The Orlando Magic may not be pushing for home-court advantage in the 2020 Playoffs yet, but their future is taking focus as their goal stays in sight.
The Orlando Magic squarely have their eyes set on the playoffs. That has never changed.
The team got a taste of the playoffs last year and that has changed what everyone believes is possible with this team. Some predictors believed the Magic would take that vaunted next leap into competing for home-court advantage.
These were all dreams the team understood would take some incredible work. Not just a recapturing of the rhythm and sprint to end last year, but the progression of several players on the roster to get the team up to that level.
It was certainly possible. But a quarter of the way through the season, feelings about the Magic have surely changed.
The Magic are not quite who everyone thought they would be. How they have gotten here is completely different. Orlando is still in the playoff race, but not that team threatening to challenge the heavyweights.
The Magic are very much like what they were last year, perhaps with a bit more experience and confidence in who they are despite some struggles.
The goal for the team has not changed — and really neither has their potential — but their path back has changed some.
The Magic are certainly playing with experience and poise. There is no sense of panic or disbelief in their place. At the same time, the Magic are where they are not because of their veterans or the expected growth of young players like Aaron Gordon.
Instead, this team is more like a developing team making that first foray into the postseason. Veterans are pacing the team and still providing the bulk of the scoring, but the excitement for this team is coming in the tangible progression of several young players teeming with potential.
The emergence of Markelle Fultz and Jonathan Isaac as serious young prospects and contributors to this team should afford the Magic more of the rebuilding posture some fans want.
If Orlando is not going to make the push for home-court advantage or a serious run to get out of the first round, then building a playoff team with these players as central figures — along with Aaron Gordon and Mohamed Bamba finding their way after difficult starts — is what success looks like for this team.
With the way they have played, it looks like that path forward is present. Even through the difficult road the team has taken through the first 20 games.
The team has struggled offensively in a major way, sitting near the bottom of almost every major offensive indicator until the team suddenly started shooting the ball well the last two games. The Magic might have always been better than their numbers indicated through 20 or so games, but they were never going to kill anyone offensively.
Their vaunted defense has even hit some hard times. The group that dominated the early part of the season has slipped outside of the top-10.
That injury luck ran out too. Nikola Vucevic is still out with a lateral sprain in his right ankle. There is still no timetable for the All-Star center’s return — the hope has to be for him to return before or during the upcoming road trip, but Christmas or even January is certainly a possibility.
Still, the Magic have come out the other side in the pole position for that dreaded eighth seed.
The Orlando Magic sit in eighth place in the East, two games clear of the Charlotte Hornets and a game back of the Brooklyn Nets for seventh. yet, the Magic have just one win over a team with a winning record (a Nov. 13 win over the Philadelphia 76ers without Joel Embiid).
Orlando’s -0.3 net rating sits in 15th — the dead center of the league. The Magic are not playing like a major threat to anyone in the East. They are a solid team that will prove a tough out.
But like last year, they are likely to see a cameo in the postseason without a major uptick in their play. The team’s weaknesses exposed in last year’s series with the Toronto Raptors are still apparent. The Magic may not quite be playoff-ready yet, assuming they can get there which is no guarantee.
That was always a possibility — even a likelihood — when the team decided to bring back everyone from the team’s first playoff appearance in seven years. Orlando as a franchise was not about to turn its back on that accomplishment after staying lost in the wilderness of rebuilding, even if it put a ceiling on the team.
The hope the Magic had — and what would make saying in that dreaded treadmill of mediocrity for another year — was that several key young players would take more prominent roles to keep them there.
The fact Jonathan Isaac is averaging a career-high 12.6 points per game and is more willing to be aggressive on the ball while also putting his name in for an All-Defensive team is more than encouraging. It feels like the basis of something special. After searching for so long, the Magic might finally have a player who is among the elite of the league at something.
Orlando Magic
Adding to that is the emergence of Markelle Fultz. Fultz has recovered from the thoracic outlet syndrome that limited his play through the first two years of his career. Healthy and given the reigns of the team, Fultz has displayed the talent that made him the top overall pick. He is averaging 12.1 points per game on a tidy 49.8-percent shooting.
Neither of those numbers are overly impressive. But their play has outweighed their statistics. These guys are still not featured players. Both have shown the promise of rising to those roles at some point in the near future.
As coach Steve Clifford likes to say those players are only going to get better as the season moves on. The goal is for them to be better at Game 50 than they are today at Game 21.
To be sure, their development is central to the team and their future success. And fostering that growth through winning pressure in every way they can is important to the franchise’s future.
The team is only stuck in the treadmill of mediocrity only so long as there is no path forward and no path to get better into that top group.
The first quarter of the season has shown Orlando has that path forward through Isaac and Fultz. Neither is likely ready to take the full reigns yet. And so the veteran players will remain important to the short-term future of the team.
The Magic are not willing to give up their spot in the playoffs. Those players — and Gordon certainly is added into that group — give the Magic plenty of hope for the future and a path to get better as they continue to improve.
The first quarter of the season showed at least some of the weaknesses for the team that are still present. The team can certainly still come together and make a push to get into the top five in the East. It is still the Eastern Conference, after all.
But it is also abundantly clear it will take another crazed run like the end of last season to get there. The Magic’s margin for error is still small. The inevitability of change to take that fateful next step feels present as the trade market is a mere nine days from officially opening.
But the team is still in a position to see that improvement form its young players and still in a position to achieve its primary goal — returning to the postseason and proving the franchise’s foundation is strong.