Orlando Magic in no-lose season long term, must face high internal expectations

The Orlando Magic may view this year more as a chance to evaluate their roster in total. But for the players on the team, lofty Playoff goals should remain.

The Orlando Magic are not expected to do very much this upcoming season. Early projections for the season have them winning somewhere in the low 30s as a win total. That all seems likely. And the outside predictors and projections are not likely to jump on the Magic bandwagon.

This was a summer to wait and see, after all.

Jeff Weltman took over as president of basketball operations this summer knowing he had a difficult hand to play. The team was loaded with long contracts after last year’s failed 29-win plan. And the team did not have the cap flexibility or assets to make much improvement for immediate dividends.

New management, at the very least, had to find a way to move forward and improve the team on the margins without a big trade. And the organization learned how rushing into a big trade could lead to problems. A patient and measured approach seemed like the right direction for the team.

Weltman said as much at the beginning of the summer. He said the team would take things slowly and look for bargains to improve the team. But he added he had to learn the players on the current roster. He would listen to coaches and the returning staff to get a better feel for the players he has.

That might be coded talk for: There is not a whole lot I can do with this roster, so I am kicking the can down the road another year. But it seemed to have some legs or some signs that it could experience moderate success. It was not a terrible decision to do so.

Orlando, aesthetically at least, played better at the end of the season. Coach Frank Vogel was touting the optimism he had in that group as the season came to a close. The belief throughout the organization seemed to be that with a full training camp they could contain some of their defensive problems and build off their offensive successes.

At least with that starting group — with its +1.4 net rating in more than 400 minutes together after the All-Star Break — it appeared there was something there. Something that they could justify running back, at the very least.

For new Magic management, they have heard these arguments and assessed the situation. And it seemed they entered a no-lose situation for them in this first year. They could afford to wait and see how the roster shakes out before making big moves.

They can use this year to evaluate the team — reaping the rewards of their success or positioning themselves in the Draft Lottery if the team struggles again.

Yes, the team wanted to show some improvement. And Weltman did that through his patience by appearing to add more to his bench. The three-year, $18-million he gave to Jonathon Simmons is widely considered a steal. He added solid veterans in Arron Afflalo and Marreese Speights on minimum deals. And Shelvin Mack‘s two-year deal is far from a cap clogger or killer.

The Magic worked around the fringes in free agency and ended up improving their depth and creating a more competitive roster.

It is still not without its flaws. The Magic’s starting lineup struggled defensively and still lacks a go-to offensive star. Orlando will need to see Evan Fournier regain his efficiency, to see Aaron Gordon take a leap and to see Elfrid Payton maintain his torrid pace for an 82-game season. No one is ready to say the Magic are going to compete for home-court advantage with too much confidence.

But, with how the Eastern Conference shifted, there are plenty of fairly optimistic people who can see a reality where the team makes the Playoffs. Or at least competes for it.

None of the outside predictions will say this. They all seem to acknowledge the team made some slight improvements. But it may still be early to talk seriously about the Playoffs with this team. It is easier to be optimistic having watched them every day than it is from the outside where the Magic seem to be trudging along.

Orlando Magic

As always, though, internal expectations for the team should be and are different than the expectations coming from outside the team. Fans may be cautiously optimistic about the team’s improvement and management may be taking a more evaluative posture with the roster, but the team itself should have one goal in mind: the Playoffs.

And the team itself should accept nothing short of making the Playoffs. Like last year, they should be willing to set their sites on the postseason.

It may be a reach. The predictions at ESPN right now — and probably a whole lot of other publications — certainly seem to think so. But the Magic themselves have to feel like they are a Playoff team. That is the only way the team can achieve its goals — and fulfill management’s goal of getting a good evaluation of their talent.

It may be a goal that will be extremely difficult for the team to achieve. The Magic have a lot of work to do to get to that point. A lot of things will have to go right. No one is saying it will be easy.

But for the team to reach its goals, it has to believe it can achieve that goal. Even if no one else will.

No team goes into the season believing it cannot make the Playoffs. Even the teams at the very bottom hold onto some glimmer of hope — no matter how slim they are. Orlando is not in that boat where they have absolutely no chance. But those chances are admittedly slim. Or at least that is what everyone believes.

The Magic as players certainly believe they can do it. Arron Afflalo is running on the streets Instagramming his belief the Magic can get home court advantage. That is the exact attitude the Magic will need to achieve this seemingly far-fetched goal.

At this point, the goals the Magic have for the long-term coming from management certainly differ from the short-term goals in a minor respect. The long-term goals may not focus on the results of this upcoming season. Their goal is to evaluate for the long term.

For the Magic themselves, the team has to talk and believe the Playoffs are possible. They have to focus on the short term. With the veterans coming off the bench, it seems the team agrees they want to give the group a try.

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Failure to achieve that goal may not be the end of the world for the franchise as a whole — like it was last year. But it still remains the goal the Magic must try to achieve this year. No matter how unlikely it seems.