Aaron Gordon’s new contract was not a price Orlando Magic could pay

There were two immediate reactions that came up when reports broke that Aaron Gordon was signing a four-year, $92-million contract extension with the Denver Nuggets that will kick in after next season.

The first: That is quite the jump from the four-year, $76-million he signed with the Orlando Magic three seasons ago. And so, good for Gordon for getting the bag and making the most of his opportunity.

Undoubtedly, Gordon fit in better within the Nuggets’ ecosystem than with the Orlando Magic’s system and future. But it still raised the question of what are the Nuggets thinking investing that much in a player who even seven years into his career still feels horribly inconsistent.

Listen to Denver fans, and the team is ecstatic to keep Gordon even if they acknowledge it was a bit of an overpay. The Nuggets know their window is open to win a title and they cannot afford to lose one of the few young players they have leave for nothing. There was no way they could risk Gordon having a big season and entering free agency.

The second was simply: That contract was simply something Orlando could afford to pay for a forward who had stagnated and never became the star or near-star the team needed to grow.

If the team was faced with the same decision of whether to extend Gordon or let him walk, they were not likely to make that call.

Aaron Gordon’s new contract was a necessary value add for a contending Denver Nuggets team but would have been too steep for an Orlando Magic team struggling to escape the first round.

Giving a huge salary to a player who is not quite a star would have hamstrung the team for years to come. The Magic were not in a position to give that kind of a deal.

The Nuggets though did not need Gordon to be the team’s star player. They are paying that premium for him to be a 3-and-D player. That is something the team needs to surround players like Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr.

The Nuggets could afford to pay Gordon where the Magic could not.

Aesthetically, at least, Gordon had a better run in Denver than he did in Orlando for sure, especially before Jamal Murray’s injury.

He averaged 14.6 points and 6.6 rebounds per game with a 50.9-percent effective field goal percentage with the Magic last season compared to 10.2 points and 4.7 rebounds per game with a 54.1-percent effective field goal percentage in 25 games with the Nuggets. His field goal attempts went down fairly significantly with the Nuggets, as expected. Despite those lower numbers, he was far more effective and impactful.

His numbers with the Magic were better because he was a higher usage player — 23.8-percent with the Magic to 17.2-percent with the Nuggets.

Everyone who thought Gordon was some revelation with the Nuggets, was met with approving nods from Magic fans who recognized after years of false stats this was always the role the Magic should have carved for him. But Orlando could not because of the realities of the roster.

Orlando’s issue with Gordon, as it is with most of the young players they drafted, was the team needed one of them to turn into the team’s central star. And that was always asking too much of them.

Any team would be glad to pay a promising 26-year-old less than $100 million to continue developing. But it is different when one team is asking that player to be the star of the team at that price point than it would be for a contending team to pay that thinking he is the missing piece.

After seven years, the Magic were done waiting. And so was Gordon with his request out of Orlando and to move on. It was a fair ask from a young player.

To be sure, the Denver Nuggets were hurting after losing Jerami Grant to the Detroit Pistons from their 2020 Western Conference Finals team. They were happy to pay a premium for someone to play that role they desperately needed. And contending for a title makes stomaching a luxury tax payment a whole lot more palatable.

This was something the Magic simply could not do.

Putting aside Gordon’s trade request, the team simply could not wait any longer. Fans were frustrated with waiting longer. And regardless of whether the Magic made the trades to restart the franchise, a new player would emerge in the draft to become the center of the franchise.

The opportunity of picking high in this draft, along with the money invested in young players in Jonathan Isaac and Markelle Fultz already pointed to the team shifting to a new era for the team. The team was not in danger of entering the luxury tax, but they would have been severely hampered from adding to the roster beyond that.

The Gordon decision — one made somewhat for them — was always going to be the domino that led to the team’s future. The Magic did not have the money to replace Gordon in free agency if he left them and his value was never going to be higher than it was last March, save for his own improvement which was not really coming. And they likely already made the decision to let Evan Fournier go in free agency.

The Magic certainly took a risk of their own in accepting Gary Harris, a young and unproven rookie in R.J. Hampton and a first-round pick in the far-off year of 2025 from a team that still expects to contend by then. There is plenty to debate about the merits of that deal.

The team regained financial flexibility to plan their next stage once they assess what they currently have on the roster, to begin with.

That nimbleness and flexibility would not be there if the team retained Gordon or offered him this kind of contract. It likely would have meant splitting with one of their younger players or not being able to add key pieces the team needed.

With the Magic’s previous roster, president of basketball operations Jeff Weltman was limited in what he could spend and add to the team. The Magic had only their mid-level exception, forcing Weltman to address one need each offseason.

Certainly, Weltman could have addressed different needs (especially shooting) to give his young team some cover and a chance to climb the ladder. But there were clear holes in the roster regardless that would have prevented them from reaching the next round.

Doubling down on Gordon without the kind of growth the team needed to see from him offensively would only make it harder to improve.

The reality is the Magic needed flexibility and a fresh start more than they needed Gordon. And they certainly could not rely on Gordon to be the star they tried developing him into.

The Magic would have been truly stuck in the treadmill of mediocrity if they had committed to Gordon. In that sense, pulling the plug in the way the team did was the right choice. Orlando won its side of the deal in that case.

Gordon was worth $92-million to the Nuggets, but no longer worth that much to the Magic.