Orlando Magic Daily Mock Draft 2.0: Let’s get to business

The Magic’s Pick

I will start my breakdown of the Orlando Magic’s draft pick with this important warning: The way I have this draft breaking down is likely because of my Magic-colored glasses. The prospects I have focused on and the prospects I have looked at are the ones that I think fit the Magic. I am probably overrating prospects that I think make sense for the Magic and underrating some that do not.

For instance, I have Deni Avdija and Obi Toppin much lower than most mock drafts. And I think they will likely go much higher. Since the NBA Draft is not until November, there will be plenty of time to refine this mock draft. This is just 2.0, after all.

And this mock draft was meant to explore options to trade up or around the Draft — something that we will probably explore in a separate post.

Draft day is going to be busy.

The last mock draft, I had the Magic taking French point guard Theo Maledon. And I still like him. But a lot has changed since that June mock draft. Namely, the injury to Jonathan Isaac and another Playoff flame out.

In an ideal world, one of the shooters — Devin Vassel or Aaron Nesmith — or one of the higher-end point guards — like Tyrese Haliburton — would fall to this spot. But now, it does not seem like a point guard is the best pick here. Especially after watching the Magic struggle with their shooting in the Playoffs.

So I have the Magic taking Saddiq Bey.

He has a good pedigree coming from Jay Wright’s Villanova system. He has produced a lot of quality NBA rotation players lately — Donte DiVincenzo, Mikal Bridges and Eric Paschall come immediately to mind. They are all scrappy defensively and capable of making shots.

Bey may not project as good as those players have been, but he is a solid shooter and a strong defender.

Bey averaged 16.1 points per game while shooting a 58.4-percent effective field goal percentage. He took 5.6 3-point field goal attempts per game, making 45.1-percent. He made 76.9-percent of his 3-pointers.

Orlando Magic

What might be more impressive was that he was already a good 3-point shooter as a freshman, but he not only improved his 3-point percentage but nearly doubled his scoring. That kind of improvement should not be dismissed.

And to play at Villanova means you have to be a good defender. That is where he can make a pretty big impact immediately.

The concerns with Bey are about his athleticism. He is not a dynamic athlete and he is not someone teams are likely going to rely on to create.

Bey is not a pure shooter. His wind-up takes some time. So he probably is not shooting under pressure quite yet. He is going to have to prove he can be a knock-down shooter.

But his value is in everything else he does. He is a good cutter and he has good size to take some pounding in the paint and hold his ground. He can probably play some power forward in smaller lineups because of his size and strength.

If Bey can show he can defend NBA small forwards, he will immediately become a valuable wing defender and a NBA role player off the bat.