Magic playoff chances are real & they’re spectacular

The changing landscape of the Eastern Conference should have this plucky Magic team thinking Playoffs

At the onset of the Orlando Magic season, some of the words you heard most were development, growth, evaluation, and potential. OMD editor Philip Rossman-Reich and myself put the season win mark right around 25 on our preseason podcast.

However, multiple factors have collided to make those expectations look conservative at best. While many Magic fans may have felt like they needed to brace for another rebuilding campaign, this team has the talent and opportunity to be an Eastern Conference playoff team.

The East is a mess

Most importantly, an East that appeared to be making progress fell flat on its face. The Hornets collapsed. The Knicks could not be saved from themselves. We all bought a little too much into Stan Van Gundy voodoo with the Pistons. And the Celtics dealt Rajon Rondo.

Jason Kidd has done a great job in Milwaukee, but is a roster now without Jabari Parker for the rest of the season better than the one Orlando rolls with? The Magic beat the Bucks anyway even with Parker in the lineup. The Paul George-less Pacers and the woeful Sixers were already afterthoughts when the season began and nothing has changed their status.

That leaves just seven teams in the East that bring more to the table than the Magic and perhaps even that number can be fudged. If aging rosters in Brooklyn and Miami crumble further, I would rather try my luck with the promising pieces that have taken their place in the Orlando locker room.

The talent is ready

Quietly, the Magic have built a better roster than initially believed. They have two potential All-Stars for this season in Tobias Harris and Nikola Vucevic.

Like Harris before him, Evan Fournier has been a product of Rob Hennigan trade wizardry. If Victor Oladipo ever finds consistency and Elfrid Payton continues to improve, watch out for that backcourt now that Jacque Vaughn has unleashed it from the tip.

These factors are why a four-game losing streak prior to the Boston win on Tuesday night should be frustrating for the Orlando fan. However, some of the faithful might still be rooting for losses in order to land a prime draft pick.

Barring a lottery miracle, Orlando simply cannot be bad enough anymore to score one of the rookie prizes that wait following the season. This two-fold scenario of a bad East and a better Magic roster has flipped the script on what can be accomplished during the 2014-15 season.

Odds are in their favor

Despite the 11-20 record, Orlando sits just three games behind Brooklyn for the eighth seed. Scrape the East’s elite off the top of the standings and the bottom three playoff spots are up for grabs.

The Magic factor into a five-team pool competing for those positions that include the Bucks, Heat, Nets and Hornets. No gambler in Vegas will ever shy away from 3/5 odds.

Better days should be ahead

Outside of Charlotte, no other team in that group has the same room for improvement that Orlando does. A young roster almost always gets better as the season goes on.

Making the Magic reach their potential down the backstretch of the schedule is the mission that head coach Jacque Vaughn and his staff are tasked with. Getting Oladipo more comfortable and further defining the roles of his backcourt mates would go a long way to accomplishing this.

The return of Aaron Gordon should add an extra defensive element that is sorely lacking. Remember too that the Magic weathered a front-end schedule much tougher than most.

All signs point to Orlando playing their best basketball by game No. 82. That bodes well for playoff basketball returning to the Amway Center for the first time since 2012.