The Orlando Magic need a lot — star power, culture setters and shooting chief among them. That is why Luka Doncic, Trae Young and Jaren Jackson Jr. head up this Magic-specific Big Board.
With both the Orlando Magic’s and the NCAA season in the rearview, we have almost all the information we will get about this year’s NBA draft prospects, at least until workouts. We also have a pretty good idea of where the franchise is at and what the team needs.
The short answer is that the team needs a little of everything.
No one on the roster — save Jonathan Isaac and maybe Aaron Gordon — is guaranteed to be on the team next year, let alone in two years. As Jeff Weltman’s first draft pick with the Magic, Jonathan Isaac is the closest thing to a likely centerpiece moving forward, especially with Aaron Gordon entering restricted free agency.
Other than that, this team is close to a blank slate.
Keeping that in mind, fit will not be a huge consideration in this draft. The most important thing will be to take the best player available with some attention paid to how that player fits with Isaac and Gordon.
So this board will end up fairly similar to a one-size-fits-all board. But prospects who clearly overlap with the Magic’s only two long-term pieces in a way that could be detrimental to their success will be knocked down a few pegs. And of course, potential high-level offensive initiators will be at a premium.
The board will be 50 players long and separated into eight tiers, with four of those tiers coming in lottery range. Players within tiers are somewhat interchangeable — for example, numbers four and five are ranked in those spots for a reason, but there is a clear argument for them to be reversed. Each player will have a sentence or two of commentary briefly explaining their skill set and potential fit.
So without further ado, here is the top 13, split among four tiers.