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Phoenix is the Old Orlando

The Suns' signing of Gordan Giricek earlier this week gives Phoenix three former Orlando Magic players on its roster, two of them among the Magic's all-time greats. I decided to take a look at those players' combined statistics from their days in Orlando.

  • 13175 points
  • 4676 rebounds
  • 1480 assists
  • 537 steals
  • 914 blocks
  • 1474 turnovers

The trio combined to play 570 regular-season games for the Magic. With that in mind, here are its averages:

  • 23.1 points
  • 8.2 rebounds
  • 2.6 assists
  • 0.9 steals
  • 1.6 blocks
  • 2.6 turnovers

The Magic have more players in common with the Miami Heat (O'Neal, Rony Seikaly, Dan Schayes, Michael Doleac, Keyon Dooling...) than with the Suns, but the Suns connection is more compelling because of the stature of the players involved.

If you care for my thoughts on your acquisition of O'Neal, they're summarized in this email I sent to a friend when he notified me of the rumor:

Marion for Shaq?

That's an absolutely f---ing insipid suggestion and whoever came up with that bull---- rumor should have his parents' basement revoked.

Anyway, I'll be rooting for the Suns to come out of the West, as I did last year. Understandably, in light of recent trades, I'm not optimistic.

Best of luck. Hopefully we'll get to see a Shaq/Dwight NBA Finals showdown before Diesel calls it a career.