2021 Orlando Magic Player Evaluations: Orlando Magic had opportunity to spare

Teams at the bottom of the standings are not always putting their best players on the floor. Minor injuries quickly become season ending as the year comes to an end. And the team has to fill out a roster somehow.

The players on the fringes of the NBA are hunting for these opportunities. They are looking for just a chance to make an impression and stick in the league. And these bottom feeder teams are the places where they can get the most opportunity to shine.

The Orlando Magic in the final weeks of the season were passing out opportunity. Injuries still ravaged the roster after the trade deadline and they needed to fill minutes.

Would Orlando have liked to go to the well with G-League players they wanted to develop — especially Devin Cannady? Of course. Orlando would have loved to see if the team could mine something from those last fe wgames.

But the Magic were so young, they needed stability too. They needed some players who had been around long enough and would not need to get caught up to speed. This was about supporting the other young players on the roster as much as the team could in the season’s final days.

The Orlando Magic turned to some young veterans to fill out their roster at the end of the season. But it is hard to say whether any of them claimed the chance.

So there were young veterans stepping in and getting a ton of minutes in the closing days of the season. And they put up numbers. With gaps in the lineup and logjams elsewhere on the roster, players like Ignas Brazdeikis, Moritz Wagner and Sindarius Thornwell stepped right into the lineup and rotation and put up numbers.

What significance are those numbers? Probably not much. The Magic were just playing out the string. And even some of the production from players they do care about feels a bit fake toward the end.

So how does anyone evaluate these players? Did anyone make an impression that would cause them to stay with the team long-term?

The answer is probably no. While Brazdeikis and Wagner especially put up some impressive numbers and made the most of their time, it is hard to say they earned a roster spot for next season. They are all likely still fighting for scraps on the edges of the NBA.

Ignas Brazdeikis did not get a lot of time in Orlando. But he got a lot of time with the time he got.

In eight games, he played 234 total minutes (29.3 minutes per game). He averaged 11.1 points per game and shot a 51.3-percent effective field goal percentage. Small samples — a 16-point effort in a blowout loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves and a 21-point effort in the penultimate blowout loss to the Philadelphia 76ers.

So, yeah, take those numbers with a grain of salt just like everything with this bunc of players.

The Magic slotted Brazdeikis quickly as a forward at both spots because of the team’s general lack of depth at the position. So he got that chance.

Brazdeikis has shown in his limited minutes with both the New York Knicks and Philadelphia 76ers that he can work around screens and get his shot. But it is hard to say that he does much more than that. And he does not do that well enough ot make a true impact.

Teams still targeted Brazdeikis defensively. And even though Brazdeikis is capable of moving around, he was always of secondary importance.

Brazdeikis probably played well enough for someone to give him another look in Summer League and maybe a peak at the end of the roster. But even with more minutes, Brazdeikis did not stand out particularly.

Moritz Wagner probably made the biggest impact of any of these late signing players or the Orlando Magic. Wagner averaged 11.0 points per game and 4.9 rebounds per game with a 49.5-percent effective field goal percentage.

A good sign of a player doing well in a short time is to think they were with the team longer than they actually were — how many games did Michael Carter-Williams play with the Magic in 2019? Guess without looking, it is a lot fewer than you remember. Wagner definitely felt like he fit in right with the team.

Wagner provided good screens, at least the notion of floor spacing and 3-point shooting and some presence around the basket. He definitely surprised with his versatility and how he fit in and supported the young players the Magic really cared about to end the season.

Was it enough for the Magic to bring Wagner back? Maybe.

Wagner could provide some nice end-of-bench production and someone who can step in if the team is in a pinch again. The Magic may very well look to keep Wagner around. Although that will not be for anything more than the minimum. If the Magic keep Wagner, it will be something they do at the end of the free-agent cycle.

There is still the sinking suspicion the Magic signed Moritz Wagner to get some intel on his brother Franz Wagner who might be a Lottery pick in the upcoming draft.

Sindarius Thornwell was the player who probably most fit Steve Clifford’s eye. He already came in as a pretty good defender and slid in immediately as someone who could have some type of defensive presence for the Orlando Magic and quickly.

That is about the only good thing we can say about his time. He felt comfortable defensively.

Because offensively, he was really struggling. That was always the biggest thing that would hold him back as he tried to break into the league through the G-League.

Thornwell averaged 3.4 points per game and shot a 40.0-percent effective field goal percentage in seven games for the team, averaging 20.6 minutes per game.

Maybe this was the exact problem the Magic have had all along. They focused so much on players who fit in defensively and favored all those players that they overlooked offensive players and skill-based players.

That might be an oversimplification of things. But Thornwell did not do a whole lot this year with the team. Even if he is an interesting talent, it did not look like he was the best fit for this team other than to fill in minutes.