No sense for Orlando Magic to ‘tank’ rest of season

The Playoffs seem like an unachievable goal for the Orlando Magic as they continue to fade. That does not mean they should stop trying to win and reaching.

The Orlando Magic’s season has reached a crossroads.

It was clear as the team left the West Coast with a 1-3 record and two difficult performances against the Los Angeles Lakers and Portland Trail Blazers that something remains off about this team.

This was a road trip that should have had plenty of urgency and alarm bells. This was a road trip the Magic needed to pick up wins and regain confidence.

Instead, they returned home with more questions. Fundamental questions about want, effort and that innate desire to do the hard things it takes to win.

After the All-Star Break, Scott Skiles said his team needed to win 20 of the team’s final 30 games to accomplish their goals, 18 at a minimum to make the Playoffs (reaching .500). At that point, the Magic were a mere 3.5 games out of the final Playoff spot.

Since then, the Magic are just 5-8. Orlando only has two more losses before that 20-win goal is gone and four more before .500 is no longer possible.

Worse still, the Magic have fallen further out of the Playoff chase. Entering Monday’s games, they are 12th in the Eastern Conference and 5.5 games out of the final Playoff spot.

More alarming still are the lackluster efforts. The repeated statements from players saying they need to play hard and commit to defense and the lack of action to put those into play.

The carrot of the Playoffs does not seem to be enough and following that 37-point loss to the Trail Blazers on Saturday, Skiles was at a loss, telling Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel:

"“My ego would be crazy big if I thought it was having an effect right now,” Skiles said after the Portland loss. “We just came out and laid an egg. The rallying cry’s been the rallying cry.“But you’re not eliminated till you’re mathematically eliminated. That’s just the way it goes. But the fact that we haven’t been able to consistently do the things that we need to do is not a good sign. But at any point we could do them. We just haven’t gotten it done.”"

What was once a difficult, but achievable goal has turned into a pipe dream. And leaves that dreaded question that needs to be asked:

Is it time to pack in the season and play for better draft position? Is the season fully and truly lost?

Scott Skiles’ mentality is not to think this way. It is part of the reason he was hired. He is not going to sacrifice games while there is still a chance. He will believe until the dying moment that his team can rally and make the Playoffs, no matter how deluded that may seem.

The issue with this Magic team is: What does tanking even look like? Does that help the team grow at all?

The clear answer is no. There is no point to even throwing that word around.

All of Orlando’s key players are younger than 30 years old. They all, for the most part, have never been part of a winning team. A big chunk of the team’s problems this year can at least somewhat be attributed to a team that has no clue how to finish basketball games and win them at a high level.

There seems little doubt the team has improved. And despite how dire things seem, the angst is less a product of the work the team has done this year and more an uncertainty about how the team should move forward.

Yet, it is hard to ignore the comparison. Here we are again in March, not talking about the Playoffs.

“I wouldn’t say that we are the same as last year,” Evan Fournier said. “This year is a little bit better. It is frustrating knowing we played so good at the beginning of the season.”

That frustration likely colors everyone’s perspective on the season.

What the team clearly does not need then is another rookie. It does not need another quarter season where the team lives with losing or coasts to the end. The team needs something to fight for to the end.

That is why no matter how impossible and far away the Playoffs seem, the Magic are better of for their long-term rebuild to keep pushing for wins and keeping the team accountable to that goal.

The Magic are not likely to get a pick of much meaning with how far ahead they are. They currently are in line for the 10th best Lottery odds and not likely to fall much further. That kind of a player is not likely to be a star and could end up being another project.

That is the last thing the Magic need right now.

The Magic need veterans and that is more likely to come through a trade or free agency rather than through the Draft. And so the Draft does not give the team much benefit.

There is more benefit to this team in trying to win and putting everything it has for the remaining 17 games into that goal then there is trying to sit out the string.

After all, the Magic are still trying to figure out which players to put its horses behind and which players to ship out for better pieces. It is still eyeing free agency and trying to attract a major player to fill a max salary slot. It would be hard to do that packing it in for the rest of the season.

The rest of this season should be an audition. This Magic team has to prove that the team has made some progress and is ready to continue growing toward becoming a Playoff team and a winner in 2017. Chalk the 2016 season up to some improvement and more growing pains.

The one thing the team cannot do is pack it in at this point. Doing that would almost tell the franchise this whole rebuild has been for nothing and this team is not ready to take the step forward the franchise wanted this year.

Certainly there is some latitude in this. The Magic can certainly play Mario Hezonja a bit more — he played in just 19.0 minutes per game during the road trip — and give him a longer leash to make some mistakes and play through them.

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Then again, winning is still the end goal. The Magic are trying to teach that and aspire to that. Learning wether this team can reach that mark is as important as anything else the team does the rest of the season.

Playing for draft position or packing it in — intentionally or otherwise — does not serve the team’s long-term goals.

Winning still needs to be the attitude. As much as the middle of the NBA needs to be avoided generally, the Magic are at a stage where they want to be with that group and need to figure out if they can.

And so, as impossible as it may seem, the Playoffs still need to be the goal.