With training camps set to get underway and preseason just around the corner, excitement is building around getting to see the Orlando Magic’s young core in action.
Nevertheless, all the expectations are that this coming season will be a tough one.
When president of basketball operations Jeff Weltman took the decision to send away the team’s veteran talent for younger players and picks last season, he committed the team to a mammoth rebuild.
One that will take significant time.
And Weltman’s comments during the Magic’s media day when asked about the team’s goals for the year reflected this. “Growth, development, learning,” Weltman said he would consider a successful season.
No playoff targets, no delusions. Just an acceptance that this young team needs time.
"“It’s our jobs and our responsibility to get them through the early stage of their careers successfully,” Weltman continued. “To me, success is reintegrating our injured players, developing our young players the right way so that we can then do our own evaluations on what’s going to make us win as we go forward.”"
The Orlando Magic’s president of basketball operations Jeff Weltman put all the emphasis on development next season, but it will take longer than that for this team to show what they are truly capable of.
As Weltman said, the Magic’s rebuild is a two-step process.
Development and progress is the first stage, then comes a plan to get the team winning games and, hopefully, challenging for a title by focusing on what works best and building around it.
The two processes do go a bit hand in hand. Weltman said winning still has to be important even for a developing team. Everyone should have their eye on winning and what it takes to play winning basketball.
Part of what this season is about, according to Weltman, is to grow players on the roster and figure out how they fit into the bigger picture. The team wants to make progress, even if it remains slow and steady.
That kind of mindset can often be where problems arise. Impatience can become a factor if a team is not growing fast enough and the team needs another year to get itself going in the right direction.
The early road of a rebuild is filled with bumps and potholes, and that road can often go on longer than expected. That could well be true for the Magic, given just how young the core is and that the team’s most promising player, Jalen Suggs, is in his rookie year.
Fans can get understandably frustrated watching a team lose and make mistakes. At times during a rebuild, it can be difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel and what the team is working toward. But when the Magic committed to this path, they also committed to being patient.
It is why talk of Orlando being a good destination for quick-fix star players like Ben Simmons to rebuild his career makes no sense from the Magic’s perspective. To be clear, there have been no reports directly linking Simmons with Orlando. But some members of the media have touted the franchise as somewhere he could make “his team.” And the bookies have placed Orlando among the favorites to get in the running.
It is easy to fall in love with a player with Simmons’ All-Star credentials. But despite how good he is, the question is whether he is the right player for a young team. Or whether a team like the Magic could speed up its timeline that fast.
That is where rebuilding teams fall into trouble.
The Magic probably could not pull off a trade for Simmons at this stage, especially for what Daryl Morey is reportedly demanding. It would at least have to include Suggs, a player who from the Magic’s perspective could be better than Simmons and from the 76ers’ perspective is yet to even play an NBA game.
But he will not be the only undervalued and despondent superstar that becomes available for a trade while the Magic are still rebuilding. There will be more like Simmons who come along, and some could be more within Orlando’s grasp when they are ready to take that gamble.
Even if that is the case, however, the Magic have to see this through until the front office has exhausted all avenues. The vast majority of the roster will not get near their primes for another five or six years minimum, and that has to be remembered even if the losses rack up over the next few seasons.
Cutting short a rebuild to grab a flawed star for a discounted price would be an ill-judged decision for the Magic to make, even if it will make the team better in the short term. There is plenty of promise on this roster, it just might take time for it to properly show.
For a small-market team like the Magic, the way to win revolves around the draft.
Much like Eastern Conference rivals the Milwaukee Bucks and Atlanta Hawks proved last year, acquiring talent through the draft, developing them to reach their potential and then fitting the rest of the team around them is the path toward contention.
Of course, you need the star to make it all happen. The Magic are hoping Jalen Suggs can be the main focus moving forward, or Jonathan Isaac can sufficiently grow his offensive game while playing at an All-Defense level. Perhaps even Cole Anthony or Chuma Okeke could make a leap.
The Magic’s early rebuilding stages will likely see the team grab more high draft picks too, providing more opportunity to land that all-important star player.
This will not be a quick process, though, and if the next four years follow with little success there will no doubt be calls to “blow it up” and try again or expend future assets to give the team the appearance of contention or quick taste of success.
The magnitude of this rebuilding process must not be forgotten amidst all the difficult times ahead.
While the Magic must not be content with mediocrity and cannot persist if the team does not show the talent required if given plenty of opportunity, patience and understanding will be required to give these young players every chance to succeed.
There will be some tough days ahead but as the old saying goes, Rome was not built in a day. Neither will the Magic.