The Orlando Magic’s season has taken a bit of a restart. But without doubt, the year has disappointed as the team has underperformed.
When Frank Vogel walked onto the court at the open practice back in October, he proclaimed openly and confidently the Orlando Magic would make the Playoffs and this was the beginning of a strong new era of Magic basketball.
After acquiring Serge Ibaka and investing heavily in the team’s defense, Orlando felt it had the ability to be an elite defensive team and compete for a Playoff spot. The team felt it was time to take a step forward and made some dramatic changes to get there.
The Magic are obviously not there.
With Saturday’s win over the Atlanta Hawks, the Magic are now 22-38 and seven games out of the Playoffs. With 22 games remaining, the Magic are not mathematically eliminated (the Magic Number to eliminate them is 16 losses or 16 Detroit Pistons wins). But the odds of them making the postseason are increasingly low.
This is decidedly not where the Magic wanted to or expected to be.
As if it were not obvious already, the Magic are disappointed with how the season has gone. They have stated so publicly. The latest coming from Magic CEO Alex Martins in an interview with the Associated Press:
"“The season to date has been incredibly disappointing,” Martins told The Associated Press. “We didn’t expect to be in mix for one of the top seeds by any stretch as we are progressing. Our hope was to get in there and make the playoffs.”"
Certainly, the Magic did not expect to be in this position. They are still in line for the fourth overall pick in the Draft depending on how the Lottery goes.
Orlando’s rebuild has been rocky, for sure. The team’s trade of Dwight Howard put a major reset on the franchise as they tried to build from the ground up. They never quite found the replacement star in the Draft.
But, at least, the Magic could point to a general improvement. Orlando hit rock bottom with 20 wins in 2012. But the team improved to 23 the next year, 25 the year after that and 35 last year.
It was a slow improvement, but it was an improvement. That progress, as small as it was, halted this year with the Magic remaking their roster. The team is on pace for just 30 wins.
To say the Magic have been a disappointment with all the money and ambitions invested in the team is pretty accurate.
The expectation is the Magic will seriously consider changes to its front office this season. Alex Martins again said to the Associated Press, as he has said before, those evaluations will come at the end of the season.
The Magic still see some opportunity to improve quickly. Martins said. The opportunity for a high draft pick remains. And he said the Magic are likely to be active in free agency again.
Magic general manager Rob Hennigan said he felt the team was a few tweaks away from taking that step forward to the Playoffs. Whether he will be the one to make those tweaks is another determination.
Next: Rob Hennigan's fate tied to Orlando Magic's finish
Orlando is hoping to gain some hope from the end of the season. But, overall, it is hard to call this season anything but disappointing.