https://youtu.be/y0PmkvPVnuw
The Orlando Magic had made a habit of trotting out the basically the same lineup, year after year. Nikola Vucevic, Aaron Gordon, Evan Fournier, a big three of pretty good players. But there was no one, literally NO ONE, at all, anywhere, on this planet or any of the other gajillions of planets floating around in the universe, that was hyped for those teams. Maybe at the very beginning, but by year three or four, I’d say there was negative hype. Just total drudgery, huge shout-out to the diehards who kept attending those games, because it seemed like any slight bit of hype would get injured as soon as the hype manifested itself.
Things are different now. Way, WAY suckier, yes, but at this point, a change was desperately needed. They can still win games (the “game-winner” part of this title indicates that they, at least, won this game), but it’s not a regular occurrence. And that’s okay.
I don’t know how much hype had been going on in these games since the trade deadline that saw the Magic revamp their team, but it’s probably not a ton. I was complaining about how lame their old Big Three was, but the collection of role-players and scrubs they have now is pretty uninspiring. Does anyone outside of Orlando realize that Chasson Randle is back in the league? Or that Gary Harris is still alive? Dwayne Bacon might be their best scorer, for crying out loud.
Enter Cole Anthony. He kinda sucks right now, but even kinda sucky players can do good things, and he just a seriously legitimate game-winner to beat the Grizzlies. His teammates didn’t seem too excited (there must be something wrong with their team chemistry, normally players who hit game-winners get mobbed), but he himself definitely did. And I bet the Magic commentators were too. The Grizzlies ones sounded like they wanted to die a little bit, but at least they pretended to be a little excited.
I don’t know about Anthony exclaiming “This is my city!”, though. That’s, uh, taking it way too far. He probably got caught up in the moment, thought he was like Damian Lillard or something, and got carried away. That’s fine. He’s a rookie. But Orlando is not going to be his city for a long time. If ever. I checked out the footage I possess of Wilt’s 100-point game, and even after scoring all those points, he didn’t say anything like “This is my city!”. As the final buzzer sounded, the most I could make out was “I’m going to go bang some more chicks” and “I’m going for 200 next time”.
Yes, that’s right, I DO possess the footage of Wilt scoring 100. And you don’t get to see it. It’s for personal use only.