Orlando Magic’s signings show they are not counting on injury luck again

The Orlando Magic were lucky to avoid injuries to their top players last year. As they prepare for 2020, they are prepared if that luck runs out.

There is no way to prepare for injury. It happens randomly and often without warning.

The league is doing everything it can to improve injury prevention — from player tracking devices and more intense rest programs and easier scheduling — there is still no telling what might happen as the season progresses.

As the saying goes, by the end of the season, everyone is nursing some nagging injury. Throughout the course of the season, players are managing their bodies as much as they are working to get through the games on the schedule. It is all a balancing act.

Still, there is no preventing the turned ankle in the course of a game or something worse that happens. To some extent, there is a matter of luck when it comes to getting through a season without major injury.

It can turn on a dime too.

Injuries are the great unknown factor for almost every NBA team. It is something no one can prepare for and even history cannot adequately predict.

Orlando brought back much of the same roster from last year hoping to repeat their performance from last year and return to the playoffs.

But they probably cannot count on the exact same path forward. They got some extreme injury luck, especially for their top players. That is not something to count on again.

And the team seemed to spend its offseason as much on building continuity as they did building depth to withstand this potential storm.

It is very clear how injuries can cause a season to turn.

The Orlando Magic seemed to have a promising season on the way in 2018 until injuries struck. Terrence Ross missed essentially the entire season with a fracture to his tibial plateau. Jonathan Isaac sprained his ankle and struggled to get back in his rookie year. Aaron Gordon, Evan Fournier and Nikola Vucevic all failed to play more than 60 games that season.

The Magic won just 25 games that year and lost nearly 250 games to injury that season, according to Man Games Lost. It was not the most in the league that year, but it is hard not to notice how difficult it was to make the playoffs with an injury-depleted roster.

That script flipped in 2019.

The Magic had six players play 75 games or more. They happened to be the top six players in the Magic’s rotation.

The biggest injury that hit the team was Mohamed Bamba in late January. And with how he was playing (despite some improvements), it arguably helped the team solidify itself for a playoff push.

Orlando found some incredible injury luck in 2019.

Man Games Lost recorded the Magic with fewer than 200 games. And it is hard to say what the impact of those games lost was or how much was accounted for Mohamed Bamba and the acquired Markelle Fultz.

The Magic’s best and most important players all had incredible injury luck. Jonathan Isaac missed five games with a sprained ankle early in the season and a concussion the last game of the year. Nikola Vucevic sat out the final game of the year for rest and a game in December for paternity leave.

Every other injury last year was seemingly little knocks. Nobody missed any significant time.

It is hard to believe the Magic will see this kind of injury luck to their best players again.

And that is why the team seemed to make the moves they made.

They retained a lot of their roster to preserve continuity but doing that — especially re-signing Khem Birch — and adding Al-Farouq Aminu only bolsters the team’s depth in case there is some injury.

The only point of real exposure for this team is at point guard where Markelle Fultz’s status remains uncertain. If anything were to happen to D.J. Augustin, the Magic would be left with Markelle Fultz, Michael Carter-Williams and two-way signee Josh Magette.

Other than that, the team seemingly could platoon quality rotation-level players at any spot.

Orlando Magic

There is Evan Fournier, Terrence Ross and Wesley Iwundu to play shooting guard. Jonathan Isaac, Aaron Gordon, Al-Farouq Aminu, Evan Fournier and Terrence Ross can all play small forward. Aaron Gordon, Jonathan Isaac, Al-Farouq Aminu and two-way signee Amile Jefferson can man the power forward. And Nikola Vucevic has both Mohamed Bamba and Khem Birch behind him.

The Magic are well-positioned with rotation-level players should anyone go down to an injury at any point int he season.

That is not to say anyone could replace what the Magic might lose. The team would still have to fill in and have players step up for any lost production. Injuries would still be very bad for this team with its seemingly small margin for error entering the season.

And this is not to say David Tenney and his staff are not going to do everything they can to prevent injuries or that injuries are somehow inevitable. The Magic’s medical staff has done a good job balancing long-term health and short-term health so far. It feels like both management and players have complete faith in them to track their recoveries.

But eventually, an injury will strike. And the Magic will have to respond to that adversity.

How far down the team would go and how easily those bench players could fill in is the question that no one can answer yet.

The Magic knew they had to be prepared. And that is what they did this summer.