So the Orlando Magic are inches away from losing Dwight Howard. It is inevitable; he is leaving us and heading elsewhere. The Magic have not even officially put him on the trading block for some odd reason, even though everyone in the entire planet knows that Howard is sick of playing for a franchise that has made bad decision after bad decision after bad decision. So what happens now is that Orlando gets to start rebuilding all over again. Their offense was centered on Howard, as their three-point offense exists because of the sheer power in the low post. While Howard isn’t the best scorer in the NBA, he causes the most impact regardless because he can score at any given moment. So when they double or triple team him, he can dish it off to one of several three-point bombers.
All this changes when Howard leaves. Even if we trade him for douchebag Bynum, or trade him for still-not-quite-there Amare Stoudemire—the offense has to revamp itself. But instead of looking for a center like Howard, the Magic should focus on re-branding itself and become a likable team/area to play for. Right now the preference of the NBA players tends to be focused on New York, Chicago, Miami, and Los Angeles. That’s why most of your big stars are on those four cities. Oklahoma City has been an incredible exception, but they are thriving mostly because of an incredible GM—something the Magic has sorely lacked in the past decade. And here’s my random plan: why not become the official team of Brazil?
Can you imagine the Amway Center being chock full of Brazilians on a consistent basis? Can you imagine the party scene in the Downtown Orlando area? Miami has already attempted to nab the Hispanic market, so why can’t Orlando hunt down the South American market by nabbing some players from Brazil and/or Argentina? From a purely financial standpoint, this would do wonders for a franchise that is 9th most valuable in the NBA—and that’s AFTER consistent playoff appearances, and featuring one of the most dominant (yet friendliest) players in the entire league. While his posture sucks nowadays, in the past Howard would constantly donate his shoes and clothes to fans throughout the season. Orlando had a slowly rising fanbase outside the Central Florida area. If we get some South Americans involved, then the fanbase can virtually explode on a much faster pace.
This is the sad truth: Magic fans are a fickle unmotivated crowd. The games do supposedly sell-out, but they are usually flocking around the arena (inside and outside) and in a general consensus leave quite early. Magic players in the past have even complained that while there are thousands of fans in the building, they are not at their seats. Instead drinking, partying, socializing, not really dwelling themselves in the game. This is happening now, and this happened before the Dwight Howard trade rumors started appearing.
Now before you question the quality of South American basketball: the Argentinean basketball team was the one that ended the Americans’ dominance of Olympic basketball back in 2004 while also nabbing the Bronze medal in 2008 after a well-fought series of games. Brazil and Argentina had the top slots in the Olympic qualifying games last year. There is a lot of great talent in South America, and it’s rather shocking that more NBA teams don't down head down under to search for it. Manu Ginobili, arguably the greatest Sixth Man in the past 15 years comes from Argentina. If I were running the Magic, I would increase the value of the franchise and make it more playable by improving the atmosphere and craziness of the Amway Center. And with good South American flair involved, this can definitely be achieved....especially with NBA season happening during South America's summer vacation.
While I don’t want to South Americanize the entire lineup, putting at least one Brazilian in the starting lineup would definitely be a nice boost. Just look at the Knicks and their fast and furious Taiwanese (and to an extent, Asian) takeover since Jeremy Lin took over as the headliner. And Orlando has an even better advantage because Brazilians flock there every year by the millions. Disney World’s biggest population outside American tourists is Brazilian tourists and the tour groups. Orlando’s economy can improve even more if they become the official team of Brazil in the United States. If the city of Orlando worked together with the Brazilian tour groups to send them to ballgames in droves we would have a louder, more ambitious, and more inspiring ambiance.
This plan of trying to appeal to Brazil is purely business above quality. But the truth is the Magic have to start from scratch, have to start on square one the moment their prized center leaves. And the fans are going to leave, this is also inevitable. Look at what happened to the Magic after Shaq left. The last season of Shaq gave the Magic an attendance total of 707,000. They did not reach that number until 2007, 11 years later. All those consecutive games of sell-out crowds is going to end, if it hasn’t done so already. How do you fill that void? Get the Brazil crowd involved. Even better is that South American fans are much better than Floridian fans; they really invest themselves to the game.
Bottom Line: In my opinion one way the Magic can start from scratch in the right way is by reaching out to untapped markets in South America and converting Brazil (and maybe even the surrounding nations) into Magic fans. That increases the value, increases the appeal, and makes it easier to scoop up superstars. You must realize that throughout the years the Magic have been good at brewing stars (Shaq, McGrady, Hardaway, Howard, Billups, Wallace) but not really attracting them. Grant Hill may have been the exception, but we failed at keeping Shaq, failed at getting Tim Duncan, failed at getting Vince Carter (when he was at his prime), among other examples. Transforming the Orlando Magic into a global brand to the level of the Knicks, Lakers, and rising force Miami Heat would be a big boost to the team, to the economy, and to the city. Pull a Disney: make Brazil love you----really, really love you.
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