Orlando Magic need to compete for wins over Lottery odds

The Orlando Magic are going through the final stretch of the season.

For the team with the worst record in the league that seems like the team should be skating by to the finish. Just playing out the string to get to the end of the season.

March does plenty to take attention away from the court for teams at the bottom of the standings. The NCAA Tournament provides the final showcase for the league’s future. It begins to dominate the conversation.

The Magic are in the center of these debates.

They are in a position where there are debates whether the team should be “tanking” or should be competing for wins down the stretch. This is a debate fans are having and discussing as the team keeps an eye on its future.

That certainly came to the forefront after the Magic lost a 15-point lead entering the fourth quarter of Wednesday’s loss to the Indiana Pacers, starting the quarter with a lineup that included two-way player Admiral Schofield over veteran Gary Harris. It is also there in the decision to sit Markelle Fultz against the far more beatable Toronto Raptors on Friday over the Memphis Grizzlies on Saturday.

While there is an argument to be made for either side, the Magic are better off trying to win every game and try to build a culture heading into the offseason rather than try to rely on a system that has not worked for the Magic since the 2004 NBA draft — and really has not worked for them since 1993, the last year the Magic moved up in the Lottery.

The end of the season for the Orlando Magic will bring focus to the draft and the team’s future beyond this season. But the team should not be in tank mode. There is still a lot to gain in winning.

To begin, it is best to look at the lottery system as a whole.

The Magic have not won the lottery since drafting Dwight Howard back in 2004. That was when the team had the best odds to win the Lottery with the worst record. Orlando has not moved up in the Lottery since miraculously jumping from the worst odds to win the Lottery to the first pick in 1993.

Since that last win in 2004, the NBA has moved from its 25-percent odds to the worst team in the league to giving the three-worst teams a 14-percent chance each to win the NBA Draft Lottery.

The Magic saw how perilous this could be ever since they began rebuilding a decade ago.

They finished with the worst record in the league in the 2013 season, only to end up with the second pick. They finished with the third-worst record in the league last year and got the best odds to win the Lottery, only to fall to No. 5. They were the only team in that bottom three not to get one of the picks awarded by the Lottery.

The Magic did well drafting Jalen Suggs and then Franz Wagner at pick 8. But Orlando still lost in the lottery, and there is no reason to believe that luck will change in the Magic’s favor this time around. It is not something the team should count on.

This time around, it would be in Orlando’s best interest to work on building the team’s culture as the team continues to get healthier as the season moves forward.

For the first time this season, the Magic added Markelle Fultz into the lineup returning from his torn ACL from January of 2021.

Fultz makes the Magic a better team. Beyond the numbers, Fultz’s impact on the game of controlling the pace and orchestrating the team’s offense is something none of the Magic’s young guards have developed yet.

The biggest takeaway from Fultz’s two games against the Indiana Pacers is that the Orlando Magic are not as bad as their record shows. This is still with Jonathan Isaac missing time recovering from his own torn ACL.

Instead of tanking for lottery odds, the Magic need to continue to integrate Fultz into the lineup and safely get Isaac back on the court this season if possible.

There is clearly a path for the team to improve that does not involve losing a ton to end the season. The Orlando Magic should follow the Minnesota Timberwolves blueprint to end last season.

The Wolves played their best to finish the year when healthy, they were better than their record and threw away their chance at a better chance at the lottery, finishing the last 14 games with an 8-6 record. They played this way even knowing they would lose their first-round pick if it fell outside the top four (sent to the Golden State Warriors as part of the D’Angelo Russell trade).

The Wolves carried the momentum into this season and are currently the seventh seed in the Western Conference.

The key difference is Minnesota already had an established All-Star in Karl-Anthony Towns and another former All-Star in D’Angelo Russell. Not to mention they had won the Lottery to draft Anthony Edwards. The team improved a ton because of Edwards’ emergence at the end of his rookie year.

Orlando is certainly hoping to see the same finishing kick from its rookies in Suggs and Wagner.

The Magic have been injury-riddled all season long and finally, have the opportunity to find out what their roster relatively healthy looks like.

The Magic need to see Markelle Fultz play alongside Franz Wagner, Wendell Carter, Jalen Suggs and the rest of the Magic’s young core. The Magic have to take this opportunity to find out what their roster is made of before having to make decisions this off-season.

The Magic only have 19 games to do so.

The Magic have two roads to walk down.

They can either try to build momentum to go into the offseason and see what their roster (healthy) can do. Or the Magic can try to increase their lottery odds for the draft this offseason.

The choice is clear. There is no reason to try your luck with a system that time and time again has backfired. Instead, the Magic need to win every game they can to start to build something and look toward the 2023 season.