Depth will play a role, injuries will hurt the team
When healthy, the Orlando Magic can be a devastating team. But each piece has to be perfectly in alignment. If the team gets knocked off course, the whole tower can collapse pretty quickly.
Look no further than the Magic’s two preseason losses to the Philadelphia 76ers and Boston Celtics. The team playing without Nikola Vucevic struggled to create any spacing or any way to attack the defense consistently.
It is preseason, so it is not the end of the world. The Magic were not overly concerned with how the team played in those games. But they did raise concerns about the team.
The under-talked about aspect of last season was the Magic’s extreme health. Their top six players all played at least 75 games. That is almost unheard of in the rough-and-tumble NBA. Players miss time with nagging injuries all the time.
That did not happen at all last season — except for Jonathan Isaac missing six games early in the year with a sprained ankle and Mohamed Bamba’s leg fracture that arguably helped the team. Orlando was extremely lucky to be healthy.
That will play a big factor this season again. The Magic seemed to try to bolster it with depth. The team has at least 12 players they should feel very comfortable throwing into the rotation. And the Magic are not going to have to disrupt much if they are missing a player here or there.
But undoubtedly, losing the wrong players for any extended period of time could have disastrous effects for the team.
If Nikola Vucevic misses any extended time, the team will have to fill in offensively. Someone has to draw the defense in. Aaron Gordon struggled to do that in the preseason with Nikola Vucevic out. Orlando needed someone who could step and create and warp the defense.
The Magic were clearly missing this element in those games.
It is too difficult to predict injuries. Nobody wants to do that and say a player will miss extended time. But it will happen at some point.
And what might end up defining just how good the Magic’s season will be is how the rest of the team fills in and reacts to that absence.