Is It Time to ‘Irsay’ the Magic?

With Dwight Howard’s impending departure and the Orlando Magic’s poor play as of late, should Magic owner Rich DeVos take the nuclear option and blow up his team the way Jim Irsay has done the Indianapolis Colts?

Irsay has gotten a lot of flack over recent weeks for the radical changes he has made to his team since the NFL regular season ended but I don’t think anyone would disagree with DeVos taking a more hands-on approach with the Magic.

The team has been distracted with the constant trade talk revolving around Dwight Howard and now it is starting to affect their play on the floor. Each loss only makes the trade rumors grow louder and louder.

On top of that the Magic have lost four straight games and six of the past eight after starting the season 10-3. A couple of those losses have just been downright disheartening.

Like their 12-point home loss to the Boston Celtics, a game where they held a 27-point lead before totally melting down in the second half. They would then lose by 26 points the next night to the New Orleans Hornets and they also lost another game to the Celtics in Boston where they were only able to score 56 total points in the game.

It goes even deeper than that though. The Magic have scored 100 points only once in the last nine games and failed to score at least 70 points in three of those games. This comes after scoring 100 points or more in eight of their previous 13 games. The Magic would only have one game where they would score less than 80 points during that stretch.

And at this point there isn’t much of a remedy to stop the decline. After years of questionable personnel moves, the Magic’s general manager Otis Smith has left the team with very little trade-worthy talent other than Howard and there are no big names swirling around that would make a big enough impact to make Howard want to stay.

Coach Stan Van Gundy is just as guilty for the Magic’s fortunes as Smith is. Van Gundy’s system is extremely rigid and makes it hard for players to come in and contribute immediately if at all. Especially players who thrive more in a more creative atmosphere than in a structured system like Van Gundy’s.

This is what happened with Vince Carter, Rashard Lewis and Gilbert Arenas. Carter is one of the league’s most athletic scorers when he was playing for the New Jersey Nets and Toronto Raptors but he became nothing more than a spot up shooter in Orlando. Same for Lewis who was a very prolific scorer with the Seattle Sonics before Van Gundy turned him into a high-priced three-point gunner.

Poor Arenas never really got a chance to prove what he could do during his brief time with the Magic. Arenas has a very creative game but Van Gundy would second-guess everything Arenas did during the limited minutes Van Gundy had him on the floor. Arenas never got comfortable and it showed during the Magic’s short playoff run.

All three of those players are gone now and Howard will probably be gone by the trade deadline in March. If the Magic don’t trade him and allow Howard to leave after the season without any compensation then Orlando could experience a season as miserable as the one the Colts experienced this year or a season like the one the Cleveland Cavaliers had after LeBron James left.

Even the league-owned New Orleans Hornets were smart enough to trade Chris Paul away rather keeping him in New Orleans for the whole season and gamble on whether he would stay or not. The reality of the matter is that Howard is leaving one way or another. The best thing DeVos and the Magic can do is cut their losses now and start the rebuilding process. 

Roosevelt Hall is an NBA Blogger for The Sport Mentalist 2 and also writes for Shatter The Backboard. He can be contacted at RHall@shatterthebackboard.com. Follow him on Twitter @sportmentalist.