The 1995 NBA title didn't happen.

Shaquille O'Neal left. Penny Hardaway went sour. Grant Hill keeps needing surgery.

Now we must imagine a future with no Orlando Magic.

Actually that's not so hard to picture. Four years ago this time, we had no Magic because of the lockout that delayed season openers until February.

We survived, but then we knew the games would begin again sooner or later.

Now there's the possibility that the Magic will be grabbed up by some other city willing to build the team a new arena, carted off by some other owner able to pay the hefty toll the NBA requires of a team that gets on the expressway.

Orlando could lose its only pro sports identity, a cherished status symbol of big city-hood. Volusia County residents would lose the opportunity to take in a game now and then, to see Michael Jordan and Vince Carter and other household names play occasionally.

NOT ABOUT ARENA?

The news that the DeVos family has the team up for sale has provoked nearly as big a media frenzy as the Steve Spurrier Sweepstakes.

Team DeVos insists it's not about the new arena the family isn't getting, or the renovations of TD Waterhouse Centre, which it also isn't getting, what with revenues and priorities having been so thoroughly rearranged on Sept. 11.


Team president Bob Vander Weide, a son-in-law of owner Rich DeVos, insisted Monday afternoon that this is a big-picture estate-planning issue, not just frustration over the arena that is not to be.

Rich DeVos is 75 and had a heart transplant four years ago. And passing a large business on to your heirs is a difficult and expensive business.

Joe Robbie couldn't get public support for a new arena, so he built his own in the 1980s, a feat that looks more remarkable with each new taxpayer-subsidized facility that breaks ground.

But his name and his family are gone from the house that Robbie built. His children were forced to sell the Miami Dolphins to pay inheritance taxes.

When any large item must be sold, it's prudent to do it at a time of the seller's choosing, not when Uncle Sam is standing there demanding a check.

NO MOVING VANS YET

What Vander Weide couldn't explain Monday was exactly why this has become an issue now, just months after all hope of a new or renovated arena vanished.

After all, Rich DeVos was past 70 and in poor enough health to need a new heart just four years ago, and the Magic weren't put up for sale then.

Vander Weide also wouldn't say whether the team would be for sale if the new arena in fact were in the works. But it's unlikely that Team DeVos did the hard sell on a new arena for a team they intended to sell.

At any rate, the Magic aren't packing up the moving vans yet.

Two years from now, Vander Weide is betting, the Magic will still be here.

Five years from now, he isn't so sure.