[Project] Top 5 single season peaks by franchises: The Magic

Odinn21 · Post #1 » by **Odinn21** » Mon May 24, 2021 3:00 pm

Hello.

Link to the project thread.

Pick the top 5 individual single seasons in the Magic franchise history.

As Orlando Magic from 1989-90 to today

Things to follow;
- This project is franchise bound, not city bound. Quick example; Philadelphia Warriors from 1949-50 to 1961-62 is part of the Golden State Warriors franchise history and 1952 Arizin is eligible for the GS Warriors history.
- We'll follow continuity of the franchise. I.e. Seattle SuperSonics and Oklahoma City Thunder are the same franchise. We'll use BBRef as reference for this.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/OKC/
- ABA seasons are included.
- 2020-21 season is yet to be completed, so, it's not eligible for this project.
- One season per player, no duplicates within the franchise history. Quick example; Shaquille O'Neal can be voted for only once for the LA Lakers franchise history, and he can be voted for the Orlando Magic franchise history. They are separate occasions.

- Reg. season and postseason play, both are included in evaluations.
- Votes will be counted per player, not per version of player.
- An easy going point system of 10/7/5/3/1, the same as Retro PoY project, will be used. Number of higher placement votes will be the tiebreaker (if two players are tied at 27 points for the 1st place, the player with more 1st place votes will get it).
- Explanation is needed, even in short forms.
- We'll be going alphabetically with franchise nicknames. Linked to the voting threads as well.

Spoiler:

Results on Google Sheet

- The time frame for each franchise is 2 days (10:00 EST).

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Spoiler:

homecourtloss · Post #2 » by **homecourtloss** » Mon May 24, 2021 3:26 pm

For such a short existence, the Magic has some nice peaks to choose from: TMac 2003, O’Neal seasons, Hardaway seasons, Dwight Howard seasons, and then room for another. Should be interesting.

HeartBreakKid · Post #3 » by **HeartBreakKid** » Mon May 24, 2021 3:32 pm

1) 1996 Shaquille O'Neal - He's the best two way player while also being the best scorer in Orlando history. He might be the best offensive player as well...I think his scoring was so insane that I'd just favor it over Howard.

2) 2011 Dwight Howard - I'm taking Howard over McGrady who I suspect is the favorite for a top 2 selection. For one, I'm not huge on outlier peaks. But even aside from that, I just think Howard has a more winning skill set. Howard plays within his strengths. He anchored great defenses with the Magic despite having crappy defensive players through out the years (old Carter, Turk, Lewis, old Nelson, JJ Reddick). He's the best rebounder in Orlando history and the best in the league during his prime years. More so, McGrady's big scoring numbers are mitigated heavily by Howard's crazy efficiency. McGrady's lack of physicality really shows, it's part of why he wasn't that efficient (era also of course). The efficiency gap is closed if we focus purely on 2003, but Howard has a larger sample size of post season games to understand his game. I think there is just more evidence for Howard in general. He seems like checks off more boxes in what you want for a championship anchor - heck the guy did come rather close to winning one.

3) 2003 Tracy McGrady - Still a legitimate superstar and a top 5ish player in his peak. Penny wasn't quite that.

4) 1996 Penny Hardaway - He's the only big time star left. Great passer, awesome post game, good athlete - doesn't have the same take over ability as the other 3, perhaps due to lack of physical dominance.

5) 1996 Horace Grant - He beats out Turk, Vucevic and Lewis due to being a great defensive glue guy. The other 3 are seriously lacking on the defensive end, while Grant can consistently be the 2nd best defender on a great defense.

Jaivl · Post #4 » by **Jaivl** » Mon May 24, 2021 3:46 pm

Like last time, I'm gonna leave my tentative votes and explain later or tomorrow.

