ORLANDO, Fla. - It's funny how things morph over time.

Five years ago, you wouldn't have much to consider when asked whether you would rather have Vince Carter or Hedo Turkoglu. Even as things turned sour in Toronto, Carter was still an All-Star fixture and one of the 10 players the casual fan paid money to see. Turkoglu was a perennial project.

Fast forward to June of 2009, where the careers of these two wings now cross paths.

Carter is a 32-year old fading star with a bad contract. Turkoglu, two years younger, is now a coveted free agent with a Most Improved Player award to his credit. Neither made the All-Star team this past February, but it was Orlando's small forward who came closest.

Correction: Orlando's old small forward.

The Magic took advantage of New Jersey's desire to shed contracts and pursue LeBron James and the rest of the class of 2010, landing Carter, a local product. Ascending to superstar status at North Carolina and in the NBA after terrorizing opponents at Daytona Beach's Mainland High, Carter gives Orlando its third max-contract player, acquired from the Nets alongside forward Ryan Anderson for the expiring deals of Tony Battie and Rafer Alston in addition to valuable shooting guard Courtney Lee, whose impressive rookie season made a fan out of Rod Thorn.

Though not listed among the traded, Turkoglu is likely to be a casualty of Carter's return to Central Florida. Although nothing is set in stone, it's highly unlikely that the Magic will be willing to add to their expenditures and doom themselves to a hefty luxury tax payment in order to keep the fan favorite.

"At this point we really don't know where Turk is," Magic president Bob Vander Weide said at Carter's introduction. "Obviously, until he gets forward into free agency, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

There was giddy talk about keeping Turkoglu and Marcin Gortat without any regard to the luxury tax, as if the DeVos family were the pre-depression Rockefellers and we weren't in a recession. Said Vander Weide: "Our organization's goal is to have Rich DeVos hold up that gold trophy."

Amway must be doing quite well.

"Our summer is not done. I will tell you that. We still have a long way to go. Our roster is far from being complete," GM Otis Smith said. "We'll still sit down and talk to Turk and Turk's people. Marcin is out there that we'd like to return as well.  We'll still try to put the best team on the floor to give us a chance to win a championship."

Unless Turkoglu and Gortat plan on giving the Magic a significant hometown discount, they'll be off to greener pastures, of the currency variety.

Barring something unforeseen, the Magic will now open their new building in October of 2010 with the star power of Howard, Carter, Lewis and Jameer Nelson as the attractions. All will be safely under contract along with Mickael Pietrus, which really limits what GM Otis Smith can do to add any more significant parts over the next few seasons.

The question now becomes, is Orlando better with Carter than they would've been keeping Turkoglu?

Certainly, the Magic are more high-profile. Throughout these past NBA Finals, I thought back to Smith's decision to pursue Lewis rather than bring Carter home, which was a big rumor floating around at the time. While Lewis certainly did his part in helping the Magic get to the championship round, having him squaring off against LeBron James and Kobe Bryant didn't create the type of national buzz a Carter would've generated. The Magic now have a wow factor to go with their freakish marvel of a big man.

But it remains to be seen whether the acquisition of Carter will wind up being a question of style over substance. He's a playmaker, but not the ballhandler and decision-maker Turkoglu is in Stan Van Gundy's system. Rashard Lewis will likely go back to playing more at his natural position. Jameer Nelson is going to have the ball in the clutch more often, not to mention being relied on to be more of a conventional point guard than he's had to be due to Turkoglu's presence and his strength running the pick-and-roll.

Carter's ability to free-lance does open things up for Stan Van Gundy, whose preferred offensive philosophy was constant ball movement because he felt he needed to compensate for not having a go-to guy he could isolate.  Carter is at his best when you run isolation for him, so that may work out if he doesn't irk Van Gundy with bad decisions or by becoming a ball-stopper.

Where Carter can really make a dent is in the leadership department, as even though the Magic followed Dwight Howard, he wasn't the vocal presence of say a Bryant or a James. Carter is that type of player, and he's already taking an ownership role, knowing that at this stage in his career, time starts working against you. 

"It's an opportunity for me to show what I can do, that I can fit in with a championship-caliber team. They've accomplished so much already. I just want to take this team one step further if I can," said Carter. "I talk a lot in huddles, as far as motivating guys. I believe in trying to help guys succeed and motivating, I'm not afraid to get in a guy's face and say 'hey, be the person that you are.'"

In a move Van Gundy described as "proactive," the Magic opted not to wait on Turkoglu. Their answer to our earlier riddle is that they would rather have Carter. 

And so, a hometown hero who has underachieved in never leading his team to so much as a conference finals gets an opportunity to show how hungry he truly is. A lot of Canadians are betting against him, but those who have seen him sacrifice and mature into a leader of a losing New Jersey squad believe he's turned the corner.

The Orlando Magic do, too. They should. They just blew up the chemistry of a team that reached the Finals participant and pinned their hopes to a new dynamic, one that's dramatically different.

Tony Mejia is senior writer for Pro Basketball News. He can be reached at mejia@probasketballnews.com.