The Orlando Magic were the feature of the 30 for 30 documentary This Magic Moment a few weeks ago, bringing back to light the good times and the fall of the mid-1990s Orlando Magic.
The documentary was about a young team growing and trying to become championships before ego and the travails of the NBA helped bring it down. But it was also very much a story about the city and how it came of age.
The first quarter of the documentary is spent explaining what Orlando was like and how the city got a team. As Pat Williams says in the famous video from the 1980s, there was no arena, no logo, no players. It was all just a dream.
And as the Miami reporter says when talking about Orlando as a potential NBA city, the city’s greatest cultural contribution was a guy in a mouse suit. I said it harsher than he did, but we all knew what he meant even without the directors putting the Mickey Mouse footage over that quote.
This Magic Moment was not just a story about that team and Shaquille O’Neal and Anfernee Hardaway, it is also a story about the city and how it grew up — and even its own naiveté.
It is kind of hard to imagine what Orlando was like before the Magic.
On an episode of Scott Anez’s radio show on ESPN Orlando the day following the premiere of the documentary, he spoke to former Magic general managers Pat Williams and John Gabriel and former Magic assistant coach Tom Sterner to talk about the documentary and the whole story. They tell some incredible stories.
Including some about how the city of Orlando grew.
The trio tell some incredible stories about the team throughout that era from the beginning to the end. It is just like watching the documentary all over again.
The three tell some great stories about the young days of the team and the team itself. It includes some great Shaquille O’Neal stories and some great stories from the finals run.
One of the most interesting things about the whole story though remains Orlando’s role in it as a young franchise and a young city. Orlando really grew up as a city thanks to the Magic.
So many opportunities for the city were created with the team’s arrival. And they delivered them all, helping the city grow and become a major league sports city. It is a feeling that is never going to be captured again (even with Orlando City’s sudden growth).
Orlando was a one-building town in the late-1980s. Eventually it grew into a budding metropolis. The magic were a big part of that growth.