1) 1995 Shaquille O'Neal (+5.75)
2) 2003 Tracy McGrady (+5.00)
3) 2011 Dwight Howard (+4.50)
4) 1996 Penny Hardaway (+4.25)
5) 1995 Horace Grant (+2.50)

sansterre · Post #5 » by **sansterre** » Mon May 24, 2021 4:06 pm

#5. 2008 Rashard Lewis - Nothing particularly remarkable here. An excellent (even prototypical) stretch four, Lewis bombed from deep and shot comfortably above league average. He doesn't really stick out from the rest of the crowd - Vucevic's 2019 has higher WS and VORP. But Vucevic's RPM is actually fairly low (+1.9) and he struggled in the playoffs (-1.9 OBPM). Lewis seems like a safe choice at #5.

***Giant jump***

There are four players here, and they all have really, really good arguments.

RS Win Shares: 2003 McGrady 16.1, 2011 Howard 14.4, 1996 Hardaway 14.4, 1995 Shaq 14.0
RS VORP: 2003 McGrady 9.3, 1996 Hardaway 6.9, 1995 Shaq 5.7, 2011 Howard 5.4
RS AUPM: 2011 Howard +6.4, 1996 Hardaway +5.7, 1995 Shaq +5.6, 2003 McGrady +2.2
PS OBPM: 2003 McGrady +9.6, 1996 Hardaway, +6.9, 1995 Shaq +4.9, 2011 Howard +3.3

How the heck do we divide these up? Howard is obviously the worst offensive player of the three (though not weak on that end). But he's also by far the most valuable defender, and his Impact metrics show him as being more valuable to his team than the others. Hardaway seems across the board to be superior to Shaq here, unless we decide that Shaq's defensive impact was subtle enough to be missed by the metrics but significant enough to make up the difference. It's totally possible. And McGrady? His impact metrics are surprisingly weak compared to the other three. And his team had the least success of the four. But his box score metrics? Holy crap!

Let's play a little game, where we're looking for the following: 29% usage or higher, 56% shooting or higher, 25% assists or higher, 10% turnovers or lower and OBPM at +5 or higher. This gives us six seasons:

Player A: 34.1% usage, +6.5% rTS, 27.0% AST, 9.6% TO, +8.8 OBPM, +8.5 Playoff OBPM
Player B: 33.7% usage, +6.9% rTS, 28.6% AST, 9.8% TO, +9.1 OBPM, +10.2 Playoff OBPM
Player C: 32.9% usage, +7.1% rTS, 25.2% AST, 8.7% TO, +8.9 OBPM, +10.5 Playoff OBPM
Player D: 31.7% usage, +4.8% rTS, 25.7% AST, 8.8% TO, +7.2 OBPM, +8.3 Playoff OBPM
Player E: 34.7% usage, +2.8% rTS, 25.2% AST, 8.4% TO, +8.7 OBPM, +9.7 Playoff OBPM
Tracy McGrady: 35.2% usage, +4.5% rTS, 30.0% AST, 8.4% TO, +9.8 OBPM, +9.6 Playoff OBPM

McGrady does reasonably well here. Highest usage of any of the seasons (though his efficiency is well below A, B and C), higher assists, just as low turnovers and OBPM comparable to any of them.

Who are the other players?

Michael Jordan.

All of them.

Those are his '88, '90, '91, '92 and '93.

It's not like BPM has an irrational hard-on for McGrady. Seriously, tell me the difference between the box score stats of his '03 season and Michael Jordan's 1993 campaign. They look really, really similar. Except Jordan had better teammates and won more (there are obviously other differences, but the point comparing their offensive box score stats still stands).

With all of this out of the way:

#4. 1995 Shaquille O'Neal - A fantastic season, but I think it falls a little short of the other three.

#3. 1996 Penny Hardaway - A fantastic season, but I think it falls a little short of the other two.

#2. 2011 Dwight Howard - I'm in love with his defensive value along with his really high impact metrics. Just remember how good those Magic teams were, and then remember that they were Dwight Howard and a bunch of 2nd and 3rd tier players. Dwight Howard at his peak was damned good.

