How every NBA trade deadline deal affects the Orlando Magic – Late Edition

This post will be updated throughout the day.

The countdown to the trade deadline is on. As I write this, it is nearly 2 p.m., leaving just one hour until the league cuts off the line and no more trades can get done this season.

That is the important thing to remember, 3 p.m. is when the league closes the line. If teams are on hold with the league office to confirm their trades, they will still get done. So deals will trickle out after the 3 p.m. deadline.

And the important thing to remember too is that discussions at the trade deadline can also lay the seeds for deals in the offseason. Just because a deal does not get done today does not mean a deal is done forever.

So far, Thursday has been quiet — again writing this intro at about 1:45 p.m. Eastern Time. There is going to be a mad rush right before the clock strikes zero.

The NBA trade deadline is quickly approaching. Will the Orlando Magic make a move? More importantly, what do the trades around the league mean for the Orlando Magic?

Especially after what went down late Wednesday night and early Thursday morning. The league has seismically changed and likely sent a lot of teams scrambling to keep up after the Phoenix Suns acquired Kevin Durant.

It is still unclear what the Orlando Magic will do. Or if the Magic will do anything. Everyone senses they are a team that is ready to make some big moves very soon. Even if that time is not now.

We will handle what the Magic do at the deadline in a separate post. Or if they do nothing.

As we did with the deals last night, we are going to break down what each deal at the deadline does for the Magic. Everything in the league is interconnected. And even small deals provide a hint of how the league is planning to act and what is ahead for the Magic as they look to make their next moves.

Until then, we are waiting for the clock to strike zero and for the trade deadline period to end.

How every NBA trade deadline deal affects the Orlando Magic

Big man destinations dry up

This was a heavy market for centers. There were a lot of teams that needed backup centers and frontcourt help and a lot of players who were available to deal. That includes Orlando Magic big man Mo Bamba. It is still uncertain what his market might be and who might want him.

Throughout the day Wednesday, reports came out that the Boston Celtics could be a team that would be in the hunt for a player like Bamba to bolster their backcourt. They took themselves off the board in that race by going after another shooting big man in Mike Muscala.

Muscala gives the Celtics a similar player to Bamba. He is shooting 39.4 percent from beyond the arc compared to Bamba’s 39.8 percent shooting. This is as like-for-like as a player can get.

It is not clear whether the Magic put an offer on the table. But salary is likely the big reason. Muscala only makes $3.5 million this season. So the savings are significant for the Celtics financially.

That hints at the big trouble of trying to trade Bamba.

Bamba’s salary at $10 million-plus made it difficult to find an adequate trade partner. More than that, it made it difficult to find matching salaries to make the deal work that the Magic would want. Orlando is not exactly a team that has valued second-round picks, although caching them seems to be the currency to get deals done in the league right now.

The rumors going around had the Celtics looking to package Danilo Gallinari (out with an injury) and Payton Pritchard (an interesting shooting idea but a player who is also out of the rotation) to reach Bamba’s salary. The Magic would need to clear one spot to make that happen. But does that solve any problems?

Maybe it did not. Eventually, the Celtics went with this more minor deal. And another team that needs a backup center is off the board. The options to move Bamba are becoming more limited.

The same thing happened with another favorite candidate to acquire Bamba in the LA Clippers.

Bamba was struggling to get minutes and so he was pretty low on the pecking order for teams looking for big-man help. They were going to have to wait to see whether teams could get some of the other big fish.

With Jakob Poeltl going back to Toronto, one of the other shoes to drop was Mason Plumlee of the Charlotte Hornets.

The Clippers became a favored target for the Magic because they had a matching salary in Luke Kennard that served a need for the Magic as a shooter. But they eventually went with another deal for Kennard. And they found a better option to fill that center role in Plumlee.

The Magic never really had a chance if that was the offer on the table.

It again highlights how difficult it was for the Magic to find a workable deal for Bamba. And why they ultimately settled on getting a buyout player and a second-round pick in exchange for Bamba.

There just was not much of a market for someone that far down the list of big-man prospects at the deadline.

How every NBA trade deadline deal affects the Orlando Magic

The second-round bonanza

The theme for much of the trade deadline was how freely second-round picks went throughout the trade deadline. Teams really motivated to make moves to help them win now ended up swapping copious amounts of second-round picks.

It is almost to the point that Orlando Magic fans are kind of frustrated they only ended up with one second-round pick in their pawning off of Mo Bamba to the Los Angeles Lakers for Patrick Beverley (again, he will likely get bought out).

Because second-round picks got passed around. None more than in the Brooklyn Nets funneling Jae Crowder to the Milwaukee Bucks for five future second-round picks.

The Bucks are a contending team, they probably have no use for second-round picks. Their concern was adding another wing defender to help them in their title quest. That is ultimately what mattered more for them in this deal.

But that deal, and the other deals that were stocked full of second-round picks, shows how much those assets can grease the wheels for a deal.

That is what the Los Angeles Lakers did to send Thomas Bryant out to the Denver Nuggets too — later flipping one of the seconds they acquired to the Orlando Magic in the Mo Bamba/Patrick Beverley swap.

The most shocking move was that the Denver Nuggets shuttled off Bones Hyland to the LA Clippers for just two second-round draft picks. It feels like a young player should have gotten more. But Hyland had clearly become a bit disgruntled with his role and the Nuggets may have been more focused on just getting him out.

The Clippers needed a backup point guard and to give up minimal value for him was a big win for them. One of these second-round picks given the Nuggets ended up with the Magic. That will convey in 2024.

The San Antonio Spurs ended up adding to their second-round collection too in their trade to acquire Devonte’ Graham from the New Orleans Pelicans, sending out defensive-minded wing Josh Richardson to the playoff-hungry Pelicans.

