The Orlando Magic started off their new year hoping for some better fortune. Like say, in the Lottery. Another lost year brings big questions for the future.
The calendar has turned to 2018. All old acquaintances were forgot and hopefully much of the 2017 season and the first half of the 2018 season. It was not a pretty year for the Orlando Magic.
The team recorded just 26 wins in the calendar year 2017. In a little more than a season’s worth of games, the Magic had a record that would put them among the very worst teams in the league.
Orlando’s fast start to the 2018 season has faded quickly into the background. A nice memory that showed this team’s potential but was ultimately a huge tease. This team’s massive losing streak — two nine-game losing skids included — have become what this team is. The Magic cannot seem to get themselves out of this rut.
It is no surprise attention has turned to the future. The draft is on everyone’s mind. As is the trade deadline in early February. Everyone seems antsy for change. After five, going on six, years without a Playoff chance (or a sniff of the Playoffs), everyone is hungry to see the team move in a different direction.
Then again, maybe that was always going to be the case. Change was inevitably coming to the roster with a new management team in place. Orlando was not going to sit by with a roster that had clearly stagnated and probably would not top out at much more than a first-round playoff exit.
New management stepped in saying they would take the year to evaluate the team’s talent and get to know them before making decisions. They were not going to make rash decisions or dig the team further into salary cap purgatory.
The time for those decisions is coming. Whether they come in the draft or come in trades.
And that is where many of your questions for this edition of the Orlando Magic Daily Mailbag come in. The focus is squarely on the future.
For this 2018 calendar year, clearly the New Year’s Resolution is to begin reshaping the franchise into the direction president of basketball operations Jeff Weltman wants. No matter how long it takes to begin effecting that change.