Better Luck Next Year: Orlando Magic edition
As NBA teams are officially eliminated from title contention, theScore NBA freelance writer Andrew Unterberger takes a look back at the highs and lows of their season, along with the biggest questions ahead of 2018-19. The sixth edition focuses on the Orlando Magic.
The Good
The 6-2 start. Like the Grizzlies out West, the Magic started the season off as a surprise success story, going 6-2 in their first 8 games and inspiring a lot of articles asking, "Is the Magic's hot start for real?" (Cue the "Arrested Development" narrator voice.) The 3-point shooting was unsustainable, but a lot of the player improvement felt plausible, if a bit coincidental to all sort of be happening at once. Nonetheless, the Ws were legit, including decisive victories over the Cavs, Spurs, Heat, and Pelicans. Then the team went 10-35 from deep in a 22-point loss to the Bulls, and nothing was quite the same again.
Aaron Gordon's breakout. Is he a franchise player? Maybe, maybe not, but at least it's an argument after his senior pro season. He's averaged 18 and eight (with more assists than turnovers) and added a 3-point shot to his game, converting triples at a newly prolific and efficient rate. Injuries have cost him a good deal of his season, and it's unclear if he's currently playing in the right role/position to maximize his skill set. But as Orlando fans suffer through another miserable season, Gordon at least remains a source of legitimate intrigue.
Mario Hezonja's arrival. Gordon had long been tantalizing but frustrating after being drafted by Orlando in 2014, but Hezonja - taken with the No. 6 pick a year later - was at risk of washing out of the league before even seeing the end of his rookie contract. But after two seasons of erratic playing time and nonexistent efficiency, Hezonja finally locked down a rotation slot in 2017-18, even scoring 20-plus in three straight games in February after only breaking 20 once across his first two seasons. Consistency still has proven elusive and defense may always be a struggle for him, but Hezonja is at least starting to look like a player worthy of regular NBA burn.
Thorn in the Cavs' side. Though they ultimately split their four-game season series with Cleveland, the Magic consistently gave the Cavs fits. Not only did they throttle LeBron & Co. by 21 at the Q in the opening month and hold them to nine (nine!!) fourth-quarter points in a February beatdown, the Magic also took 'em down to the wire twice in between, nearly stealing two games in January that would've reduced Cleveland's locker room to rubble. In at least this one respect, the spirit of Rashard Lewis was alive and well in this Magic squad.
Wining D.J. Augustin roulette. You can almost never predict when Augustin is going to have a good season or a sub-replacement-level one; the only real way to win is not to gamble on him in the first place. Still, with Elfrid Payton injured (and/or failing to inspire confidence), there weren't a ton of other options available for the Magic, who were forced to place an unadvisable amount of their chips on Augustin. This year, though, it largely paid off: he's averaged 10 and three while shooting 43 percent from behind the arc, with his best PER (15.6) since he basically saved the Bulls' season as their spot point guard in 2014. Not the kind of achievement you want to be hanging your team's year on, but then not much about this Magic season turned out as hoped.
The Bad
Jonathan Isaac's abortive rookie year. As much attention as Markelle Fultz has gotten in Philadelphia for the surreal way his rookie season (or lack thereof) has unfolded, not nearly enough has been paid to the lost first year of fellow top-five pick Isaac, who played in 12 of the Magic's first 13 games, before missing all but three of the next 48 with ankle injuries. He was largely unproductive before going down, scoring in double figures just once - which is once more than he's done in the nine games since returning in early March.
He's shown enough upside - particularly on the defensive end, where he's posted one of the few clearly positive differentials for Orlando this season - to remain in the team's long-term plans. But what the FSU product can bring remains mostly a mystery at this point.
Terrence Ross' flop. Ross went down in November and has been out since with an MCL sprain and tibial fracture. But things had soured for Ross in his first full season in Orlando well before that: Through 22 games, he was averaging just nine points on 41 percent shooting (33 percent from deep), while posting mediocre defensive numbers but generally not having anywhere near the impact the Magic likely hoped for when Toronto made him the centerpiece of the Serge Ibaka trade. Considering what they gave up to originally get Ibaka - Victor Oladipo, who's probably going appear on some MVP ballots this season - it's hardly an ideal return.
