The Orlando Magic have had a slow rebuild collecting assets. With the Playoffs seemingly slipping away, patience should reign as the deadline approaches.
Things are not looking good for the Orlando Magic right now.
The team is currently sitting 12th in the Eastern Conference, it has lost seven games straight, 11 of its last 12, and fans everywhere are contemplating a change.
Tinkering with the starting five served its purpose earlier in the season and adding Victor Oladipo and Aaron Gordon to the lineup should have resulted in a win on Friday (and probably on Monday and Tuesday too).
But as the trade deadline nears and the inquiries about Orlando’s talented, young core start flooding in, it is essential Rob Hennigan keeps the bigger picture in mind.
Things have, after all, improved a great deal this season.
Last year the Magic won a total of 25 games, while this year they already have 20 wins on the board. This is due in part to Scott Skiles’ defensive influence (the team has held opponents to an average of 99.4 points per game, sixth best in the NBA), the continued development of key players like Nikola Vucevic and Tobias Harris and the fact this season’s roster is marginally deeper than last season’s has helped the team shoot up some into the Playoff conversation.
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Still, based on the evidence we have seen so far, the team may still be a little way off the playoffs. Attaining the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference was the goal (or at least the media-perceived goal) at the start of the campaign, but sacrificing young pieces to get there may not necessarily be the best solution.
There is, after all, no rush.
Sure, we are all getting tired of watching Orlando lose (Rob Hennigan is too). But whichever way you look at it, genuine contention is still a long way off and failing to make the playoffs this year should not necessarily equate to failure.
After all, when Rob Hennigan was appointed general manager back in the summer of 2012, there was an emphasis on long-term development, on building a perennial contender.
Of course, we are approaching the four-year mark, but that is nothing in the life of a rebuilding NBA team, especially when you consider that the average age of the roster he has assembled is just 24.6 years old.
The team’s core, those players who are unlikely to be packaged up and shipped out unless there is a superstar on the table, (Elfrid Payton, Victor Oladipo, Mario Hezonja, Aaron Gordon, Tobias Harris and Nikola Vucevic), are all between 20 (Gordon and Hezonja) and 25 (Vucevic) years old and all have a long way to go in terms of personal and collective development.
The veterans on the roster have provided adequate support (Channing Frye’s spell in the starting five proved particularly fruitful, while Jason Smith has the ability to bring some much needed offense off the bench and who knows what the eventual return of C.J. Watson may signal). But those players aside, the second unit (particularly Andrew Nicholson, Shabazz Napier and Dewayne Dedmon) does not offer a great deal of trade value.
The misfit is, perhaps, Evan Fournier, who reportedly turned down a four year, $32 million contract extension last summer.
The decision gives him the opportunity to test his market value as a restricted free agent this coming offseason, meaning the Magic may have to overpay to keep him on the books.
The prospect is an intriguing one, especially as Orlando seems fully invested in the backcourt combination of Payton and Oladipo and has Hezonja (whose rookie season to date has fallen some way short of expectations) waiting in the wings.
Besides, in 43 appearances this season Fournier is averaging just 13.7 points per game – not great for a guy who is at best an average defender on a team that is averaging 98.8 points per game (23rd in the league).
Furthermore, he is shooting 43 percent from the field and 37 percent from three, and has recently lost his place in the starting five.
All this means his value is hard to gauge and the likelihood of Orlando securing a battle-hardened veteran starter in exchange for the young Frenchman seems unlikely.
While acquiring the right role players could propel Orlando ever closer to that eighth seed, Forunier seems like too high a price to pay for a first-round drubbing from Cleveland, Chicago or Toronto. Especially if they feel Fournier could be part of the team’s future. A rental does the Magic very little “just” to make the Playoffs.
It would make far more sense to stick with him for the time being and assess his value again during the offseason. If, at that point, there is no longer a reason to keep him on the roster, or if the asking price is more than Orlando is willing to pay, it can simply cut him loose and pursue other free agents.
Acquiring one or two quality free agents is perhaps the next step in this team’s development. Rather than trading away the relatively small salaries it currently has on the books for larger ones that may clog up cap space, Orlando would be wiser to maintain as much flexibility as possible ahead of what could potentially be a good offseason for free agents.
The Magic will have the opportunity to offload Jason Smith, who is an unrestricted free agent at the end of the year, and may even want to assess the long term value of keeping Channing Frye (who has another couple of years on his contract) aboard. With decisions on restricted free agents Dewayne Dedmon and Andrew Nicholson also looming, the back end of this Magic roster could look very different next season.
That said, it is important that patience prevails further down the line too, as no one wants to see this exciting, young Magic team succumb to mediocrity because of a desire for this team to run before it can walk. The 2016 Playoffs are not the end goal of this rebuild.
It is after all extremely easy for rebuilding teams to gamble their way into the dead space that sits between the lottery and the playoffs – see the Charlotte Bobcats/Hornets, who, due largely to a lack of patience and plenty of bad decisions, have made just two postseason appearances in the last eleven seasons.
Next: Orlando Magic's struggles a matter of trust
Patience is a virtue. Something Rob Hennigan would do well to remember as the trade deadline approaches.