The 2009 Orlando Magic were ahead of their time

The 95 Rockets were the ancient aliens of this. They shot 24 threes a game post-all star break after trading for Drexler. League average doesn't hit 24 until 2016.

In 2009 everyone (ESPN, Inside the NBA, SI, etc) would say "live by the three, die by the three" and "no three-point shooting team can win the championship". Imagine if they could see what happened later, not only can you win championships shooting the 3, but every damn team in the NBA shoots more from beyond the arc than the 2009 Magic.

A super influential team finally got the respect. Great job Jordan 👏🏻👌

Love this, you should do more of this on historic teams ahead of their time!

And Hedo was clutch asf

Magic's down fall started when they traded hedo for VC. not trying to argue that Hedo is a better player than VC, but hedo is a better fit for Magic since he is a better primary playe maker and his length presents a unique challenge for teams at the time since magic is basically putting 3 6-10 (or above) players on the court and they can all move.

Props to dwight's dominance in 09 in pioneering these plays.

They totally destroyed the Hawks in a playoff series a year or two later. Atlanta had no clue how to stop the more modern style of play.

Every time someone says “Lebron’s Cavs” I hear “LeBron’s calves”

Rasheed Lewis wasn’t considered a 4 back then, he was a tall 3 in Seattle. Him playing the 4 was considered a crazy experiment at the time

That Hedo to Dwight lob play was so effective, what a cool detail to explain. Excellent video.

Just thinking about your choices when you played the Magic back then: Let Dwight work solo and give up 20 and 15…..or let their shooters go crazy and make 15+ 3s 😭😮‍💨

It’s incredible to see Al Horford with 0 threes back then and now he’s one of the more efficient shooters in the league.

I'm so angry. My god dude it still turns me red hot just thinking about it. The Cavaliers were supposed to match up against the Lakers in the finals. LeBron vs Kobe. The worst part is that the Cavs losing wasn't preventable. Their defense lacked size and Dwight jumped right over Varejao and Ilgauskas on lobs. All Orlando did was pass the ball over everyone, and then, they shot it over everyone. The Magic's entire starting lineup was 6'10 and LeBron was tasked with guarding the PASS. We couldn't steal the ball and we couldn't play man-to-man defense which we were very decent at. I remember Varejao mostly stopped LeBron from recovering to Dwight or Rashard Lewis if they got switched. They just kept bumping into each other. Orlando didn't use a traditional ball handler so LeBron had no lockdown assignment and was forced to stand between Dwight, Turkoglu and Rashard Lewis while they passed the ball over his head. He got 3 or 4 blocks on Dwight that series but it was an utter defensive collapse every single night and there was nothing they could do about it. Then, when the Cavs made adjustments it only got worse. The defense fully committed to Rashard Lewis and Hedo Turkoglu in game 6, because their clutch threes were literally murdering them, and this allowed Dwight to explode for 40 points in the closeout game. I vastly preffered playing the Warriors.

I've always cited the Magic as the birth of the modern NBA. I appreciate your nuanced breakdown. Brilliant stuff

unmistakable silhouette 😂

Crazy how spurs were top 5 in 3 and ball movement even as they were aging. Those guys changed through so many playstyle from 90s to 2010s.

Great work - I wish more mainstream basketball content is like this. The NFL may have people giving hot takes, but sometimes they throw in some in depth analysis in games. From what I’ve seen, a lot of basketball media is about the athletic ability of the individuals rather than how the team works and is cohesive. Thank you for pushing out in-depth content about basketball, it’s much needed.

This is actually insane, I remember using Orlando in NBA 2k, and just ABUSING everyone online with 3 point shots. This was a time when nobody used to shoot 3s back then wtf

Awesome video. That 08-10 magic squad was super fun to watch. Fun time to be a magic fan.