The L.A. Screw Job. There's plenty of frustrating losses to choose from for Orlando, but the nadir was a March loss against its old Finals foes in Los Angeles. Somehow time expired on a Magic inbounds pass toward the Lakers' basket before any player on the floor had touched the ball. The refs ultimately ruled for a jump ball at midcourt, effectively eliminating any chance the Magic would have of scoring a go-ahead bucket in the limited time. "We feel cheated," voiced a pissed-off Gordon afterward. "(The refs) gave them the game. ... It's just a terrible end to a game of basketball. They didn't even give us a chance to win."
The Elfrid Payton trade. What felt like three-and-a-half continuous seasons of questioning Payton's value ended at this season's trade deadline, when Payton was unceremoniously dealt to Phoenix for a 2018 second-rounder. It was a paltry return for a former top-10 pick under nearly any circumstances, but particularly so for these Magic, who gave up both the 12th pick in 2014 - Dario Saric, currently a productive and improving starter on a playoff team - and a future first-rounder, which eventually became De'Aaron Fox for Sacramento, to land Payton from Philly on draft night four summers earlier.
The Arron Afflalo haymaker. For all the hard fouls, chest-bumping and general tough-guy posturing of the NBA in 2018, to actually see a player wind back and hurl his fist at another with full force is pretty jarring. That's what happened in the Magic's January game against the Minnesota Timberwolves, when some scrapping between Afflalo and Nemanja Bjelica escalated unexpectedly into the Orlando wing taking a swing at the Minnesota forward and earning himself a two-game suspension. It was just about the only memorable moment of Afflalo's miserable 11th season, in which he averaged just three points on 40 percent shooting in 47 games.
The Questions
Who is the point guard of the future? Payton is gone, and although Augustin has been a nice surprise this season, any team planning on him being more than a serviceable long-term backup better scale back their franchise expectations accordingly. Perhaps Orlando is hoping to land Luka Doncic or Trae Young in the draft? Or maybe they have their sights on a Rajon Rondo- or Tyreke Evans-type option in free agency - maybe even a reunion with Shabazz Napier? In any event, they better have some kind of plan, because it's fairly clear the answer is not currently on the roster.
Is Gordon worth the max? Gordon's combination of extraordinary athleticism and improving feel is sure to land him a number of suitors as he enters restricted free agency this summer. The Magic can, of course, match any offer for their prized forward, but it may take a max offer to do so, since fellow cellar-dwellers like the Mavs and Suns are said to be interested, and the 2018 free-agency class gets pretty thin pretty quickly. Will the Magic, who a season ago seemed to be exploring trade options for Gordon, have the stomach to commit to him with franchise-player money?
Is it time to cut bait with Nikola Vucevic? Amazingly, it's been six summers since the trade that shipped out former franchise player Dwight Howard and brought big man Vucevic to Orlando. And while Big Vooch didn't take long to prove himself as one of the league's most offensively prolific big men, the Magic haven't sniffed the postseason since he's been there - his inability to anchor anything resembling a top-flight defense is a large reason why. What's more, he's got one year and a not-too-unreasonable $13 million left on his contract after this one, and seems a long shot to return to Orlando. It may be time to deal him for spare parts and give Isaac a shot at anchoring the back line.
How much longer does Frank Vogel have? It's only been two seasons for Vogel on the Magic bench, but considering they've gone from 35 wins the year before he showed up to 29 wins, to almost certainly even fewer this season, you can't imagine Orlando's front office is feeling particularly patient with his adjustment period. Rob Hennigan, the GM who hired Vogel, is long gone, and it may take another strong start to next season - one that the team doesn't entirely give away by the end of November - to keep the former Pacers coach from getting scorched by the hot seat before 2019 is upon us.
Will this team ever develop an identity? "Have the Magic ever grasped a coherent identity - even for just a half-dozen games - since the Dwight Howard trade?" Zach Lowe asked semi-rhetorically in his most recent Ten Things I Like and Don't Like column. It's a fair question to pose of a team that's tried just about every different type of player personnel combination over the last half-decade, without even accidentally stumbling into a style that works on a regular basis. At season's beginning, the Magic tried embracing modernity with a pace-and-space, three-jacking lineup that saw even big man Vucevic launching from behind the arc, with initial effectiveness that dissolved as injuries and regressions to the mean mounted. Will they fully commit to the style next year, or junk it for something completely different?
(Photos courtesy: Getty Images)