Swept 0-4 in 1995, but the players roster was obviously more stacked with Penny and Shaq, compared to just Dwight in 2009.
Shaq and (peak) Penny were obviously/arguably bigger stars than Dwight ever was.
JUST Dwight?! Sir, please do not disrespect Hedo Turkoglu and Rashard Lewis. Plus one of the deepest, most compete teams in franchise history.
I was too young for 1995, that team was crazy though. But in 2009 I felt we had a good chance. Dwight was a top 2 or 3 player, Hedo and Rashard were deadeyes with Hedo also being an unreal playmaker and steady force in close 4th quarter games. Then we just had an assortment of hustle and shooters as key role players around Dwight.
I know we only took one game but there were some close games in the series that just fell apart at the end.
Not a Magic fan, but ‘95 definitely felt closer. They had just beat friggin’ Jordan and the Bulls. And while you could say Hakeem and Shaq were more or less equals, Penny was better than the 1995 version of Drexler or any other player on the Rockets. I don’t remember the actual odds, but I feel like the Magic were the favorites going into those finals, even though they ended up getting swept.
2009, it felt like they had a very promising future. Turns out, 2009 ended up being the peak for those the Dwight-led Magic teams. But at the time, it looked like they were gonna compete for the championships for years to come, this just wasn’t their time yet.
C’mon man. There’s barely any Magic fans as is on this sub and definitely not any old enough to remember 1995.
Tbf, certainly seems like a lot of old Magic “fans” from that era are now conveniently fans of other teams. We lost a lot of bandwagon fans over the years.