#1. 2003 Tracy McGrady - I know that his low AUPM should scare me off but it doesn't. His metrics are bonkers. Do you know how many players have posted a 9.5 OBPM or higher in a postseason (minimum of 7 games)? Michael Jordan three times ('90, '91, '93), LeBron James ('09, '18), Kawhi Leonard ('17) and McGrady in 2003. In 2003 McGrady posted a 97.0% Heliocentrism score (VORP-driven) for a 42-win team.

Compare that to Jordan posting an 89.1% in 1987 (40 wins) or an 85.0% in 1988 (50 wins).

Is there any reason to think '03 McGrady wasn't in the same ballpark as Jordan, and just had slightly worse teammates? But instead of seeing him continue to ascend, McGrady regressed over the next several years. I think the low AUPM score means that we should take McGrady's insane numbers with a grain of salt. But those numbers are so good . . . I really can't say no.

Dr Positivity · Post #6 » by **Dr Positivity** » Mon May 24, 2021 4:29 pm

1. Shaquille O'Neal 1995 - I think he's still the most dominant talent here. Good in finals considering who he was going against.

2. Tracy McGrady 2003 - One of the best one man band seasons of all time.

3. Dwight Howard 2009 - His game is more flawed than it looks on paper. But you can't really deny making the finals and beating Lebron with mostly a cast of shooters.

4. Penny Hardaway 1996 - Excellent offensive guard.

This is where it gets hard since the best individual statistical player is Vucevic but he looks exposed.

5. Rashard Lewis 2009 - Great stretch 4 as he could defend just well enough to make it work, SVG's decision to put him there was low key important to game's evolution. Hedo probably peaked higher on offense with the Magic but has poor defensive numbers. I definitely prefer Lewis offense to Grant although the latter is better on D.

HeartBreakKid · Post #7 » by **HeartBreakKid** » Mon May 24, 2021 5:06 pm

homecourtloss wrote:For such a short existence, the Magic has some nice peaks to choose from: TMac 2003, O’Neal seasons, Hardaway seasons, Dwight Howard seasons, and then room for another. Should be interesting.

Yeah, a lot of strong guys. Heck, New Orleans only been around since 2003 and they have Davis, CP3 and soon Zion already. They really lucked out compared to Charlotte.

Dutchball97 · Post #8 » by **Dutchball97** » Mon May 24, 2021 5:33 pm

1. Tracy McGrady, 2002/03 - Sure it is an outlier season but what an insane outlier it is. His regular season WS of 16.1 is second in franchise history only to 94 Shaq, while T-Mac's 9.3 VORP not only is the highest in franchise history but leads second place 94 Shaq by 2.1 points. T-Mac's play-off performance was insane as well. He did lose in the first round but I don't see taking the Pistons with Ben Wallace, Billups and Rip Hamilton to 7 games without any decent teammates, posting an insane 10.6 BPM as a slight on him. Shaq's 94 season is the only regular season that comes close to T-Mac's 03 season but as you can see nobody picks that season for him as his play-offs were extremely lackluster. Posting 2.2 BPM over only 3 games.

2. Dwight Howard, 2008/09 - I was initially thinking about putting Dwight fourth but his 2009 post-season run was extremely good. His regular season is competitive with Shaq and Penny's regular seasons but while both of them also had strong play-offs it wasn't quite "knocking LeBron out of the play-offs in his statistically most dominant year" strong.

3. Penny Hardaway, 1995/96 - This being such a good season all around gives Penny the edge over Shaq for me. I've always seen them as 1A and 1B for those Magic teams with Shaq generally being the 1A but it turns out Shaq wasn't as consistent across an entire season in those days. His best regular season for the Magic is his 94 season, his best play-offs is 96 and best all around season is 95. The thing for me is that Shaq's 94 regular season combined with his 96 post-season would be my third or even second pick but I rate both the regular season and post-season of 96 Penny over 95 Shaq.

4. Shaquille O'Neal, 1994/95 - Most of it is explained in the Penny part. It's close though between the top 4, while the gap to the next players is massive.

