months before the NBA Draft, it would be good to keep track of who the Magic might take.

Our friends over at Hoops Manifesto have compiled a "Consensus" Mock Draft Big Board using the mock drafts and big boards released by several Draft sites. The top four are: Nerlens Noel, Ben McLemore, Anthony Bennett and Otto Porter.

Noel has been the biggest riser since the NCAA Tournament. He has been out since February with a torn ACL, but nobody among the top picks were able to separate themselves. Noel is considered by many to have the most talent and highest upside in this Draft. He also is an absolute force defensively.

The big news in the NBA this week was Jason Collins coming out as the first actively gay male athlete in professional team sports in the United States. The announcement was met with generally positive comments and support from the NBA and players around the league.

Collins has taken this unprecedented step at a time when homosexuality is widely accepted in American society and the push for marriage equality is gaining steam -- even Paul Ryan, the super conservative Wisconsin senator who was Mitt Romney's running mate in the previous Presidential election, came out this week in support of adoption for gay couples.

It is a major change in the last decade and a sign of progress of acceptance and tolerance within this country. Certainly, a decade ago the mood would have been different.

That was the atmosphere that John Amaechi was playing in when he was a member of the Magic from 2000-01 (two seasons). Amaechi, in his book Man in the Middle, in which he described being a closeted gay man in an NBA locker room, suspected that his career abruptly ended in Utah because of homophobic feelings within the organization.

When Amaechi came out as gay in 2007, the reaction was one of near shock. It was still a completely foreign concept in sports. The mood had changed however, as Tim Hardaway was reviled for homophobic comments he made on a local radio station in Miami. Hardaway, to his credit, has reformed his views and is more accepting now, admitting his ignorance in his past.

Amaechi has been making the radio rounds, providing his usually perceptive and witty commentary on the issue and current events. He was on with Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel on his Open Mike show on 740 The Game on Wednesday to talk about Collins and his experience.

There, Amaechi revealed he suspected Magic teammates knew he was gay and they "took care of" him. It seems even a decade ago, locker rooms were more understanding than originally suspected.

I just thought I would lose my job. My teammates knew. We didn't talk about, but they knew. ... My teammates took care of me.

Over the next few weeks Orlando Magic Daily will be taking a look at the things that went right and wrong this season as Orlando ended its season with its first Lottery season in six years.

Except for a few shining examples, the Magic's drafting history is not so stellar.

We remember, Shaquille O'Neal, Dwight Howard and Mike Miller. Nick Anderson and Dennis Scott were great picks in the early years. Between them though you have an organization that has constantly swung and missed on young players.

During the Tracy McGrady years, the Magic were unable to stock up on cheap, young talent to try and stem the tide when Grant Hill was hurt. Often the players Orlando drafted in this era were not able to contribute.

It is not easy to find great draft picks in the middle of the draft, but John Gabriel certainly could have and should have done better than the combination of Keyon Dooling (traded to the Clippers on draft night), Courtney Alexander, Steven Hunter, Jeryl Sasser, Curtis Borchardt (traded to the Jazz for Ryan Humphrey on draft night) and Reece Gaines.

All of those players either never contributed or struggled to contribute to the Magic during an important time in Magic history.

Under Otis Smith, the Magic seemed more interested in dealing their draft picks for veteran players to stay in the championship hunt. Only J.J. Redick and Courtney Lee contributed to the team in the drafts after Howard.

Then came Rob Hennigan and this year's Draft. Orlando picked up Andrew Nicholson and Kyle O'Quinn in their first two picks, two players with experience from the college game and pretty refined games entering the league already. Then Hennigan acquired rookie Maurice Harkless, Philadelphia's first round draft pick. He also picked up second-year player Nikola Vucevic. Later in the season he grabbed second-year forward Tobias Harris.

For once, the Magic mined young talent and struck gold.