Orlando Magic Trade Deadline: Boston Celtics and Denver Nuggets look like early trade partners

Trading will require sacrifice

If the Orlando Magic do decide to trade away some of their main assets before the deadline, it will signal a move toward the future which likely means accepting that the team will not make a third straight postseason this year.

It comes with considerable risk. Nikola Vucevic, Aaron Gordon and Evan Fournier are all talented players and there is no guarantee that what the team gets back in young players and picks will turn out to be as good as its existing core.

But with risk can come reward. Injuries are the main reason for the team’s struggles this year and have also impacted the team’s playoff performances in the last two years.

We have yet to see what a starting five of Markelle Fultz, Evan Fournier, Jonathan Isaac, Aaron Gordon and Nikola Vucevic can properly do. But with Fournier’s contract expiring at the end of this year, Gordon having another year left on his contract and big commitments having been made to Fultz and Isaac, there is no getting away from the impending change on the horizon.

Now it is for those in charge to decide how much should be changed and how soon it will happen.

If the trade market is to be utilised, Boston and Denver are two teams that make sense as potential trade partners. The Magic are unlikely to receive equal value, but that is a sacrifice the team will have to accept.