The Orlando Magic still have to be said to be in a “best player available” mode in June’s NBA draft. That best player could end up being Croatian swingman Mario Hezonja.
The Orlando Magic will hope for a top-two pick in the NBA Draft Lottery, taking place Tuesday night. The Magic have the fifth-best odds at the No. 1 pick and the highest percentage of landing in the sixth spot. That means the team will have to consider some options that may fall outside the top-5 by sheer statistical necessity.
Among those prospects, Mario Hezonja of Croatia stands out as a swingman the Magic could look at with a “best player available” type of view.
At this point, the Magic will most certainly be drafting the best player available, and a swingman whose ability to play both the 2 and 3 while providing some much needed shooting is in the cards for Rob Hennigan and company.
Hezonja is 6-foot-8 and currently billed as a combo wing player who could play the shooting guard or small forward spot. His athleticism and size should render him a very big playmaking forward, while playing small forward full-time could be his eventual path. His skillset gives him the option of playing the 2, and he also has the speed to do it.
That is a lot of what has scouts so intrigued with his prospects.
His offensive ceiling is high. He is a very good athlete with superb leaping abilities, and he is a good pull-up jump shooter even extending beyond the arc.
Hezonja moves the ball well within an offense and picks and chooses his spots, making teammates better without over-extending himself.
He is going to be a good rebounder in the NBA because he can leap and because he sneaks backdoor around the basket for offensive rebounds. Hezonja’s athleticism is something he will find various ways to exploit at the NBA level, essentially playing in an athlete’s league.
Defensively, he has already proven capable of covering both 2s and 3s in Europe. The challenge at the NBA level features stronger, more athletic players, but he is filling out well muscularly and is still just 20 years old. He is going to have to add bulk to play the 3-spot, and it could even help at shooting guard given he will encounter guys like Jimmy Butler of the Chicago Bulls.
There is no position in the league that is exempt from a handful of guys who will put their backs to the basket, and Hezonja has to add the lower body strength he will need against back-to-the-basket wing players.
He is also not well-versed with NBA help-side defense, which is something we saw Aaron Gordon struggle with his rookie campaign as well despite his stellar on-ball defense.
Given the Magic’s overall lack of awareness defensively as a team, Hezonja would come into a situation learning with the rest of the players how to best cover for one another defensively. It would be a learning process for everyone.
Hezonja would initially provide the Magic more depth. He would be a part of a second unit that likely featured another shooter in Evan Fournier. Hezonja is a lot like Fournier, but he is longer and he is a better passer than Evan is. Both can create off the dribble, and both are adept at putting the head down and going to the rim.
Hezonja’s length allows him to see over defenses much like Hedo Turkoglu could, and if he develops he could be a supplementary playmaker in the starting lineup.
Some scouts have billed Hezonja as the best European guard since New Jersey Nets guard Drazen Petrovic, and the similarities between their games are there.
The difference is that Mario is, again, bigger than Petrovic and also a better leaper. Petrovic may have been quicker, but that is a matter of debate, and the fact still remains that Hezonja may be the best thing to come out of Croatia in more than two decades.
That is to say he may be the best since Petrovic, or even (a few years later) Chicago Bulls point-forward Toni Kukoc. Croatia has now yielded 14 NBA players, and the Magic have already had two such players on the roster (Gordan Giricek and Mario Kasun).
The poorest outlook could be bleak. That could be he never adapts to the NBA life and NBA way, and fizzles out of the league without making a major impact. That could happen with any rookie, especially ones adjusting from European basketball.
There is even the past disaster with Fran Vazquez of Spain, a 2005 lottery pick of the Orlando Magic’s who never made his way across the pond to the league, and who played for Hezonja’s club team, Regal Barcelona. Contractual-issues and ultimate motivations always can be speculative matters that are difficult to ever fully ascertain prior to drafting a major European prospect.
But Hezonja’s upside is high enough he is currently projected to be a high lottery pick, and his upside is to be a strong rotation player at worst, and at best a future All-Star.
That said with respect to reports that he is as talented as Petrovic, who did make the 1992-93 All-NBA Third team (though somehow was snubbed from the All-Star team in a very talent-saturated era).
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At 6-foot-8, Hezonja would basically be drafted though he is the same position as Tobias Harris.
But that is the thing with the Magic: at every position there is something, someone. Even at power forward, the position of least stability, the Magic have last year’s No. 4 overall pick Aaron Gordon slated to receive heavy minutes.
It does not matter what position Orlando drafts to fill, because there is talent at all five positions, while each also fully needs depth fortification.
The Magic could take Justise Winslow, but he is still behind both Victor Oladipo and Tobias Harris at the 2 and 3 spots. Willie Cauley-Stein would be behind Nikola Vucevic, Dewayne Dedmon and even Aaron Gordon, if not others.
Yes, the Magic are a 25-win team, but it is not a team devoid of talent with bare cupboards, needing desperately to fit lottery picks into starting positions on the team.
And that is why Hezonja would work.
He could take his time developing with a more experienced Harris in front of him, and he would add a lot of life and scoring to a second unit that was sorely in need of it last season.
The idea of taking a guy sixth or seventh overall does not necessarily revolve only around the prospect of that guy starting: sometimes the early years of player’s development are best suited for the second unit. He would receive a larger role offensively with the reserves, and if he has the refined jumper he’s shown with NBA defenses pestering him, he’s solved a major weakness for the Magic.
Beyond that, Hezonja then becomes the ultimate injury replacement because he could cover for either Oladipo or Harris, should either go down. His versatility would be valuable.
Overall, he is not the prospect Justise Winslow is, but there is really no guarantee the Magic will be able to cherry pick the exact player it wants in the draft, and Hezonja may end up being the best player available when Orlando is on the board.
Hezonja is not going to draw the excitement up that Winslow will because he is international and Winslow starred at Duke. Magic fans are a little gun shy about drafting an international prospect because of the poor experience with Vazquez.
But that is not to necessarily say that Mario might not end up being the better player. He is coming at high billing from international scouts, and he has a game that transpires well to the NBA.
Most importantly, Mario can shoot the basketball—but along with that comes the athleticism and defense and that make him a lottery pick in this draft.