5. Rashard Lewis, 2008/09 - This was between Vucevic, Grant and Rashard. Vucevic clearly has the best regular season of the bunch in 2019 but he crumbled in the play-offs. I prefer Rashard's 08 and 09 regular seasons over Grant's 96 regular season. I do think Grant's 96 post-season is arguably the best play-off run between the two of them, at least statistically. First of all Grant getting injured in the finals hurts his case somewhat but the real issue is that in the previous rounds prior to the finals, Grant never outperformed either of Shaq or Penny over a series, while Rashard was the second best player for the majority the 2009 run. Most importantly Rashard showed up big against the Celtics and was arguably the best player in that series for the Magic and thus a big reason the Magic were even in a position to knock out LeBron's Cavs a round later.

Owly · Post #9 » by **Owly** » Mon May 24, 2021 7:17 pm

Not sure I'd vote either (I guess Grant, but am not to focused on individual years in general) but, given no long list mentions thus far I'll at least raise it, are ''99 Armstrong (superstar adjacent box, good impact) or 2000 Bo Outlaw (elite impact) worth considering for that last spot.

Dr Positivity · Post #10 » by **Dr Positivity** » Mon May 24, 2021 8:34 pm

Dr Positivity wrote:1. Shaquille O'Neal 1995 - I think he's still the most dominant talent here. Good in finals considering who he was going against.

2. Tracy McGrady 2003 - One of the best one man band seasons of all time.

3. Dwight Howard 2009 - His game is more flawed than it looks on paper. But you can't really deny making the finals and beating Lebron with mostly a cast of shooters.

4. Penny Hardaway 1996 - Excellent offensive guard.

This is where it gets hard since the best individual statistical player is Vucevic but he looks exposed.

5. Rashard Lewis 2009 - Great stretch 4 as he could defend just well enough to make it work, SVG's decision to put him there was low key important to game's evolution. Hedo probably peaked higher on offense with the Magic but has poor defensive numbers. I definitely prefer Lewis offense to Grant although the latter is better on D.

Good call by Owly, I'm changing my #5 pick to 99 Darrell Armstrong putting up a .205 WS/48 6.7 BPM on a team that had no business tying for the best record in the conference

LukaTheGOAT · Post #11 » by **LukaTheGOAT** » Mon May 24, 2021 9:28 pm

1) 1995 Shaquille O'Neal
It was between him and McGrady for the #1 spot. I think Shaq has the best combination of offense and defense here however. I think 03 McGrady had a drop off defensively in 03 when he took a heavier load and that is notable. This is the best defensive season from Shaq in his time in Orlando possibly and along with Penny he powered a terrfic offense. I will say that the deep PS run is potentially biasing me in picking Shaq, and perhaps helped to see him in a nicer light.
PIPM-5.71

2) 2003 Tracy McGrady-Awesome scoring and playmaking season. Overall, this is the best offensive season of any Magic player. It is moreso defensively I question his motor and this leads me to dropping him behind Shaq. I see this year on a similar level to peak Kobe, and it seems the numbers would agree.
PIPM-4.96

3) 2011 Dwight Howard -09-11 are all contenders. 11 is probably his best RS, and in this case, I will trust the larger sample size. Best defensive player in the Magic's history. Historically underrated PS scorer. Going off the top of my head, I think from 09-11, he was around 23.2 pts/75 on rTS% 10.7 above league average when inflation adjusted for opponent! That's ABSURD! If I treated 03 McGrady as an outlier shooting year, and more so similar to the surrounding years, I probably would have Dwight a spot higher at #2.
PIPM-6.42

4) 1996 Penny Hardaway- He and McGrady have a lot of similarites, but think of the main difference between them as McGrady being the better defender when he really applies himself, and much more notably he has much more scoring ability gravity in large part thanks to his jumper. Penny was great nonetheless and it is very possible we didn't see his peak.
PIPM-4.88

