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Rob Hennigan navigating the options, parity of NBA Draft

By Philip Rossman-Reich

May 17, 2016; New York, NY, USA; Orlando Magic general manager Rob Hennigan represents his team during the NBA draft lottery at New York Hilton Midtown. The Philadelphia 76ers received the first overall pick in the 2016 draft. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports
May 17, 2016; New York, NY, USA; Orlando Magic general manager Rob Hennigan represents his team during the NBA draft lottery at New York Hilton Midtown. The Philadelphia 76ers received the first overall pick in the 2016 draft. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports /
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The Orlando Magic and general manager Rob Hennigan have some questions to answer this offseason. They begin with an uncertain NBA Draft and the 11th pick.

The Orlando Magic enter this year’s NBA Draft at something of a crossroads.

Having won 35 games last year and been through four years of a rebuild, they are looking to take a step forward and make the Playoffs. They are planning on being aggressive in free agency and pursuing all options to improve the team.

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That creates an environment that is incredibly exciting and incredibly uncertain as the Magic are slated to pick 11th in Thursday’s NBA Draft.

It has been a very difficult draft to peg so far. And specifically what the Magic want to do.

Needing to take that step up a rookie picked at 11 in a draft that has a lot of parity, as general manager Rob Hennigan described it Wednesday as he met with the media, may not move the needle much.  The Magic have made it no secret they are looking for a veteran to help guide this young roster now.

The draft pick still has value. It is still another player and another opportunity to add talent to the roster. And so every avenue and every player is going to be explored, even if the fit does not seem perfect.

“I think the preference would be someone who can contribute,” Hennigan said. “But with where we’re picking, we may have to lean toward picking the best player on the board as we try to balance those two things. The preference is to find someone who can help us immediately.”

Hennigan said the team’s current roster and the team’s depth chart could certainly play a role in who the Magic take. But if someone like Buddy Hield or Marquese Chriss, for instance, fall to the Magic, they may be the pick even with other core players in place already on the roster. At 11, the options and control over the prospects the team is picking certainly shrink some.

This is where the team will rely on its scouting and information gathering throughout the Draft process to winnow that list down and be prepared for just about any scenario.

Hennigan said the team brought in close to 20 players for interviews and workouts. Despite how it might feel with little information getting out to the media this draft, there was nothing unusual or out of the norm with the Magic’s ability to bring players in. Hennigan said they met with all the players they wanted to.

At the moment, Orlando seems likely slated to take a raw but talented player like Kentucky’s Skal Labissiere or Michigan State’s Deyonta Davis. Although several other players could be in play — such as Marquette’s Henry Ellenson, Utah’s Jakob Poeltl, Syracuse’s Malachi Richardson and Notre Dame’s Demetrius Jackson.

The list grows pretty long thanks to the parity in this draft in and around where the Magic are picking. As Hennigan said Wednesday, there is not a ton of separation between “20 to 30 guys.” Hennigan said the talent seems to cluster and makes it challenging, especially where the Magic are picking, to assess value.

But this pick is probably not going to have much of an effect on the Magic’s summer plans. The focus it would seem is on adding veteran experience through free agency. And really not even players already established on the roster already could deter the Magic from pursuing free agents.

The Magic are not going to let the Draft affect or change any of their free agent plans.

“I would say probably not for us,” Hennigan said. “We’re hoping we use free agency to bring in some veteran experience and guys who can help right away versus the draft which is typically more of a forecast.”

The search for a veteran could lead the Magic down many, many avenues. Hennigan said the team is continuing to explore a lot of discussions for trades.

It is hard to know at this point how active the team is. But anything seems possible entering Thursday in a draft that is already extremely hard to predict.

Next: Five under-the-radar players the Orlando Magic could draft

“It is always hard to say with certainty how deep a draft is or how strong a draft is,” Hennigan said. “We see this draft as having some pretty good depth. When you try to calculate how good it is, you oftentimes don’t have that answer for a few years thereafter. We feel like there is a lot of parity in the draft. We feel like we will be able to find a player who can help, crack the rotation and hopefully even more than that.”