What could have been for Penny Hardaway?
By Kareem Gantt
With news that the Orlando Magic will induct Penny Hardaway into the team’s Hall of Fame, we ponder what his career would look like if Shaq would have stayed and his knees never betrayed him.
Penny Hardaway will forever be one of the NBA’s “what-if” legends.
We say legend because when he came on the scene in 1993, there was nobody at the point guard position like Penny. Together with Shaquile O’Neal, Hardaway helped propell the Orlando Magic to the top of the NBA food chain just four year’s after the franchise was created.
He sliced, he diced, he drive to the basket, and hit his teammates with passes that only Magic Johnson could aheive. He was a winner on and off the court, and he was hailed as one of the next great players to play the game.
Then, two things happened: Shaq went to Hollywood and Penny’s knees went to crap.
Those two events led to the downfall of Penny Hardaway. As a longtime Orlando Magic fan who watched Penny play during his sick prime, it was tough watching the man that played the game so gracefully try to compete night in and night out with tattered knees.
That’s the memories that stir up in Magic fans after Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel reported that the team will induct Penny into the Magic Hall of Fame. It will be a celebration and lookback of one of Orlando’s most successful players, but, it will also serve as a bitter reminder of what could had been.
What if Shaq wouldn’t had left? The Magic probably would have had two championship rings by now as Orlando teams of the mid-’90s were deep and talented.
What if Penny’s knees held up? Even if Shaq bolted to the Lakers, if Penny still had his trademark althetisism and the Magic could had rebuilt the team to fit Hardaway’s game, there is no doubt in any Magic fan’s mind that the team still would had been title contenders.
But, alast, that isn’t meant to be nor really should it be speculated any more. Penny is heading to the team’s Hall of Fame, and fans should regionize and appreciate him for all that he did while he was in the Magic Kingdom.
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But we just can’t help but look at Penny and think what could had been.