5) 1995 Horace Grant-I went with Grant over Rashard Lewis, because I think I like the role he plays on a championship team unit. Not super confident in this like I am the other 4 selections tbh. Good defender.
PIPM-2.01

Odinn21 · Post #12 » by **Odinn21** » Tue May 25, 2021 1:22 am

1. 2003 Tracy McGrady
Ah, the most famous of outlying seasons. His performance was off the charts. Shame that he had to feel like talking sh.t about the Pistons. Up until to that point, he was having a great season. Impact numbers do not like him particularly. But I take impact metrics with performance/output in mind and this was the best performing season the Magic ever had.

2. 1995 Shaquille O'Neal
3. 2011 Dwight Howard
I can't put my finger on it exactly why but I've found myself comparing Shaq to Dwight more than T-Mac. Shaq was in a good shape and 1995 was one of his stronger seasons on defense. So, I see a bigger gap on offense between the two. I think the aspect made me think of Dwight closer to Shaq is Dwight's rebounding rates. Howard was historically tier 1 in that aspect while Shaq wasn't.

4. 1996 Anfernee Hardaway
Quite an obvious choice at this point. There's a certain drop in level after him.

5. 1995 Horace Grant
This spot is between 1995 Grant, 2009 Lewis and 2019 Vucevic for me. The deciding factor for me is Grant's performance against the Bulls. He was arguably the best Magic player against the Bulls with his hyper efficient scoring (+13.7 rts, +3.2 ts add per 36), defense and strong rebounding. If it weren't for Grant, it might've been a 2nd round exit for the Magic and we might be considering 2009 or 2011 Howard over 1995 Shaq since NBA Finals run is part of the charm for Shaq.

homecourtloss · Post #13 » by **homecourtloss** » Tue May 25, 2021 2:48 am

#1. 2003 Tracy McGrady - The biggest gap in OBPM between first and second highest in a season exists between TMAC and Shaq in 2003 (~3.4). There are only a few gaps that even exceed 2, which shows how crazy this TMAC season was and then he continued into the playoffs until that poor game 7. His defense was suspect this season, but this offense out of nothing makes up for it. I think both Shaq and Howard were probably better players but this was just a wild season on a team that had maybe one ither plus player (Armstrong) and a whole heap of trash on both sides of the ball.

#2. 2011 Dwight Howard - High impact metrics despite his turnovers and poor FT shooting. Thst series vs. the Hawks...he was an aggregate +15 but his teammates (Reddick, Richardson, Hedu, Arenas, et. al) sucked really hard, the OPPOSITE of theirs 2009 series vs. the Cavs.

#3. 1995 Shaquille O'Neal - great season, might be the best player here, but output better elsewhere.

#4. 1996 Penny Hardaway - a shame he got injured, with improved 3pt shooting, who knows how high he could’ve taken his offense.

#5. 2009 Rasheed Lewis. High impact player. It was either he or Horace Grant whom I love

Djoker · Post #14 » by **Djoker** » Tue May 25, 2021 4:58 am

1. 1994-1995 Shaquille O'Neal

Any version prime (not peak) Shaq is still unreal. Teams just had to adjust to him every single time down the floor. It goes beyond the stat sheet. He led a young Magic team to the finals and played very well despite being outplayed and losing to Hakeem's Rockets.

2. 2002-2003 Tracy McGrady

One of the best all-around players ever that doesn't get enough love nowadays. I started watching basketball in the late 90's and haven't watched more than a handful of players since (MJ, Shaq, Lebron) that I can definitely say were better than prime T-Mac. He could do everything on the floor.

3. 2010-2011 Dwight Howard

20/14 big men who dominated around the basket and played DPOY level defense.

4. 1995-1996 Penny Hardaway

Shaq's little sidekick who wasn't so little. Penny was fantastic with his all-around game. Athletic, good shooter, good playmaker, good size... if not for injuries he'd have been a 1st ballot HOFer IMO.

