Very few players had the spotlight Dwight Howard had last season. Howard had an amazing regular season with 20.7 ppg, 14.2 rpg and 2.1 bpg and in the All Star weekend, he dress like Superman to win the dunk contest. He was clearly the most dominant center in the regular season and he started the playoffs in great fashion, with 3 games against Toronto where he had more than 20 points and 20 boards. However, everything was different with the Pistons. All that power disappeared and Howard was intimidated in the matchup against Rasheed Wallace and that?s the key question for the future of the Magic. If the team wants to win a title, they will need Howard to play his best against centers like Wallace, Garnett or Brand and last season this simply didn?t happen.

A lot of the merit from the team?s good campaign last season goes to their coach Stan Van Gundy, who managed to build a team around Howard, the same thing he had done when he coached Miami and had Shaq on his team. The success of this formula is built around taking advantage of the double teams the opponents put on Howard, so the Magic can find open spaces on the perimeter, where the team has very good shooters. So, it?s no surprise that Orlando was 2nd on the league last season in most 3pts shots attempted (just behind the Warriors), with 25.3 3pts attempts per game.

One of the reasons for the success of this formula was Rashard Lewis, who played a big part of last season in the PF position. Lewis was coming from a big season in Seattle and on his first year of his big contract with the Magic, he wasn?t brilliant: 18.2 ppg, 5.4 rpg and 2.4 apg. However, the role of Lewis on Orlando isn?t the same he had in Seattle, as he has to share the protagonism of the team with Howard and Turkoglu.

Hedo Turkoglu was the key player of the team last season, completing the big three of the team with Howard and Lewis. His development has been awesome and that?s why he received last season the award for Most Improved Player. His numbers were amazing: 19.5 ppg (13.3 in 2007), 5.7 rpg (4.0 in 2007) and 5.0 apg (3.2 in 2007). Besides that, he was the player who had the ball on the clutch moments, which shows how important is his role on the team. He will need to prove this season that last season was no fluke and a lot of the success of the team will depend from his consistence this season.

The backcourt is the weakest point of the Magic or at least isn?t at the same level of the frontcourt. Jameer Nelson had a resonable last season with 10.9 ppg and 5.6 apg, but due to his short height, he was constantely dominated by more powerful guards than him, however he has also improved his game with Van Gundy and he will be the starting PG of the team once again. His backups last season were Arroyo and Dooling, but both have left the team. To replace them, the Magic have hired the veteran guard Anthony Johnson, who was a good choice, having in account all his experience.

The team will have a lot of changes on the SG position. Keith Bogans was the starter most of last season, but then lost his place on the starting team to Mo Evans. However the team didn?t trust on their current options for the position, so they hired Mickael Pietrus who came from the Warriors. Pietrus is a good defender and that?s one of the things which made the Magic hire him. Also for this position, the team has as options the rookie Courtney Lee, who is a talented player and who had a great Summer League.

Even with some additions, Van Gundy will have some problems with the team?s backcourt. However, I think the Magic will have even more problems if they start struggling with injuries, as the roster isn?t deep at all. If Howard gets injured or gets into foul trouble early on a game, can a player like Adonal Foyle be a reasonable backup?

Orlando should stand up this season and be a serious contender to win the Eastern Conference, after all the team was just beaten by Boston and Detroit last season and they maintain the same team structure. Howard will once again be the team?s superstar and it would be great for him if he could improve his FT %, which is curiously lower than his FG%! The roster seems to be lacking depth, the team is young, so the chances of they get plagued by injuries is lower, but if that happens, this may be an huge problem for the team.

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