JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Here are five observations of the Orlando Magic from training camp:

	A bad back didn't stop Tracy McGrady from averaging 30.8 points a game in the playoffs.

1. As with Grant Hill's left ankle, Tracy McGrady's back is worlds better now than it was a year ago. Of course, as with Hill's left ankle, the Magic will be privately worried about McGrady's back every day of every season, no matter how well McGrady seems to have progressed with the help of an Orlando back specialist. "Once you have a bad back, you have a bad back," Magic coach Doc Rivers said. "You don't get a good back the next day. I think the difference between Tracy this year and last year is that he understands that." McGrady, by all accounts, has been vigilant all summer in his rehabilitation, which involves a special machine that stretches T-Mac's vertebrae.

2. For those hoping for a glimpse of the new and more attack-minded Hill, Thursday's brief media access to practice was somewhat of a letdown. Rivers had the Magic working on late-game situations, and Hill only squeezed off a couple of shots in the drill. Reason? The drill was more of a test for McGrady, in which T-Mac's team was repeatedly placed in a deficit (by, say, three to six points) with two minutes or less to go. One of the next aspects of McGrady's development, says the coach, is forging the crunch-time poise of an MVP candidate. "Being the guy to make the shot," Rivers calls it. "We like the ball in Grant's hands to get the ball in someone's hands to make the shot. We like it in Tracy's hands to make the shot. Grant is brilliant with the ball. He sees everything. He's the decision-maker of our basketball team and Tracy is the closer."

3. The Magic still has no established rebounders … and its only 7-footer (the slender Steven Hunter) is injured … and so is Horace Grant (recovering from a knee scope) … and you wonder how Orlando is going to be any better defensively because of those realities. All that forces Rivers to embrace what he does have, and -- for the first time in four seasons as a coach -- he has a core. Until now, the roster has been in a constant state of flux, as the Magic perpetually tried to maintain salary-cap flexibility for the summer of 2003 and make another run at Tim Duncan. This season is different. A handful of guys (like Darrell Armstrong, Pat Garrity, even Andrew DeClerq) have been around for at least two seasons, which means Rivers isn't totally starting over for the first time.

4. There are no Duncan whispers in Magic camp. Orlando should have some cap room next summer but knows it won't have enough to go after Duncan again. It also knows Duncan is much more entrenched in San Antonio than he was in the summer of 2000 and probably wouldn't leave anyway. Building around Hill and McGrady is the focus here. "The market turn and downward turn in the salary cap," Magic VP John Gabriel admits, "have changed the plans for many of us in the league." Gabriel added that Orlando is intent on operating now as a team under the luxury-tax threshold.

5. If there's going to be a major change in Orlando, it figures to involve Mike Miller. In one of the many scenarios that circulated over the summer, Miller was offered to Seattle in a sign-and-trade package in a bid for Rashard Lewis. How Miller copes with trade talk -- because he's the Magic's most movable asset in the search for dependable size -- is something to monitor.

Marc Stein is the senior NBA writer for ESPN.com. E-mail him at marc.stein@espn3.com.