5. 2004-2005 Grant Hill

His only mostly healthy season on the Magic. Despite coming off very serious injuries he was still a fantastic all-around player. I don't think other possible candidates like Horace Grant, Rashard Lewis and Nikola Vucevic were as good as Grant.

70sFan · Post #15 » by **70sFan** » Tue May 25, 2021 7:07 am

1. 1994/95 Shaquille O'Neal - I don't think the difference between Magic Shaq and Lakers Shaq is that big, O'Neal was already a monster in 1995 and he was healthy throughout the season. His defense wasn't perfect, but his offense crushes any other candidate in my opinion. To be honest, I don't see any case for McGrady over him...

2. 20010/11 Dwight Howard - yeah, I have Howard over Tmac. I don't like outlier peaks caused by hot three point shooting and I'm just not that high on McGrady's prime. Howard was limited offensive player, but even with his horrible passing he made solid impact with his finishing and offensive rebounding. On top of that, Dwight was excellent defender who anchored some elite defenses throughout his prime.

3. 2002/03 Tracy McGrady - I thought about Penny over him, but decided to go with consensus. McGrady was very good scorer in that season and he carried mediocre team to playoffs. His all-around skillset can't be denied, but I always thought he was less than the sum of parts.

4. 1995/96 Penny Hardaway - very underrated season, in weaker season he'd be MVP candidate. He led Magic to excellent record with Shaq missing tons of games and he played well against 1996 Bulls in the playoffs. Unlike most "what-if" guys, Penny already was a superstar before injury and he could have all-time great career without injuries.

5. 1994/95 Horace Grant - ultimate power forward, I'm very high on Grant in general and this is one of his finest seasons. There are some other choices mentioned, but I prefer Grant over all of them.

TroubleS0me · Post #16 » by **TroubleS0me** » Tue May 25, 2021 6:55 pm

Djoker wrote:

5. 2004-2005 Grant Hill

His only mostly healthy season on the Magic. Despite coming off very serious injuries he was still a fantastic all-around player. I don't think other possible candidates like Horace Grant, Rashard Lewis and Nikola Vucevic were as good as Grant.

TroubleS0me · Post #17 » by **TroubleS0me** » Tue May 25, 2021 6:55 pm

Fun fact : Dwight had 3 ASSIST TOTAL in the 2011 playoffs

sansterre · Post #18 » by **sansterre** » Tue May 25, 2021 8:23 pm

TroubleS0me wrote:Fun fact : Dwight had 3 ASSIST TOTAL in the 2011 playoffs

Which is why his OBPM was only +3.3.

He averaged 28.2% usage and shot at +13.6%.

The remaining Magic shot at -8.8% in the playoffs.

Was Howard not passing the ball part of his team's bad shooting?

Maybe a small part.

But when Dwight is shooting +13.6% and his teammates are shooting twenty two percent below him . . . I wouldn't really want to tell him "stop taking shots and let your team have a turn".

sansterre · Post #19 » by **sansterre** » Tue May 25, 2021 8:27 pm

Djoker wrote:5. 2004-2005 Grant Hill

His only mostly healthy season on the Magic. Despite coming off very serious injuries he was still a fantastic all-around player. I don't think other possible candidates like Horace Grant, Rashard Lewis and Nikola Vucevic were as good as Grant.

To be clear, you're talking about a season where he missed 15 games, put up 6.6 Win Shares, 2.7 VORP, +1.6 AUPM, took less than 25% of his team's shots and made them at only +3.6%, for a Pts/75 of 21.4 . . .

I know the pickings for the #5 spot are slim for the Magic, but I don't know if they're that slim.

O_6 · Post #20 » by **O_6** » Wed May 26, 2021 12:30 am

I love that T-Mac, he’s one of my guys that I’m a true fan of. But that 03’ season was such an outlier that I have to really think about it. When people say T-Mac vs. Kobe was a real debate, they mean that year when we were all mindblown about what T-Mac had become.

I’ll have a full answer soon. Peak Penny was also a bad mofo.