Orlando Magic Daily Mailbag Vol. 1: Just throw them in

The 2014-15 season is upon us! I cannot believe that Media Day has come and gone and that all the answers to our questions and hopes and fears will be answered in the next seven months.

Or we can try to answer them all right now. That would make sense too.

I invited you to send me your questions before the season started and I would provide my answers. Hopefully this will be the first of many throughout the 2014-15 season.

This is the question isn’t it? Do the Magic have that superstar on their roster?

Unless Victor Oladipo or Tobias Harris or Nikola Vucevic (or, why the hell not, Ben Gordon) make that leap this season or in the near future, it does not seem very likely. That is at least what I have seen.

Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel got in touch with former Blazers general manager and current ESPN front office/capologist expert Tom Penn and he seemed to sum up my feelings on the current makeup of the Magic’s roster:

"“I think that’s a great group of really solid players with high character and dependable performers. But the concern all along with this process of going young is whether you can get somebody ‘NBA special,’ and that is really necessary at some point in this process or else you just get young and mediocre.”"

That seems to be where the Magic are at. They crapped out on the Lottery last year and are still looking for that superstar.

It is still a question of when the Magic make their move to get that All-Star player. For now, it seems like the Magic will wait just a bit longer. They have some assets though that could enable them to make that big move in the near future.

Britt Beemer via e-mail: How many games will the Magic win this year? What is the best number of wins and poorest number of wins?

I am not into saying exactly how many wins or losses a team will have. Too many things can happen over the course of an 82-game season. I did think the Magic were going to win more games than 23 last year but it was in the low end of the range I had them in.

This year feels even harder to predict because the team has so many young players in key roles. Much moreso than last year — and they won only 23 games last year!

I think what happens this year though is the team does not have the suspicious rotations and there is a bigger focus on producing results this year. Wins will — or should — matter.

So I am putting my range of wins this year at 25-33. That is a long range, and I am hedging my bets. But looking at who is on the team and how things might shake out if players develop modestly, that seems to be a pretty significant improvement.

The most exciting element to me is that the young guys are going to get control of this team and we are going to find out exactly what we have in them.

Last year we got to see Victor Oladipo in flashes and Tobias Harris and Maurice Harkless. These guys are going to get unleashed this season and allowed to take ownership of this team. They are going to be very exciting to watch. Especially if Jacque Vaughn puts in an offense that takes advantage of their athleticism — I suspect he will.

This is going to be a fun team to watch at times with all the athleticism and youth on the team. More than anything, I think by the time April comes around we will have a better idea of which direction the team is going. As someone invested in the long-term future of the club, that is the most exciting prospect of all.

This is a good question. Why not just throw Elfrid Payton into the fire right off the bat?

There is a lot of logic to that thinking for sure. At some point Payton is going to be the man and the future of this team at point guard. So why not put him in there immediately?

Some of that is competitive pressure. The Magic at least have small thoughts of winning at this early stage of the season and want to put the best lineup out on the floor.

Payton will get there for sure. But he may not be there right now. His jumper still needs a lot of work and he has never seen a real NBA defense.

Jacque Vaughn has always brought rookies along slowly, so I do not see Payton starting right off the bat. There is just too much for him to take in. It will be better for the team in the short-term (and, maybe for his long-term confidence) to ease Payton into the lineup. You can balance development with winning very easily.

Payton — and really every player on the team — has to earn his playing time. We will see what practice brings. If he is truly the best guy on the floor, then he will play.

Of course, injuries can always change that equation.

This is the key question for the Magic’s draft class of 2013. And right now, we really do not know.

Elfrid Payton gained the Rajon Rondo comparisons pretty quickly because of his ability to get into the lane and create as a true point guard but also his inability to shoot. I do not think Payton is going to be quite as good as Rondo. And they are so different athletically too.

If Payton can get near Rondo as a playmaker, the Magic will have a good find. It is tough to say what kind of player Payton will eventually be. He has to develop a jumper before we really figure out what he can become. I think Payton’s ceiling is somewhere in Rondo’s neighborhood, his floor is probably a solid bench point guard. The guy can play and create. His jumper is the only thing that will determine where he goes from there.

There is a whole heck of a lot more mystery behind Aaron Gordon and his potential. His unlimited and untapped potential are the exact reason the Magic drafted him.

He is 18 years old, the youngest player in the NBA, and does not quite have a position or any NBA skills aside from his athleticism and his love for the game. The potential is really endless for him.

NBADraft calls him Shawn Marion. I have always called him a Blake Griffin-lite. I think his future is more as a power forward rather than a small forward. His shot has such a long way to go. It is so hard to see how he will grow and develop.

Gordon’s potential is much higher if everything develops. His game really does remind me of a young Blake Griffin right now. Just without the height. His floor though is much lower. He could end up being a better Bo Outlaw — an energy guy with occasional offense.

Way too early to answer this question. But this one . . .

I do not think the Magic are going to tank this year. For tanking to occur, the coach has to be somewhat complicit with odd lineup choices and somewhat inconsistent rotations.

This year’s team is less about losing and more about turning the keys over to the young players. In this sense, this year is not about tanking.

There will be no Arron Afflalo playing ahead of Victor Oladipo to increase Afflalo’s trade value. No deferring to veterans for playing time. This team is about the young players and figuring out who fits into the larger puzzle.

If you look at the season this way, then it is not another tank job. It is a season to figure out who belongs as part of the team’s future or who should be cashed in, so to speak.

Look, at the end of the season when the Magic are out of the Playoffs and have nagging injuries, are they going to hold players out? Yes, I would think so. There will be some surreptitiousness going on then. But overall, this is not a tanking season. That is done. The Magic want to see what they have and win when they can now. At least, that is what I think.

Thanks for submitting your questions. Feel free to keep them coming in! I will do a mailbag every other week. Submit your questions to me on Twitter @OMagicDaily or by e-mail at omagicdaily@gmail.com. I look forward to the next mailbag!