Road to Relevance: Orlando Magic
Jonathan Isaac and Markelle Fultz help make up the Magic’s current base of young talent. (Photo via Fernando Medina/NBAE via Getty Images)
This week in “Road to Relevance,” I’ll be taking a look at the Orlando Magic and how a franchise that once looked poised to dominate the Eastern Conference through the 2010s has failed to advance past the first round of the NBA playoffs since the 2009-2010 season.
Since parting ways with former head coach Stan Van Gundy and star center Dwight Howard in 2012 to begin a rebuilding period, the Magic have struggled to find the right personnel both on and off the court. They’ve put together just one winning season in that timespan and made the playoffs only twice. They’ve employed five different head coaches across the nine seasons after Van Gundy’s firing, and Scott Skiles leads the pack in terms of winning percentage while coaching the Magic at .427 in the 2015-2016 season, his only with the organization.
The direction of the franchise has seemed ambiguous in the past, as their priority appears to have flipped multiple times between winning in the present and effectively rebuilding. Best evidenced by the 2016 trade for Serge Ibaka in which the Magic sent budding young star Victor Oladipo and the freshly-drafted Domantas Sabonis to the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Magic have emphasized acquiring and developing young talent only to, oftentimes, trade them away in search of something better for them in the short term.
They’re a team that throws big contracts at players who impress on championship-level teams, only for them to fizzle out and leave the Magic with no choice but to unload their high-salary deals (see: Simmons, Jonathan and Biyombo, Bismack). Without the privileges that come with being a hot destination for free agents like those enjoyed by their fellow Floridian franchise, the Miami Heat, the Magic have been forced to execute major roster changes largely through the occasionally unforgiving trade market.
Longtime members of the Magic Nikola Vučević, Aaron Gordon and Evan Fournier were all traded by the team at the trade deadline on March 25, 2021. (Photo via Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel/TNS via Getty Images)
Some unfortunate draft luck is to blame for the unusual goings-on in Orlando, as other than Oladipo their most notable draft selection of the past decade was Aaron Gordon, a player known better for his dunk contest outings than his in-game acumen. Gordon showed potential to be the player Orlando was waiting for to carry them to sustained success. Unfortunately, mishandling of his skillset, usage and spot in the lineup led the team to cut their losses at this year’s trade deadline and send him to the Denver Nuggets in a trade.
The face of the Magic in the post-Dwight era was unquestionably Nikola Vučević, a former sixteenth overall pick in the 2011 draft who was acquired by Orlando in the blockbuster trade that sent Howard to the Los Angeles Lakers. The Montenegrin big man quickly impressed, and he averaged a double-double with his points and rebounds per game in all but two of his nine seasons with the Magic.
At the time of Vučević’s departure from Orlando facilitated by a trade with the Chicago Bulls, he was in the midst of his best season yet, averaging a career-high 24.5 points per game and 11.8 rebounds per game while shooting 40.6 percent from beyond the arc. Orlando’s trading of him, along with Gordon and fellow Magic veteran Evan Fournier, signified a complete overhaul of the team’s identity.
While the aforementioned trio served as the Magic’s core throughout much of the turbulence of the team’s new era, their lack of success together made the trades sensible. The team’s 15-29 record on the day of the trade deadline emphasized the need for change, and unlike the Ibaka trade where potential was given up in exchange for immediate impact, all three of the Magic’s deadline deals this season netted them young players and future draft selections.
Rookie point guard Cole Anthony impressed in his debut season with the Magic. (Photo via Trevor Ruszkowski/USA TODAY Sports)
With the NBA’s third-youngest team this season based on average player age, the Magic finally seem to be fully committed to the youth movement. They already boast an impressive amount of players with exciting potential, including Jonathan Isaac, Cole Anthony, Wendell Carter Jr. and Markelle Fultz. Mo Bamba, the fifth overall pick in the 2018 draft, has not quite lived up to expectations, but a late bloom is not out of the question. This bevy of young talent combined with their new excess of draft capital will allow Orlando the flexibility necessary to experiment with team and player development in the upcoming seasons.
The vacancy at head coach following Steve Clifford’s departure from the team should be addressed as soon as possible, besides that, the Magic are well set up for a rebuilding era that could likely take quite a few years to crystallize into a real team. Free agency from here on out should be looked at solely as an avenue for acquiring low-cost, low-risk prospects, as the Magic will need to make use of their cap space for eventual extensions following the conclusions of rookie contracts. And, because they have all of their own draft picks, losing their way to the pick of the litter in the draft will likely be Orlando’s M.O. for the foreseeable future.
