ESPN's This Magic Moment

I watched ESPN's This Magic Moment recently, about the Orlando Magic NBA team.  A few observations:

I wanted to punch Leonard Armato in his smug lying face every time he showed up in shot.  He is the personification of every reason so many sports fans hate agents.  Agents spoiled many teams by promoting an individual's pursuit of the biggest bucks over the goals of team harmony and the resulting team success.  He even looks like a slimy, slithery, mendacious self-seeker.  Go away, you creep.

Nick Anderson is a stand-up guy.  Even though he is the lead character in the the most painful moment in Orlando basketball history, he appeared throughout the documentary and was candid and forthcoming throughout.  I have a good deal of respect for him.

I also enjoyed the on-camera appearances of Brian Shaw, Horace Grant and Dennis Scott.  They gave enjoyable and informative insights into what it's like to be professional athletes under the microscope and what it's like to deal with momentum shifts during a game, and to be forced to deal with dizzying successs followed by shattering failure.

Watching This Magic Moment reminded me how much I HATED the "Little Penny" commercials.  It turns out my distaste for Chris Rock is older than I thought.

Penny Hardaway is another matter.  He says that Nick Anderson, after his agonizing failures at the free throw line at the end of the first game of the championship series against the experienced Houston Rockets, failed to step out of bounds on the in-bounds play.  If you watch the replay in the documentary, you see that Anderson does step out of bounds before the Houston player in-bounds the ball, but the call isn't made.  Interesting, but not what really struck me.

Hardaway said that the players all relaxed on the in-bounds, knowing that Anderson would step out of bounds and draw the delay-of-game call.  He claims that's why he let Kenny Smith get that little space he needed to hit the 3-pointer that tied the game and forced overtime.  He claims unconvincingly that if he he known the play was coming he could have kept Smith from getting the shot off.  Of course, if the Rockets changed the play (and Rudy Tomjanovich was a smart coach), he still wouldn't have known what play was coming.

What he doesn't seem to realize is that he just told the camera why the Magic lost the game and the series.

Winning players know that you NEVER assume what will happen in the game.  You don't relax on the court, because you don't know what will happen (or not happen).  You don't relax your guard.  Hardaway did.  Of course, he claims all of his teammates did, too.  (It's hard to picture Horace Grant making such a mistake.)  Of course, his teammates weren't covering Kenny Smith - he was.

And that's why I never liked Penny Hardaway.