Again, these seem like absurd numbers of second-round picks flying around.

The only other deal involving shooting is one I really do not have much to say about. But I said every deal. . . so here it is:

Why are teams finding so much value in these picks? That is hard to say.

Some teams just do not value second-round picks. They are just easy to throw around and include. They are essentially crap shoots that rarely turn into something valuable.

Then again, the league is preparing for the double draft. The league is expected to get rid of its one-and-done rule when they approve the new CBA in the summer of 2024. That could mean there will be a big draft class coming in 2025 and 2026. Suddenly a second-round pick could net you a first-round talent.

So it is a good time to assess what picks the Magic have. They first have all of their first-round picks plus the top-4 protected 2023 Chicago Bulls pick and a likely 2025 Denver Nuggets first.

In terms of second-round picks, the Orlando Magic own all of their own second-round picks plus the less favorable 2025 second-round pick from the Boston Celtics or Memphis Grizzlies, 2026 second-round picks from the Detroit Pistons and Milwaukee Bucks, a 2027 second-round pick from the Celtics and a 2028 second-round pick from the Celtics and a more favorable 2029 second-round pick between the Los Angeles Lakers and Washington Wizards.

The second-round pick the Magic acquired from the Lakers with Patrick Beverley is believed to be the same one the Lakers acquired in the Davon Reed/Thomas Bryant swap from Thursday too.

The only pick the Magic owe is a top-55 protected 2023 second-round pick to the Celtics. That is not conveying.

Orlando has a ton of draft picks in their coffers. And if second-round picks remain this valuable moving forward, the Magic should be able to remain active at the deadline to improve their roster when they are ready.

How every NBA trade deadline deal affects the Orlando Magic

The second draft

Every year around the trade deadline, teams give up on their first-round picks that are just not getting it and seek to recoup some value for them instead of facing the tough decision to extend them and give them a bigger contract.

This is an area where young and developing teams really seek to take advantage. The Orlando Magic did this to grab Markelle Fultz and give him a second chance to reclaim his career in a new atmosphere. They did the same virtually with Bol Bol, albeit Bol was a second-round pick.

This could have been another opportunity for the Magic to add some young talent to their team. There were a few teams that let go of their former first-round picks.

None were bigger than the trade of James Wiseman from the Golden State Warriors to the Detroit Pistons.

The Warriors made James Wiseman the second pick in the 2020 Draft. Wiseman dealt with injuries and NCAA sanctions in his freshman year at Memphis and continued to deal with injuries in his rookie year with the Warriors.

The idea of grooming a young player to develop alongside the ending stages of the Stephen Curry dynasty never materialized. Wiseman just could not see the floor.

Suddenly the Warriors were back to competing for a title and they did not have the time to develop a raw center trying to get healthy. He still has struggled to see the court.

That made him a perfect candidate to move along in a second draft. The Warriors grabbed a player they know they can rely on to help them win a title in return. That is the simplicity of this deal.

Meanwhile, Wiseman goes to a low-pressure situation to develop and make some mistakes with a struggling Pistons team (ignore the logjam among big men for now).

Another similar trade occurred with the Philadelphia 76ers shipping Matisse Thybulle to the Portland Trail Blazers.

The 76ers had clearly soured some on Matisse Thybulle. Nobody doubts his defensive acumen and ability. But his shooting struggles were just becoming too much for a team competing at the highest levels. They needed someone who could shoot a bit more.

So the Sixers will give a second draft opportunity to Jalen McDaniels, who is less of a shooter and more of a spark plug. While the Blazers fill in with some much-needed wing defense to bolster their backcourt. That will be a big boost to Portland.

Although even Portland’s goals are unclear right now.

These are opportunities the Magic used to hunt out. But the magic not really looking to swap young players or find these opportunities shows the team is no longer looking to collect young players anymore.

These are the kind of deals that get done at the deadline.

How every NBA trade deadline deal affects the Orlando Magic

Where is the shooting?

At the top of every Orlando Magic fans’ wish list for this trade deadline was for the team to find some shooting. Everyone had their eyes set on LA Clippers guard Luke Kennard or Toronto Raptors forward Gary Trent Jr. Just anyone who could consistently put the ball in the hoop.

That deal did not emerge for this Magic team. There was actually not a lot of shooting passed around.

The Toronto Raptors, the team everyone thought would be in the market to deal shooters like Gary Trent Jr. or Fred VanVleet, opted to stand pat believing they could still compete in the Eastern Conference with the landscape suddenly changed with the Brooklyn Nets’ reformation.

The Detroit Pistons traded Sadiq Bey, see the James Wiseman trade above. He may have had some issues that made him more available and led to a disappointing season. But they ended up not moving veteran Bojan Bogdanovic.

In the end, not many shooters got moved. Teams are holding onto their shooters. They are just so rare in the league. And that is why the Magic are hunting for them.

Who knows if the Magic were actually interested in Kennard or whether a serious offer — involving Mo Bamba or Terrence Ross — was ever pitched.

The LA Clippers were extremely active at this deadline and seemed to fill all their needs — finding a backup center, finding a backup point guard and dumping some salary to make sure their tax bill was not too heavy.

In the end, the best deal involving shooters had shooters getting traded for each other.

This should put a bigger focus on how much of a premium shooting is at. The Magic still acted as a salary dumping ground, but they were not going to be able to get a quality player to help push their team forward with the assets they had available and were willing to part with.

The Magic probably would have needed to trade Gary Harris to get a deal like this done. Would that have been worth it? The answer seems to be no. What are these players doing better than Harris right now? So maybe standing pat was the right call.

The clear message though for the team as they look to the trade market in the offseason, free agency and the draft is to continue building some shooting.