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Orlando Magic’s three positives from first nine games

By Luke Duffy

The Orlando Magic scored some impressive victories on the home floor during a seven-game homestand. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)
The Orlando Magic scored some impressive victories on the home floor during a seven-game homestand. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images) /
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French professional basketball player Victor Wembanyama talks during a flash interview (Photo by Antonio Borga/Eurasia Sport Images/Getty Images) /

3 positives from Orlando Magic’s first nine games

1. Could Victor Wembanyama be on the cards?

If you asked any Orlando Magic fan if they would like generational talent Victor Wembanyama, all of them would rightly say yes. But the thinking was the Magic were too good to be among the worst teams in the league, and thus secure one of the three joint-worst odds to nab the Frenchman with the first pick in next year’s NBA Draft.

As already mentioned, the Magic are about to play their next six games at home, and the standings will even themselves out during the season. The Magic might never get to the play-in, but injuries and other teams just being plain worse than them mean that they will struggle to stick to the bottom. And yet . . .

https://twitter.com/LucaLockheart/status/1588638197172797440

This 2-7 start for the Magic is probably worse than you expected. It puts the Orlando Magic dead last, alongside the Detroit Pistons, in the Eastern Conference. Out West, the three worst franchises were sure to be the Utah Jazz (6-3, third), San Antonio Spurs (5-3, fourth) and Oklahoma City Thunder (4-4, tenth).

They are all doing better than the Magic right now, and unless they make changes to their rosters look like they are going to continue to be competitive. This is an unexpected and encouraging early sign in the fast-becoming real quest for Wembanyama.

We have maybe never seen a talent this good, and yet nobody is setting their stall out early to try and tank shamelessly for him.

Magic fans are sick of losing, and they have two players in Banchero and Wagner who will ensure that the losses will become less frequent. This is going to start happening soon, and the front office has done a nice job with the reclamation project that is Bol. Their draft history is not perfect, but Wagner was a win and Suggs is steadily improving.

But those same Magic fans will have no problem sitting through another 25-57 season if it means they get the number one pick.

dark. Next. What the Orlando Magic can learn from OKC collapse

The future is bright regardless, and even when they are losing this young group is fun to watch and root for. Offensively they are more entertaining than they have been in years thanks to Banchero. This is the biggest hidden positive that we never saw coming.