Orlando Magic’s quest for relevance can be a minefield

The Orlando Magic have never experienced a drought of irrelevance like this. Pushing for the Playoffs seems both necessary and short sighted.

The Orlando Magic have always been in the limelight. Go watch This Magic Moment and you can see the flash and bang the Magic were from the very beginning.

The organization has seemingly always chased that high again and again. They always found a way to be relevant. Rebuilds were never necessary, the quick fix was always there.

Orlando was always within touch of the Playoffs and stardom. Through the Tracy McGrady years, the Anfernee Hardaway years and the Dwight Howard years, the Magic always had relevancy. They were always playing for something. But not a championship, not until 2009.

That is the run of Magic history. They were never out of the playoffs. They were always just tantalizingly close to being more, but at least they were in the game. They spent much of the early 2000s and the years after Shaquille O’Neal left living in mediocrity. They were unable to take a step up and their star power prevented them from being completely irrelevant.

And as the Magic shuffled different lineups and failed to hit on any draft pick — lo, the days of Steven Hunter, Jeryl Sasser and Reece Gaines — they stayed in that terrible middle. They remained relevant with one of the best players in the league and in the Playoffs, but nowhere further.

They were unable to move forward as a franchise.

Orlando was always on that periphery. And they wanted it that way. There were never any long rebuilds, and it hampered their ability to compete for championships. After McGrady, they quickly rebuilt thanks to a top overall pick in Dwight Howard. Orlando returned to the Playoffs in three seasons.

The Magic were always quickly back to the Playoffs. Their longest postseason drought in franchise history is just four years: the first four years of the franchise’s history and this current stretch of four years.

There was never any pain of a slow build. The feeling Orlando is going through right now is completely foreign to this fan base. The patience required to build something special is unknown.

This rebuild was expected to be slow. It was expected to be an arduous process to collect assets. It required hitting on at least one of the lotteries the Magic entered. That never happened. The road has not been a straight line at all. There is still uncertainty even as the Magic spend and reform the team to force the issue.

Orlando has had to work in anonymity. The team was always on the border of being a darling franchise, the quiet team all the basketball geeks watched on League Pass. They never quite got there. The Magic remained a curiosity but outside the picture.

So when they traded Tobias Harris and Victor Oladipo and began a massive spending spree and reformation, that same national media that ignored the Magic largely became incredulous. They were turning their back on the rebuild.

As Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel wrote for those complaining about the Magic making such drastic changes with seemingly no direction except the momentary joy of making the Playoffs about a national writer with the headline “What the heck are the Orlando Magic doing?”

"Of course, the writer who wrote this column lives in another state and has likely never spent a penny to buy a ticket or an $8 beer at a Magic game. And this is the problem with national NBA pundits: They sit in their offices in New York or L.A., they watch the SportsCenter highlights of Aaron Gordon andVictor Oladipo dunks, they study their analytics and pie charts and somehow determine the Magic have a team loaded with future superstars.They don’t invest their hearts and souls and disposable income into watching a team that is four years and four coaches into a rebuild and has netted an overall record of 103-225 with no playoff appearances. Seriously, how can anybody even suggest the Magic are rushing their rebuild?"

Of course, that question is the question of someone who has given up on the rebuild and simply wants relevance for relevance’s sake. This even though it was Bianchi, after all, who complained the Magic were stuck in the NBA’s dreaded middle throughout the Tracy McGrady era.

The Magic were incredibly ambitious in this rebuild. And yet they plateaued despite a 10-win improvement and saw the need for change.

There is an argument to forcing progress though. Orlando has failed to build an identity in four years. The pieces they accumulated with the coaches they hired failed to create a formal direction. That consistent winning piece never quite came to fruition.

The Magic did need to do something. There is no doubt. The group they had seemingly had reached a ceiling. It was hard to say they would get much better. Some major moves were needed. Rob Hennigan did not disappoint.

The Magic reformed the roster. The question remains whether the team has set itself for the long term. Who is the team building around? Its core, carefully built and now rushed somewhat into a demand to win, is still largely undefined.

And that is the minefield of a rebuild. A true rebuild like the one the Magic undertook.

There is no easy way forward. Not if the main goal remains the same. Impatience has certainly taken hold.

Four years is a long time without the Playoffs. A make-or-miss year feels like an artificial deadline, but also a necessary step the team would have to make. Maybe everyone needs the pressure that the Magic are putting on this team.

The Magic are not used to being out of the Playoffs this long. They have gone through the minefield and now venture deeper into those uncertain waters, pushing the pace for whatever reason. It is legitimate to do so. But it does not bring any clarity beyond this season.

Should the Magic fail to make the Playoffs, the whole gamble will not have paid off. Change will come and the future will become more uncertain.