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Magic keeps its core intact

Team pinning future success on players who already are on its roster.

By JAMAL THALJI, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published October 29, 2002

ORLANDO -- The wait is over.

Tracy McGrady wants to win now.

The Magic needs to win now.

"We can't wait to see what Tim Duncan is going to do or another free agent," McGrady said. "We really don't have time for that. This is our team right now. This is the team we have to go to war with."

The future has arrived for a franchise that no longer can afford to keep looking forward. The Magic opens the NBA season at 7:30 tonight, playing host to the 76ers.

The luxury tax and a shrinking salary cap mean Orlando cannot count on signing a big-name free-agent forward or center in the 2003 offseason. There is no lottery pick on the horizon who can fill the vacuum left by Shaquille O'Neal left when he bolted in 1996.

So management changed tactics. Maybe a Duncan, or a Jermaine O'Neal, will sign in 2003. Maybe not. Orlando cannot wait to find out. So the Magic will keep the talent it has together and build from there.

If Orlando is to return to the Eastern Conference final for the first time since 1996, the players who will do it are already here.

"We've made a concerted effort, a conscious effort to hold this group together," general manager John Gabriel said.

That's why the most significant offseason news wasn't another successful rehabilitation of former All-Star Grant Hill's oft-troubled left ankle but the five-year, $15-million contract extension signed by Pat Garrity.

Three years ago, the franchise would have jettisoned a promising mid-level talent like Garrity to clear salary-cap room. Instead, it kept Garrity, a maturing 3-point shooter whose toughness belies his wiry 238-pound frame. Because Orlando is rich in scorers, he was moved to power forward.

"This is really the first year we're going to find out where this team can go," Garrity said.

To do that, fourth-year coach Doc Rivers will mask the team's physical shortcomings with intangible strengths.

What the team lacks in the paint and off the glass it hopes to make up for on the court, developing the kind of chemistry, cohesiveness and familiarity that championship teams need, and what Rivers' teams have lacked through years of endless roster moves.

That core is McGrady, the All-NBA swingman; Hill, who has missed two seasons after three ankle surgeries; shooter Mike Miller, the 2000-01 rookie of the year; point guard Darrell Armstrong, whom Rivers wants to return to the bench to lead a raw second unit; and Garrity.

"That's what it's all about," McGrady said. "I don't know how many guys have been on the team since I've been here from Day 1. Everybody's got to have good chemistry, that's why we have to keep the team together.

"I think the guys that have been here, myself, Grant, Mike, Darrell, Pat, we kind of have a feel for where we want to go and what we need to do."

Add post players Horace Grant and Andrew DeClercq and unproven second-year guard Jeryl Sasser and Rivers has eight returnees from last season's roster.

"I love it," Rivers said. "For the first time in my career I can say I'm building my team, my way, I think, of winning."

Said Hill: "That's how we win, with consistency. We're going to roll with this core and see if we can do it."

There are concerns. If a healthy Hill finally returns, this will be the best starting five of Rivers' career. But it also could be his worst bench and frontcourt.

The team addressed the hole in the middleby signing four players to one-year contracts and by using the draft. But every addition is a mystery: 13-year veteran forward Shawn Kemp, journeyman forward/center Pat Burke, second-year Nigerian big man Olumide Oyedeji and rookie forward Ryan Humphrey.

All projects, to be sure. Kemp is a 32-year-old retread, this season's version of Patrick Ewing, who played sparingly last season before retiring. Kemp arrived in Orlando overweight, but he gave up $16-million at Portland for the chance to start again. Burke is the darling of the preseason. Humphrey is undersized but tenacious.

"We obviously haven't found the big (man) we want," Rivers said. "But no one has. We do need a power big, a dominating big. But I think you need to try and deal with what you have."

The Magic opens the season without forward/center Steven Hunter and Oyedeji, who were placed on the injured list Monday. Hunter is out with a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee. He is expected to miss at least two months. Oyedeji has a lower back strain.

There are other problems. Free-agent point guard Jacque Vaughn was signed to start and give Armstrong a chance to come off the bench. But Vaughn struggled in the preseason, and as soon as Armstrong returns from a shoulder strain it could be Vaughn coming off the bench. And Hunter is out until at least December with torn knee ligaments.

Off the court, the Magic's owners, the DeVos family, want a new arena to replace the 13-year-old TD Waterhouse Centre. It doesn't help their cause that Orlando has made four consecutive exits from the first round of the playoffs.

The Magic wants to be taken seriously by league foes and the community alike -- but it's not going to get any help doing it.

"It's all about us," McGrady said. "This is our team. Nobody else is coming to help us.

"We have to do this ourselves."

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