Orlando Magic will miss injured Michael Carter-Williams in training camp

The Orlando Magic’s offseason seemed to be going off without a hitch.

The team got its man in the Draft. They shored up their depth with a key veteran. It felt like their group could go off and enjoy their group workouts and lake days in Charleston, S.C., and get ready for an exciting training camp before the difficult start to their schedule.

It slipped under the radar then when the Magic announced Tuesday that Michael Carter-Williams underwent surgery to remove a bone fragment and repair a ligament in his left ankle. He will miss the start of the 2022 season and his return will depend on how he responds to treatment and rehabilitation.

The Orlando Magic will be without Michael Carter-Williams to start the season thanks to surgery on his ankle. It is a big loss in the veteran the team loses as they buy-in to a new system and a new coach.

This feels like a small thing.

Carter-Williams is not a big scorer — he averaged 8.8 points per game, 4.5 rebounds per game and 4.2 assists per game on just a 41.7-percent effective field goal percentage. He did not figure to be a regular part of the rotation with a roster full of ball-handling guards.

If anything, Carter-Williams would likely platoon as a small forward with the team’s lack of size and length to play the traditional small forward role.

Carter-Williams, in the last year of his contract that will pay him out $3 million, could be an interesting trade chip too. But, then again, his salary is too small to be anything but filler or a potential cut to head out on the mercenary market after the trade deadline.

Carter-Williams’ value to the team is more about the veteran leadership and defensive presence he provides. The one thing Carter-Williams is really good at is playing with some edge and toughness and introducing a bit of chaos.

There is a reason the Magic seemed to play better with him and why he proved to be a valuable addition to the team to complete their 2019 run to the playoffs.

It was clear how much the Magic missed him through a prolonged absence early last season. His return against the Sacramento Kings brought a breath of fresh life to the team.

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Carter-Williams remained a catalyst throughout the season too. He scored only eight points but had nine assists and seven rebounds and plenty of critical defensive plays in the landmark win over the LA Clippers on the road. He had 15 points and eight rebounds in his final game of the season against the Chicago Bulls.

Carter-Williams has a way of affecting winning. His energy and his defense raise everyone else’s play.

There is certainly something to playing Carter-Williams too much. The Magic went 8-17 in the 25 games he started and 7-11 in games he played 24 minutes or more.

Carter-Williams’ poor shooting and relatively poor finishing at the rim — 39.4-percent shooting on 9.9 drives per game last year according to Second Spectrum and a 57.3-percent adjusted field goal percentage at the rim according to Basketball Index which puts in just slightly better than the league average — makes him a liability offensively in the long-term.

Carter-Williams is still best in small doses to mix things up with second units. That is likely how the Magic would have used him this year.

He slotted in as either the third point guard or shooting guard on the depth chart with the potential the team could platoon him to fill small forward minutes in smaller lineups.

The problem with Carter-Williams’ absence at this point of the season is not what he would provide on the court. The Magic need a veteran presence, especially for training camp. The time the Magic need Carter-Williams most during training camp rather than during the course of the season.

The Magic have a difficult task ahead of them. They have a young roster and a new coach. They are trying to restart and while they got a potential star player in the Draft and a good start to this rebuild, it is easy to see this thing going off the rails.

There are countless stories of rebuilds that seemingly start out well that go off the rails from teams who mismanage the start of it. The Magic know that firsthand from their post-Dwight Howard years.

The team cannot neglect the foundation it is trying to build this year. This is not some throwaway year to align the pieces. This is a year to begin moving toward the team that will ultimately compete for and win championships.

A big part of that this year will be establishing Jamahl Mosley’s defensive and offensive philosophies. The Magic want to carve out their identity this year so they can build upon it.

In order to do this, the Magic need their veterans to buy in early on.

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Veterans who are bought in and believe in what the coach is saying will be able to help young players get it quicker and adapt to the league. Young players really do take their cues from older players. And when older players check out or do not buy into the coaching staff, the younger players also check out.

The most difficult task Jamahl Mosley will have during his training camp is getting players like Terrence Ross, Gary Harris, Michael Carter-Williams and Robin Lopez to buy into his teachings even if they are not long-term fits for the roster.

This is a vital step in the rebuilding process.

The Magic did not have bad veterans in the early stages of their previous rebuild. But it was easy to see when those veterans checked out. And it affected the individual development of other young players on the roster especially as they struggled to buy into what the team was doing.

That struggle probably spoke more to the overall disorganization from the front office and their inability to create a cogent identity on the court rather than the players on the roster. Everything is tied together and a rebuild’s success can rest on whether veteran players believe it can work — or whether they are simply collecting a paycheck.

Carter-Williams would have played a key role in training camp to bring about this buy-in. He is a popular player among his teammates and someone a lot of younger players listen to. Both he and Ross would have likely been the players with the most influence this season considering their longevity with the team.

More than that though, Mosley is preaching a lot of defense. That was a major focus of his during the team’s Summer League run. That fits Carter-Williams’ identity and skills the most. If the Magic were going to play a high-energy style, Carter-Williams would have provided the team a veteran who could most latch onto the identity and exemplify it in training camp.

Carter-Williams would have been an exemplar to help the team integrate and buy in defensively. And now that veteran leadership is gone. At least until he returns at some point early in the season.

This was always going to be Carter-Williams’ most important role for the team this year.

The Magic will still find plenty of good uses for Carter-Williams this season. Once he is healthy, he will drop in and create the chaos the Magic are accustomed to seeing from him. He will still be valuable in helping create the identity and culture the team wants.

But he will have to do it from the sideline during a critical period in the team’s development.