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The New Amway Center opened on October 1st and features state of the art technology and a sustainable building design in many areas.  The City of Orlando owns the new arena that was years in the making with the extremely tough job of securing financing.  At a cost of $380 million the new Amway Center is the pride of Orlando and the Orlando Magic NBA team and a showcase for future NBA arenas. 

The Amway Center was designed by the renowned stadium architects Populous, formerly known as HOK Sport and features 8 levels and 875,000 square feet, nearly three times the size of the Amway Arena, the previous home of the Magic.  There are 1,100 digital monitors and the tallest high definition video board in any NBA arena at this time along with 60 suites, club seats, all the modern amenities and more.

One of the nice things about the Amway Arena is that it is owned by the City of Orlando. The Orlando Magic were a big part of making it happen with a major financial commitment but the whole community came together including local businesses such as Walt Disney World Company, Universal Orlando, Sea World and local hotels that needed to accept a new tax on hotel rooms.

With other NBA cities such as Sacramento and the Sacramento Kings looking to build new arenas for their basketball teams and residents to enjoy more entertainment options the City of Orlando showed the way by owning the venue themselves and not making poor decisions with developers eager to take most of the profits.

There may be a few bugs to work out as there are with any new buildings of this size. The first concert at the Amway Center was Friday night and though the fans seemed to rave about the building and the amenities at least one fan commented on the My Fox Orlando website that “the sound for the concert of Vicente Fernandez was terrible”.

Tickets for all Amway Center events are available including Orlando Magic tickets for the 2011 NBA season.

It doesn’t matter who’s NBA rankings you look at this year, they’re all pretty much going to be the same. Take a serious look at the NBA teams this year and it’s obvious the Los Angeles Lakers with the addition of Ron Artest are the favorites to go to the NBA Finals and take it all. The Boston Celtics are a close second with a healthy Garnett, but as the home opener showed, the Cavaliers with Shaq are a distant third.

And everyone talks about Ron Artest and the problems he can bring to a team but he proved himself in Sacramento by showing up and working hard every game, without incident. And he loves Kobe and Los Angeles so he should bring good things to the table in LA this year.

The Boston Celtics struggled at the end of last year with injuries and lost in seven games to the Orlando Magic in the playoffs after leading 3-2. Their first game this year resulted in a win over the Cleveland Cavaliers and gave the team a much needed moral victory to start the season.

Why did Cleveland think Shaq would make a difference, I don’t know. I don’t believe you can run an old big man like Shaq much anymore. Even when he was playing with the Lakers Phil Jackson wouldn’t work Shaq too hard, until the playoffs. So good luck with that one Cleveland, I just don’t see it.

Other than the top five, not many of the other teams even has a chance this year, unless of course, someone gets hurt!

Here are my predictions for the top five:

1. Los Angeles Lakers – Buy Tickets for the Los Angeles Lakers
2. Boston Celtics – Buy Tickets for the Boston Celtics
3. Cleveland Cavaliers – Buy Tickets for the Cleveland Cavaliers
4. Orlando Magic – Buy Tickets for the Orlando Magic
5. San Antonio Spurs – Buy Tickets for the San Antonio Spurs

Tickets for NBA games are on sale now for all the teams.