The Orlando Magic had Wendell Carter for just 22 games last season. And that time was difficult to judge considering the situation the team was in — sinking to the bottom of the standings and clearly positioning themselves for the draft after franchise-changing trades.
Carter was solid with the Chicago Bulls, albeit inconsistent because of injuries and constant changes with the coaching staff. But Carter arrived in Orlando and clearly became a player who could make an impact. His defense alone as a rim protector gave the Magic a new dynamic defensively.
The trick though was going to be about how the Magic put all their pieces together. This was the beginning of a rebuild. And Carter’s time was running out with the prospect of restricted free agency looming after the 2022 season.
Was his short run — where he averaged 11.7 points and 8.8 rebounds per game — enough to guarantee a place in this new Magic future?
That may be the wrong question to ask.
With such a young roster, president of basketball operations Jeff Weltman deployed a strategy that he seemed to be following throughout his four-year tenure with the team so far. He was going to retain quality players and look to keep flexibility moving forward.
The Orlando Magic again retained a young player in Wendell Carter. It continued Jeff Weltman’s pattern of investing in his own roster to build a foundation.
Weltman’s tenure as president of basketball operations has been characterized by moves like the one he faced with Carter. He saw a valuable player already on his roster and wrapped him up on what many people consider a reasonable deal.
Carter was certainly good enough and continued to show signs of positive growth. His preseason only confirmed that as he led the team in scoring and expanded his game to outside the 3-point line.
"“I think we always say you can tell a person by the way he plays,” Jeff Weltman said after practice Saturday. “I think you can tell a lot about Wendell Carter by the way he plays. He’s a worker. He’s a guy who cares about his teammates. He wants to please his coaches. He knows this business is about winning basketball games. All those ingredients. He’s about the right stuff. He’s about what we want to be about going forward.”"
The decision then was simple: Retain a hard-working, solid player who can contribute and help the team while ensuring it feels like a below-market contract and maintains his options moving forward.
Carter figures to be a critical player as the Magic try to rebuild from the ground up. The team was not in a position to let a contributing player of that caliber walk away or risk him entering restricted free agency next year with the chance for poison pill contracts or other contracts that would hamper the team’s newfound financial flexibility.
According to a few models for projecting player worth, Carter’s reported four-year, $50-million is at or above market. FiveThirtyEight’s player projection system gave Carter a five-year market value of $42.9 million and John Hollinger’s BORD$ projection system for The Athletic dropped Carter’s value at four years, $49 million.
Orlando likely paid a bit of a premium then to get him to forego that chance at free agency next summer and likely bet on Carter continuing to improve with the opportunity the Magic have provided.
"“I realized going into my fourth year, this is a big year coming up for me,” Carter said after practice Saturday. “Especially after getting traded, I had a lot of mixed emotions about it. I really had to buckle down and really focus on my craft and get back to what got me in this league. Which is be a hard worker and put my mind on things that will help me become a better player.”"
Whether Carter becomes worth the price will get determined on the court in the coming years. And Weltman too will get judged on whether that investment pays off.
A history of retaining
Jeff Weltman has not been a splashy executive to this point. He has not gotten a lot of free agents to arrive in Orlando in his tenure with the team.
Al-Farouq Aminu, signed to a three-year, $29.2 million contract in 2019, was the biggest player acquisition he has made in his now four-year tenure with the team. That move did not work out as Aminu struggled with injuries. That move also got roundly criticized for adding a player to a position the Magic did not need when they were fighting to improve their playoff positioning.
That contract is really the only onerous one Weltman has signed as the team was bumping up against the salary cap and near the luxury tax line. He had limited resources to improve his 2019 playoff team and whiffed completely on it.
The other contract moves Weltman made were largely to retain players that were key to that team’s success.
He signed Nikola Vucevic to a four-year, $100-million contract to retain an All-Star player. He retained Aaron Gordon on a four-year, $76-million contract. And he kept Terrence Ross on a four-year, $54-million contract.
On rookie contracts, Weltman kept Jonathan Isaac on a four-year, $70-million contract that is reportedly heavily incentive-laden to cover the team for his injury history. He also re-signed Markelle Fultz to a three-year, $50-million contract with a team option or a partial guarantee on that third year.
The consistent pattern here is to reward players for their efforts and contribution to the team and continue to invest in their development.
The other consistent pattern is the creative structure of Weltman’s contracts. Vucevic’s contract had floating raises and amounts, as did Ross’ contract. Gordon’s contract was frontloaded, decreasing in amount as the contract progressed.
It is not yet clear how Carter’s contract is structured.
None of these contracts — even the big one spent on Vucevic — kept the team from advancing their interests or pulling the plug when the time called for it.
Staying the same for now
Jeff Weltman certainly could get criticized for rolling over with the same team despite their limits.
But with the cap situation he was faced with, retaining those players was a better path to improve than losing them and trying to find some bargain on the market. The Orlando Magic would not be able to replace any o these players in free agency without taking a significant step back.
That may be a reason why the team eventually pulled the plug, to begin with. It created the flexibility to make other moves and wipe the slate clean.
This contract to Carter, along with the extension to Isaac and Fultz, does not shrink the Magic’s flexibility.
Orlando has an estimated $78.2 million committed to next season (including Carter’s contract assuming it is backloaded). That would still give the team an estimated $40.8 million in cap room for next season to re-sign Mo Bamba and add new players.
Weltman again then is using the same tool he used before the rebuild. He wants to build the foundation with players the team can trust and grow on the roster already. It makes sense to retain those players and invest in them as the foundation for the team while maintaining flexibility to move them if the right opportunity arises.
It is a conservative move. It is always fairly safe to invest in what the team knows. Especially if it comes at a reasonable price.
At some point, Weltman will have to push all his chips in. Perhaps there were some opportunities missed to do so before the team revamped its roster. The magic will have to be aggressive acquiring players at some point.
And at some point, the Magic need to hit on one of these investments they have made in their roster. outside of Vucevic maintaining his All-Star stature, the team has not done so.
But at this stage of the Magic’s rebuild, the team is maintaining its roster, its flexibility and its believe in the foundation they are building.