Jersey retirements

[drsd]

FYI. Travis Deiner is missing from the list.

The sad thing is that the youth of this board might not understand Diener's brilliance !

[IllMagic04]

None but I voted for Jameer.

[The_Watcher]

[NEM]

Forgot about that bum... we have had our fair share or Croatians come through here... giriček, kasun, hezonja, rudež, drafted šarić... too bad none of them have been worth a ****... would have been nice to have had kukoč or petrović in the 90's. We got stuck with all the retreads.

[purpleswordfish]

When it comes to retiring a player's number, I always think to what Scott Skiles said when he was honored by the Magic well before becoming the team's head coach. He talked about how it should be reserved for the type of player that did something monumental for a franchise and was an elite player in their era. The Magic have had a few players that met one of those two qualifications, but not one has met both.

Shaq - elite player, didn't win a championship with the Magic, left on bad terms.
Penny - elite player, didn't win a championship, demanded trade after coach killing.
T-Mac - elite player, never won anything, demanded trade when things got rough.
Dwight Howard - elite player, didn't win a championship, embarrassed the franchise on a national level.

You could probably talk me into Nick Anderson. But, I think we all know that isn't happening. If he had played for the franchise his entire career, I think it would have happened just for sentimental reasons. Same goes for Jameer Nelson.

Simply put, we haven't had that one Magic lifer that deserves the honor of having their number retired. I'm old school, I think it should only go to the guys that left an indelible mark on the franchise's history (winning a championship) and stayed with the team.

[rusoopE]

Meer and Nick no doubt

[MagicMadness]

I prefer to keep all these guys in the Magic Hall of Fame.

I don't like the idea of retiring a jersey just for the sake of it. When a player truly deserves it, they should get it. Retiring a number means nobody gets to wear it ever again; a hundred years from now (assuming the team and NBA exist) few Magic fan historians are going to know who Turkoglu is or why nobody can wear #32 anymore because Shaq once wore it for 4 years before going on to much greater things elsewhere. Every now and then you see key role players get their jersey retired, but it's usually because they were an important part of championship teams and/or were team captain for several years. I think if Jameer Nelson had played his entire career here, he would possibly deserve it.

Dwight is probably the closest we've got, but I think he needed a few more years here to cement it. I don't like the idea of retiring his or Shaq's numbers since they didn't win titles, each played less than a decade here, and left on very bad terms either right before or during their primes.

[Zilight Twone]

Forgot about that bum... we have had our fair share or Croatians come through here... giriček, kasun, hezonja, rudež, drafted šarić... too bad none of them have been worth a ****... would have been nice to have had kukoč or petrović in the 90's. We got stuck with all the retreads.

We drafted Saric for Philly, AKA Philly drafted his rights

[ButchMcRae]

We haven't had a single superstar that left on good terms, so I don't know why Dwight gets singled out. I hope Magic fans get over it someday. He gave us some great years.

Only way fans get over the D12 saga is if ESPN comes out with a 30 for 30 after he retires.