Jacque Vaughn’s Initial “Stay Patient” Message Rings True to Orlando Magic Fans

The 2014 draft looms bright on the horizon for all of the Association’s rebuilding teams, and Hennigan is pretty confident the Magic will be bad enough next year to assure another high selection in the rich crop of rookies.

Andrew Wiggins and Jabari Parker are both expected to be franchise cornerstone type talents, and the draft is said to be as top heavy as the 2003 class which featured LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.

As many as eight players in the ’14 class have the potential to be perennial All-Star level talents, and Hennigan will no doubt seek to acquire as many picks as possible in the draft.  Teams are not giving them up, but the Magic will at the minimum have their own pick, and it will be a high one.

But for now, they are still a Magic team that we’ve witnessed win less than one-quarter of its games, a team whose best veterans would not start on other teams. Glen Davis and Jameer Nelson are fine mentors, but GMs aren’t asking Hennigan about their availability. And Hedo Turkoglu and Al Harrington are just waiting to be bought out.

There’s reason for hope in the trio of youngsters, and even slightly more hope when you factor in Andrew Nicholson and Kyle O’Quinn, but it’s quite possible and even likely that the player who becomes the face of the franchise doesn’t even arrive until the summer of 2014.

Beyond that, the max contracts that will be handed out for free agents will likely wait until the summer of 2015, when guys like Rajon Rondo, Kevin Love, LaMarcus Aldridge and Kyrie Irving will all be attractive options.

We’ve speculated a lot here on Presto as to what the Magic’s lineup could look like by the 2015-16 NBA season, and to be truthful, it’s almost impossible to know. The only thing we do know is that Hennigan is making all the right moves to assure that the potential of the rebuild is maximized by the summer of 2015. The Magic will then have the options to lock their blueprint in and see how the pieces come together for the next title run in franchise history.