Penny Hardaway has never forgiven Orlando. Maybe it's time to move on. As things have turned out, both parties are better off for Hardaway having left the Magic for Phoenix in August of 199.

Circumstances had reached the point where the hypersensitive Hardaway had to go.

He got his jackpot contract (seven years, almost $87 million) in a sign-and-trade deal, and the Magic got the salary-cap space they later used to sign Tracy McGrady and Grant Hill. Win-win.

If there was a loser in the deal, it was the Suns, who got an injury-prone player who is having difficulty accepting the fact that he is no longer one of the NBA's elite athletes.

And he has four years left on a contract that pays him as if he were.

But there was a time when a different decision could have changed the whole story, according to Hardaway.

"If I could do it all over again, I would have sat out the entire season after I had my second surgery (in 1998) instead of trying to come back," he said before Wednesday night's game in Orlando.

"Then I'd probably still be in Orlando.

"After the second surgery, people didn't tolerate anything I did wrong. They just couldn't understand why I couldn't play the way I had been playing.

"But I was hurt. There was no way around it. They used all kinds of excuses against me, but I just came back too soon."

In Hardaway's view, "they" is the Orlando he had to leave. It includes the Magic organization, then-coach Chuck Daly, teammates who may have questioned the extent of his injuries, the media, the fans and everyone who turned against him when he was injured. "They" are all in it together. Hardaway once blamed Owner Rich DeVos for not ordering the media to stop criticizing him.

"They" are still out there and Hill, who has had two ankle operations since signing with the Magic, had better beware.

"They weren't patient with me, and they really weren't patient with Grant," Hardaway said. "You have to let people just rest and come back when they want to. The one person I respect the most throughout this whole thing is (New Jersey's) Kerry Kittles because nobody heard from him for about two years. He sat out fully and he got fully well, and now he's the old Kerry Kittles.

"I kept coming back early because the team needed me, and I got smashed for it. It's the same thing with Grant; he needs to sit out. He just had surgery again, and if he tries to come back, it'll happen again."

There are elements of accuracy in Hardaway's memory. There isn't much doubt he came back too soon after his first knee operation in the winter of '97. There is no doubt the Magic needed him, and he finished that season with the highlight of his career, scoring 31 points a game in a first-round playoff loss to Miami.

He has never been the same player after the second operation, which cost him 80 percent of the 1997-98 season. His legs never regained the lift that made him a nightmare for opposing guards in his first three NBA seasons. Probably there were people who couldn't understand that and were disappointed by his performance. Daly may have been one of them.

But he was still a very good player. The decline in his game was only a small factor in the decline of Hardaway's popularity in Orlando. In fact, his decline in popularity was grossly overstated, especially by Hardaway himself. Until his final days in Orlando, when he basically talked his way out of town, he was actually very popular among most fans.

But if three people were booing in a crowd of 16,00, he would hang his head and get defensive. Then came the selfish demands, antagonistic statements, overreaction to the slightest criticism, whining.

When Daly resigned in the spring of 1999 and Doc Rivers took over as coach of the Magic, he tried to talk Hardaway into staying. The Magic would have given him the same maximum contract he got from the Suns, but by then Hardaway had his heart set on Phoenix.

In what looked like a one-sided deal favoring Phoenix, the Magic took Pat Garrity and the final year of Danny Manning's contract. Manning was traded before ever putting on a Magic uniform and Garrity has proved to be an inexpensive asset.

"The trade has worked out terrificly for us," Rivers said. "Penny Hardaway is obviously a better player overall, I guess. But because of the injuries and the other stuff . . .you've got to think Pat Garrity worked out far better for us, especially when you factor in that we got Tracy and Grant due to that deal."

The Suns have been disappointing in each of Hardaway's three seasons out there. He missed virtually all of last season and now Coach Frank Johnson is bringing him off the bench.

Hardaway, now 30, doesn't like it one bit. He concedes that he may have to change his game eventually to compensate for what he has lost in spring and quickness.

"But I'm not at that point now," he said. "I don't have to change my game for anybody."