Why did 23-year-old O Neal be abandoned by magic? Jordan is the culprit, the Lakers are taking a big flaw

When it comes to the Magic team, the first thing many fans think of is the super inside O'Neal back then. He quickly realized his talent since he was selected by the team in 1992. Under O'Neal's leadership, the Magic reached the finals in 1995. Even though they failed to win the championship in the end, considering that O'Neal and Hardaway and other players are still very young, the outside world is still very optimistic about the future of Magic, but the team's management does not think so.

After O'Neal became a free agent in 1996, the Magic did not choose to keep him with all their strength. In the end, he joined the Lakers who were willing to give a super maximum salary ($115 million in 7 years). The achievements O'Neal made later fully prove how bad the Magic's decision was. Under his leadership, the Lakers won the championship for three consecutive seasons in 2000, 2001 and 2002. He personally won the honors of MVP, FMVP, scoring champion, etc. at his peak. O'Neal was undoubtedly the No. 1 player in the league.

So, then, why was O'Neal, who was only 23 years old at the time, abandoned by magic? It can be said that there are three reasons here that are very critical, so let’s analyze them together!

1. Hardaway's growth

As we all know, O'Neal quickly made a name for himself after entering the league. In his rookie season, he averaged 23.4 points, 13.9 rebounds, 1.9 assists, 3.5 blocks per game. In the second year of his career, his data soared to an average of 29.3 points, 13.2 rebounds, 2.4 assists, 2.9 blocks per game, and he also won his first scoring leader in his career. When O'Neal was still a second-year rookie, Magic also chose Hardaway. It is worth mentioning that the reason why the latter joined Magic was because of his agent's operation, which brought Hardaway and O'Neal together to make movies, so he also established a connection with O'Neal and Magic in advance.

Hardaway also performed very well in his rookie season. He averaged 16 points, 5.4 rebounds, 6.6 assists and 2.3 steals per game. He also gained countless fans by evaluating his elegant style of play. In addition, Jordan announced his first retirement at the time, so many people said that Hardaway is expected to become Jordan's successor. In his second season of his career, Hardaway's data averaged 20.9 points, 7.7 rebounds, 7.2 assists and 1.7 steals per game, and he was successfully selected for the All-First Team.

With the joint efforts of Hardaway and O'Neal, the Magic won the playoffs successfully, and they also reached the finals. This was also the first time their team's history won the Eastern Conference championship. During this period, the Magic also defeated the Bulls led by Jordan. In the third year of his career, Hardaway continued to improve. He averaged 21.7 points, 4.3 rebounds, 7.1 assists and 2 steals per game in the regular season. In the end, he was selected for the All-A-Team again. Especially this season, O'Neal missed many games due to injury, Hardaway also showed his ability to lead the team as the team's first core. In the 22 games that O'Neal missed, he led the team to a record of 17 wins and 5 losses.

The Magic were revenged by the Bulls in the 1996 playoffs. O'Neal became a free agent in the offseason, but the Magic were not willing to give him a maximum salary because the management wanted to give this opportunity to Hardaway, so they directly told O'Neal: "Give you a maximum salary, and Hardaway will be unhappy." And this is not the most hurtful thing about O'Neal. At that time, Orlando media even launched a vote to ask fans whether O'Neal is worth 100 million yuan in maximum salary. As a result, most fans felt that he was not worthy of the contract. In their minds, Hardaway represents the future of the team. This idea coincides with the Magic's management. In the end, both the team and the fans no longer like him, so O'Neal left the team decisively.

2. Jordan became the culprit

Here, it is said that Jordan was the culprit, not because he led the team to eliminate the Magic in the 1996 playoffs, but that he directly brought the NBA's salary cap system to reform with his own strength. After Jordan became a free agent in 1996, he naturally received offers from multiple teams, among which the Knicks even said that he would let Jordan write a number on his contract, which forced the Bulls to finally give Jordan a super maximum salary of more than $60 million in two years to reach a contract renewal with him. This also made the league change. The NBA decided that each team would have a maximum salary player's salary that could not be included in the salary cap.

In this case, O'Neal naturally looked down on the 4-year quotation of 54 million yuan given by the Magic at the beginning, and then the 4-year quotation of 80 million yuan was 80 million yuan. At this time, O'Neal was actually a little moved. He must have known that Jordan only had one, and not every player could receive his treatment. In addition, O'Neal at that time, O'Neal only received an annual salary of over 10 million yuan, so the 4-year 80 million contract can still see some of the sincerity of the Magic.

But at this moment, the US media revealed that Zhu Wan Howard and Alonzo Mooning both signed a long contract with their respective teams with a total of over 100 million yuan, and this time, O'Neal was irresistible. He knew that he was a better player than Howard and Mooning, so he naturally thought that he was worthy of such a contract. Then later, the magic and the inexplicable operations of the local media took place..

3. Magic's arrogance

However, at that time, the media and fans were simply optimistic about Hardaway, but Magic was different. As industry insiders, they can definitely see that O'Neal and Hardaway are indispensable if the team wants to succeed. The biggest reason why they don't give O'Neal face is that the management believes that no other team in the free market at that time would give O'Neal more quotations than them. So before O'Neal officially left the team, they always thought that O'Neal would definitely renew their contract with them honestly in the end.

However, the development of things obviously exceeded the Magic's expectations. When the Lakers learned that they had the opportunity to "rob" O'Neal, they had previously been limited in their salary and directly created a space that was enough to sign O'Neal through a series of operations. In the end, they directly offered O'Neal a quotation of 115 million in 7 years. Seeing that the Lakers obviously attach more importance to their team, O'Neal came to Los Angeles without any hesitation. At this time, the Magic had too late to regret it. Even though they were willing to give O'Neal a contract worth hundreds of millions in the end, the latter still did not communicate with them anymore.