The Orlando Magic’s Playoff chances are minuscule, to put them kindly. But the team is hoping to build habits for next season in the final 24 games.
The Orlando Magic have finally admitted it. Well, kind of.
There were some slight admissions Tuesday from Frank Vogel and even some players that the Playoffs in 2017 were likely out of reach. The Magic are 6.5 games out of the final Playoff spot with 24 games to play. FiveThirtyEight’s projection system gives the Magic a less than one percent chance to make the Playoffs this year.
The 2017 Playoffs are a little bit of a pipe dream at the moment, even if general manager Rob Hennigan closed his press conference after acquiring Terrence Ross by saying the 2017 Playoffs were still the goal.
No one on the Magic is backing off that completely. But there is the sobering reality the odds are extremely long. For the first time all season, the Magic might be ready to admit that.
But that does not mean the team is going to pack it in or submit to the goal of collecting pin pong balls. The task for the Magic is still to win and fight even beyond when it is mathematically impossible.
That much the team is making clear.
"“The biggest thing for our franchise, our team and our organization is this team has to learn how to win no matter what it looks like,” Vogel told Orlando Magic Daily after Tuesday’s practice.“Right now we’re 0-0. We’re not going to focus on the standings and how many games we’ve got to make up or anything like that. We’re going to focus on bringing maximum effort to practice and maximum focus into the game planning and preparations and all the little habits that our young players need to develop.”"
Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel asked Vogel to expand on what that meant “to learn how to win” after practice Wednesday.
Vogel went through a litany of items the team has been inconsistent at all season — getting back in transition, executing offensively, trusting the pass, staying connected defensively. It was a who’s who list of items that winning teams do. And, yes, they all sound really basic.
The rest of the season — these final 24 games — will be about building those habits to do those things for the team moving forward.
Robbins asked directly what Vogel’s response was to a “vocal minority” of fans who believe the team should spend the rest of this season getting itself in a better position for a draft pick. Vogel did not outright dismiss the idea but was certainly not committing to it.
As a coach, he said his job is to try to win games. And, at this point, with the Magic having struggled to build a winning culture the last five years, Vogel said it will be more important for the team to pick up wins.
Nikola Vucevic was a little more blunt about it (via Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel):
"“Tanking and all that, I think, is just crap,” Vucevic said. “Teams that do that — it just doesn’t work out always in a good way. You can’t lose and then expect to win just because you drafted somebody. It just doesn’t happen like that. I think winning comes from teaching the right habits every day, teaching the right way to play basketball every day.”"
Yes, it does seem it would be best for the Magic to lose and join the race to the bottom to increase their odds at getting a high pick. This draft has plenty of strong players. And the Magic have been pining for five years to build through the draft with a star coming out of the Lottery.
That is also the fallacy of tanking, though. It requires losing. And there are no guarantees.
The Magic arguably tanked for three years and ended up with a top-three pick just once. It turned into Victor Oladipo with the second overall pick in 2013. The star never materialized through the draft. Now the Magic are where they are still seeking a star and trying to cobble together a winning team.
And with the Magic trying to push for the Playoffs more realistically, they were still making a lot of mistakes that would prevent them from winning on the court. At least consistently.
Orlando is still trying to build a winning culture.
And the Magic do not seem willing to wait for next season to start. Orlando is not going to pack in the rest of this season and hope a draft pick fixes everything.
The Magic appear set to use the rest of this season as a springboard for next season. The Playoff goals did not die with this year’s mathematical improbability. Instead, it just delayed a year.
The Magic will hope they can point to these 24 games as the beginning of their 2018 Playoff push. The habits it will take to reach that goal start Thursday against the Portland Trail Blazers.
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And so while the Magic are likely to play some of their younger players like Mario Hezonja, Terrence Ross and Aaron Gordon more and perhaps may experiment some with smaller lineups, the Magic are not going to throw games and play for ping pong balls.