The Orlando Magic stood pat in the offseason hoping they built a foundation for future success. The over/under for the team is .500, a worthy goal.
The Orlando Magic laid down the gauntlet bare in their offseason.
The team re-invested in the team that went 42-40 and finished as Southeast Division champions and the seventh seed in the Eastern Conference. It retained Nikola Vucevic, Terrence Ross and Michael Carter-Williams in free agency, essentially bringing back the exact same team as last year.
In a summer of massive change around the NBA, the only player the Magic truly added to the roster was Al-Farouq Aminu. Draft pick Chuma Okeke is not expected to play until mid-season. He has not signed his rookie contract yet anyway.
Orlando is bumping up against the luxury tax with an estimated payroll of $132 million. That part is not exactly encouraging.
The Magic’s hope for continued growth will rely on two things — a continued improvement from the team’s young players like Aaron Gordon and Jonathan Isaac and the future ability to package some of these players in trades, relying on newfound depth to fill in the gaps.
Orlando still has questions it has to answer in the present. This season certainly made it seem like the team is setting itself up to go for some short-term glory as much as it is building for the future.
What does that present look like?
This season, after all, is about making the playoffs once again. Last year was a proof of concept showing what the team can do. Now the team has to do it again, make the playoff and begin to show it can take the next step forward.
It is one thing to sneak up on the league and make the playoffs on a big push. Now the Magic have the expectations of making the playoffs, the experience of doing so and perhaps the respect of the league to get there.
This season will be a much different challenge.
Already the expectations are higher. The team’s investment and their trip to the postseason last year will do that on its own.
But even the external expectations are raised.
Caesars Palace has released its NBA over/under totals and has the Magic’s over/under set at 40.5 wins. Essentially the bet on the Magic is whether they will once again finish .500 or not.
Among the Eastern Conference teams, that 40.5 win total puts the Magic eighth. That is the general expectation for this team once again it seems. A good team that everyone has a lot more faith in to succeed now than they did before last year for sure.
By all accounts, Orlando is expected to be in the playoff conversation again.
It is still not clear how this Eastern Conference will shake out. The conference has gone through its own changes.
But not many teams outside the playoff picture made dramatic improvements. Only the Miami Heat adding Jimmy Butler seemed to register much of a blip. Otherwise, teams on the inside of the playoff picture did a lot of maneuvering and changing.
There is always the chance for a surprise team making a big leap like the Magic’s 17-win improvement. The Atlanta Hawks and Chicago Bulls have become popular picks for up-and-coming teams on the rise.
No season is completely predictable, even in a NBA that is often fairly easy to decipher.
Orlando’s success in 2020 is less about a win total and more about where they stand relative to the rest of the Eastern Conference field. Several Magic players have said the goal for the upcoming season is to advance further than they did in 2019.
That would mean more than 42 wins, a higher seed and reaching the second round of the playoffs. The first goal is probably not as important as the latter two. But this will be a season of overarching goals. The target line to make the playoffs is always moving.
As far as the win total?
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The Magic have proven themselves capable of reaching it. At this point, the expectation is Orlando will hit the over on this bet. The expectation is the team will continue to move forward and continue to improve. Hitting the over would do that.
There are plenty of other variables that could go on.
Nikola Vucevic and Terrence Ross are coming off career seasons. Aaron Gordon and Jonathan Isaac should continue improving, but progress is rarely linear (just look at Gordon’s career). Evan Fournier could bounce back from a career-worst shooting season.
Then there are the question marks that come from second-year center Mohamed Bamba and still-injured guard Markelle Fultz. Anything from those players would provide a big boost to the team.
Orlando’s added depth — including that signing of Al-Farouq Aminu and the continued quiet improvement of Wesley Iwundu — should give the team a stronger foundation.
And that is really what the renewed confidence is about. Orlando has a foundation to build upon. Many believe it is a strong one.
Hitting the over on the Magic’s early over/under bet seems like a confident pick. Orlando at its best is clearly a team better than .500. It seems like even at its medium outcome this year, the Magic should finish around .500 and in the playoff conversation.
As things go this year, it seems only a disaster would take the Magic out of playoff contention.
If the main goal of the offseason was to keep the team’s spot in the postseason at a bare minimum, the team has accomplished that goal even with how little activity the team had this offseason.
At this point, the Magic should feel very confident heading into the season that they can accomplish and learn a lot about their team.