As one of the worst teams in the league — and a team at times just trying to cobble together lineups at times because of injuries — there was ample opportunity for a lot of players. The team was throwing players out on the court hoping to find something that works.
That is the situation Donta Hall found himself in after he signed with the team on April 13. One day later the Orlando Magic had to throw the 6-foot-9 forward into the fire against the Chicago Bulls thanks to injuries throughout the roster.
And did he make an impact.
The Magic put Hall into the rotation and asked him just to run the floor and make things happen. So when he scored seven points, grabbed nine rebounds and blocked two shots, he made an immediate impression. He was great going end to end and just provided some incredible energy.
The Magic won the game — an emotional rematch against Nikola Vucevic with Wendell Carter also providing a strong return to his former stomping grounds. It felt then that someone like Hall could make a lasting impact for the Magic to close the season.
That was perhaps the frustrating part of the Magic’s late-season run. There were interesting players competing at the end of the Magic’s bench who were knocking on the door for a chance. Especially at a position of comparative weakness at power forward — where the team was down Jonathan Isaac and eventually also down Chuma Okeke — the Magic had two power forwards who felt like they deserved a bigger opportunity.
Donta Hall and Robert Franks both showed intriguing skills with the Orlando Magic. But they struggled to make a deep impact or get more than a quick look.
This goes among the weaknesses Steve Clifford had. He did not fully trust young players even when there were glimmers of potential for them to crack the rotation. Especially this rotation where the team was drifting to the end of the season and seemingly set up to let young players get their chances, with some guidance.
Donta Hall, along with Robert Franks, showed enough to warrant longer looks. And the Magic just did not give it to them.
Hall played nearly 17 minutes that first game and then another 16.5 in the next game against the Toronto Raptors. His minutes after that became somewhat sporadic until the end of the season.
Franks, a stalwart on the Magic’s G-League championship squad, played anywhere between 14 and 18 minutes in his seven games with the team before the Magic opted to go with more veteran players in Moritz Wagner and Ignas Brazdeikis.
Orlando Magic
Both players showed enough promise through the inconsistency that comes with young players trying to scrape themselves into the league that it deserves a longer look. And the Magic just did not give them that look.
Hall especially seemed to be flowing with confidence — enough at times to threaten Mohamed Bamba’s spot in the rotation with his energy — that should have had some push to get minutes. This just might signal how difficult it is to distribute minutes especially in a season where the results matter less and everyone should have some path to minutes. Not everyone can play at the end of the day.
It is hard to dive too deep into these guys even so.
Whatever moments they had were still only moments. Nothing to write home about, but just enough to raise curiosity and ask to see a little bit more. Neither Hall nor Franks got that little bit more even if they deserved — and even if they ultimately are not good enough to latch onto the NBA anyway.
At the end of the day, these two players were interesting enough to want more. But they probably were not good enough to see as part of the team this year beyond end of the bench fodder in case the team gets hit with a lot of injuries yet again.
Still, it feels odd the Magic opted to dump them for Wagner and Brazdeikis, despite their experience in the NBA already and how well they played to close the season. This should have been an opportunity for young players to mix things up.
That experiment got cut far too short, far too soon.
The Lakeland Magic do not win the G-League title without Robert Franks. He averaged 12.1 points per game and hit 35.6-percent from beyond the arc. He was a solid stretch-4 who could space the floor on the outside and he was tough enough defensively to hold his own against the G-League’s power forwards.
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Robert Franks, like Devin Cannady, should have been a good case for the Orlando Magic to promote from their G-League team and use the minor league system the way it should. This was not a failure of that system, but it makes you wonder why is the team investing so much in Lakeland if Franks is not someone the team is going to stick with?
Franks averaged 6.1 points per game and shot 55.4-percent effective field goal percentage in 14.4 minutes per game. That included an 11- and a 10-point game in his final two games with the Magic this season.
That will definitely skew his averages with such a small sample.
But Franks was just getting into a rhythm and looking comfortable when the team chose not to renew his contract. Maybe that was the problem. It took him too long to get his feet wet and a decision was already made.
This was probably one of the more disappointing roster decisions of the season. Franks filled a clear need with his ability to spread the floor and shoot. He put in his time and helped Lakeland win a title. And he was just finding his space to fit into the ecosystem with this team.
This is not saying Franks would have made this year’s team or taken some mythical next step. He was still a flawed player and not someone who stood out enough to demand minutes. It was an emergency signing and probably should have remained so.
But it sure felt like Franks deserved a longer look.
Donta Hall introduced a little more chaos and impact with his minutes. But it was still something like a roll of the dice.
There was the huge impact game in his debut against the Chicago Bulls. But the following game, he posted just one point in 16.5 minutes. That inconsistency is probably why he ultimately did not supplant Mohamed Bamba or carve out consistent time. He even bounced on and off the Magic roster after his initial two 10-day contracts expired.
He was away from the team until the Cannady injury and then brought back with the final wave of signings that brought Moritz Wagner and Ignas Brazdeikis to the team. Hall clearly made the biggest impression of the players the team signed to keep bringing him back.
He ended up averaging 5.6 points and grabbing 4.8 rebounds per game in 13.8 minutes per game across 13 games. Hall is just one of those bigs who is all athleticism and energy and not a lot of skill quite yet to be a perfect match for the league.
Still, having an athlete who can play above the rim was a breath of fresh air for the Magic. That is not something the team has had very often since really Dewayne Dedmon left the team. And the magic used that to its full effect at times.
But Hall still has a long way to go to establish himself in the league. And his time with the Magic showed promise but nothing for the team to realign itself to accomplish.
Like so many of the team’s late-season signings, the Magic were looking for some diamonds in the rough and players who could breakthrough. The team did not give them the full opportunity to do so but they also did not seemingly demand more opportunity either.