Orlando Magic’s goals this season are to firmly shape their future

Rebuilding is not easy.

Starting from scratch always comes with incredible risk. Trading away a team that was a confident playoff team (even if in the back-end of the postseason) to begin anew with a young roster offers no guarantee for success.

Everyone can certainly agree the team raised its ceiling with its March moves to ship out Nikola Vucevic, Evan Fournier and Aaron Gordon. But they dropped the floor out in the process.

The Orlando Magic are going to struggle this season if wins and losses are the measures for success. That is the nature of the beast.

If wins and losses then are not the team’s ultimate goals, how is success measured for the upcoming season? What is the team’s goal for the 2022 season?

Orlando is clearly building for the future. This team is trying to build the foundations this season for what it hopes will be better days ahead. And so the goal for this season is with that eye on the future.

The Magic need to exit the 2022 season with an idea of what their final product will look like. They need to be able to see how the puzzle pieces fit together and have confidence that both the system put in place by first-year coach Jamahl Mosley and the players they choose to build with can succeed and win in that system.

The Orlando Magic are a blank slate this season with no certainty entering it. As they play the 2022 season, they need to figure out what that final product looks like.

Orlando may finish with one of the worst records in the league this year, but they should have an idea of the team they are about to become or the team they are trying to build by the time the season ends.

The uncertainty facing the team, and the reason the Magic are almost universally predicted to finish at the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings, is that nobody knows what this team will actually look like.

Their best and most promising players are all still in the beginning phases of their careers or are recovering from yearlong absences due to injury.

Jalen Suggs was a home run pick and an early betting favorite to win the NBA’s Rookie of the Year award. The Magic will have plenty of opportunity to spare to the rookie.

But he is a rookie, and rookies no matter how talented always need some adjustment to the league. It is exceedingly rare for even the best young players to hit the league and turn teams into playoff teams.

What the Magic really want to see from him is what they want to see from the team at large — hints of his future potential. The Magic want to see hints of his potential stardom so they can begin mapping their future.

The same could be said of any of the other young players on the roster. They want to exit the season understanding what the best roles for Cole Anthony, R.J. Hampton, Chuma Okeke, Franz Wagner, Wendell Carter and Mohamed Bamba might be. Especially with Carter and Bamba set to hit restricted free agency this offseason.

On top of this, both Jonathan Isaac and Markelle Fultz are returning from major knee injuries.

The Magic do not know quite what to expect from them. But both established themselves as starters on the Magic’s playoff-ready roster. Orlando is hoping to get them back to that level.

But it will take time. And this season will be more about getting them healthy and comfortable more than their production. The team will exit this season knowing where they are and how they can progress moving forward.

It is all a big mystery. Every player on the roster has questions about what they can provide now with only hints of what it can be in the future.

The season is about shaping that future and giving it form for what it can become.

Orlando has talent without doubt, but nobody is quite sure how that talent comes together.

Mosley himself is a coach who will come under some question. As a first-year coach, nobody is quite sure how he will do in the lead chair, even if everyone agrees this opportunity is long overdue.

Mosley was known for his player development and working with individual players throughout his career. He took over as the Dallas Mavericks’ defensive coordinator the last three years with some mixed statistical results.

It is assumed the Magic will run a high-pressured defense and try to use that to get out in transition. But Mosley’s promise to play with pace, space and the pass on offense along with playing tough, together and talking on defense are just buzz words that do not have tape behind them to show what they mean.

Like his players, this season is something of a proof of concept for what his philosophy will become. That is why it is so vital for the team to buy in and execute.

The Magic need to form what their future looks like at every level. They need to see a clear vision for their future and what the team will look like.

They need to exit this season with an identity and a way to play. Success this season will come in knowing what comes next and the next steps the team will take.

Orlando is going to struggle this season. That is the nature of a young team. They are going to go through their ups and downs. And so winning and losing is not the measure for success.

Instead, how the team will get judged is in the future they point to.

They will be judged on whether someone emerges as a potential star and how everyone fits into the new system the team is building. They will be judged on whether they are running an offensive and defensive system that can scale up to winning consistently and whether the team can clearly see the players they need to make the team better.

This season may be treading water or a step back, but that is not the posture the team wants for very long. Orlando will want to begin climbing the ladder next season. They take their first steps this season.

The Magic’s future right now is very murky. Nobody knows exactly what this team will look like.

But by the end of this season, Orlando should have some idea of what that future looks like. They need some outline to tell them where to go next.

This season is about shaping the team’s future. One way or another.