It's early in the preseason for the Magic and, as usual, it's hard to tell up from down, left from right, margarine from butter.

They look like a board game in which all the pieces were spilled onto the floor, begging for proper assembly.

No surprise there. In a sense, it is a totally different club from last season. There are three new starters, in effect, if you count a rebuilt Grant Hill. Even the returnees' roles are not quite the same because Hill has taken the ball out of point guard Darrell Armstrong's hands.

And for the time being, all these tumbling dominoes have taken the team out of Tracy McGrady's hands.