Orlando Magic Daily Mailbag Volume 21: The winds of change

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Feb 13, 2017; Miami, FL, USA; Orlando Magic guard Elfrid Payton (4) looks on during the first half against the Miami Heat at American Airlines Arena. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports /

The Orlando Magic are passing the trade deadline soon and it is clear the roster will change. You must have questions, so we opened up the OMD Mailbag.

The Orlando Magic season has not gone according to plan. Not in the least bit.

The team’s lofty ambitions have turned quickly into delusions. As Rob Hennigan announced the trade sending Serge Ibaka to the Toronto Raptors for Terrence Ross, he reiterated the team’s goal is to make the Playoffs. Frank Vogel would likely echo the same.

The reality is trading Serge Ibaka is likely a tacit admission the team’s plans for this year did not work out and they needed a new direction. The reality too is the Magic are 6.5 games out of the Playoff race and have 21 wins at the All-Star Break. Orlando would have to go 17-7 to get to 38 wins, the current pace for the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference.

None of that feels very likely.

The trade deadline demanded change. The Magic have acquiesced. And Orlando certainly could not be done. There is still a week to go before the deadline and some opportunity to shuffle the deck. Terrence Ross alone is not likely to fix everything for the Magic.

The All-Star Break is definitely a time to reset and take a pause for the rest of the season. And the Magic will have to take that time and measure their season. The team Orlando emerges with Thursday out of the All-Star Break will be different than the one they played the first 58 games with this season.

For one, the Magic are going to have to play smaller without a traditional power forward on the roster now. There will be a lot more shifting and trapping going on defensively too, as the Magic showed in the loss to the San Antonio Spurs.

Still many of the questions about the Magic remain the same from before the trade as they are after.

How do the Magic build now? What direction do they need to head? How can they improve their roster? What players should remain? Who should be leading the charge?

These are all big questions for the Magic to continue to try to answer and will be answering for the rest of the season.

As we enter the All-Star Break and head closer and closer to the NBA Trade Deadline, I decided to open up the Orlando Magic Daily Mailbag to your questions.