Orlando Magic Tickets

The team name Magic tends to conjure up the notion that a team is going to be more interesting or special than the other teams in the NBA. In many cases, the Orlando Magic have been just that. Established in 1989, the team has brought more than its fair share of Magic to the NBA, including one of the best tandems in the history of the sport, as well as one of the league's Cinderella stories.

That tandem, of course, is the tandem of Shaquille O'Neal and Penny Hardaway. Shaq and Penny came to the Magic in the 1990s, in a time where teams full of established stars like the New York Knicks and Chicago Bulls were at the top of the league. Those teams were very talented of course, but lacked the pizzaz that the Magic brought to the floor at times.

The pairing of Shaq and Penny was truly incredible, with O'Neal the unstoppable force on the interior and Hardaway getting to the bucket and scoring from all over the floor despite being one of the smallest players on the floor. In a league full of established powers, the Magic were one of the true feel-good stories at that time, even making it to the Finals in 1995 where they lost to Houston.

Then there was the incredibly successful run in the late 2000s, where the Magic reached the NBA Finals in 2009. The team won three straight division titles from 2008-2010, and gave the Los Angeles Lakers a difficult series in the 2009 Finals despite falling short in search of the franchise's first title at that time. Dwight Howard was the anchor of that team from the center position, while Hedo Turkoglu was the team's clutch scorer, constantly handling the ball and finding space to shoot in pressure situations for a team that was not expected to be as successful as it was.