Orlando Magic should be keeping tabs on Anthony Edwards

The Orlando Magic’s regular season is officially in the books, meaning that the focus will now quickly shift to what will be a pivotal offseason.

With potentially two lottery picks coming their way and the chance, albeit a slim one, of landing Victor Wembanyama, the organization’s outlook is a bright one.

Elsewhere in the league however there are franchises that are struggling to go in the direction that they would like to, with the Minnesota Timberwolves being one clear example as they fell back into the Play-In during a disappointing season capped off by the fight between Rudy Gobert and Kyle Anderson in their must-win final game.

There are going to be a lot of teams evaluating their futures and using their postseason performance to determine what they do next. And the Magic are a team that should be and will be waiting in the shadows.

The Orlando Magic are in a clear position to strike and make a splashy offseason move to take their next steps. As teams get eliminated from the postseason, the Magic should be keeping tabs on big players who could soon be on the move.

We may have already been here before in trying to piece together a scenario where Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks could be gotten, but this does feel a little bit different.

The Mavericks have descended into a mess since trading for Kyrie Irving (although very little of it has been his fault), whereas the Minnesota Timberwolves have been downright strange all season.

The reason for this is the all-in trade that got them Rudy Gobert from the Utah Jazz last summer, and which culminated in Gobert being left behind for a Play-in tournament game after doing this.

Which is where Anthony Edwards, and also the Magic, enter the conversation.

There is little doubt he is one day soon going to be a superstar. But alongside Rudy Gobert and Karl-Anthony Towns, the mix is simply not working.

Gobert’s contract makes him virtually impossible to move, and the upcoming new CBA will not make a deal involving Gobert any easier for them to piece together.

Towns is more likely to be traded than Edwards, but he is not the player the Magic should be looking to go all in on.

He may have looked a lot better on the court in Gobert’s absence, but this feels like fool’s gold.

You know what you are getting with Karl-Anthony Towns, and while he could intrigue next to Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner, he is not the guy you go out and get. He has struggled to step up in big games — averaging only 18.8 points per game in 11 total playoff games in his career. And his health issues are a long list — he played in only 29 games this last year and has failed to reach 60 games in three of his last four years.

It is ironic, but the Magic could actually learn from the Timberwolves, and how they went all in too soon on the wrong player. They now look like they will pay the price for years to come.

This is the cautionary tale the Magic can now point to, and while that may have factored into their decision not to go after Donovan Mitchell hard at the time, it feels different now.

The organization was not entirely sure at that point what they had with Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner, and even Markelle Fultz, and how soon they would be competitive.

This was why they held firm on going all in for Mitchell, as it felt like the wrong time to pull the trigger on a franchise-altering decision.

We know now the Magic’s young players are ahead of schedule, and Edwards has emerged as a player of the caliber of Mitchell (or at least he will be in the next few years) to seriously pursue.

Edwards had another stellar season, averaging a career-best 24.6 points per game, 5.8 rebounds per game and 4.4 assists per game on 45.9/36.9/75.6 shooting splits. He has successfully made the Timberwolves his team, supplanting Towns and even rising above the chaos around him.

Why the Magic could actually have a realistic shot at getting him is because if he showed any sort of desire to leave, they would have the kind of young players and picks to start a conversation.

The Timberwolves have not exactly been a model franchise at handling their business the right way going back to the Kevin Garnett days.

If not for the Sacramento Kings, who were a laughingstock in their own way, the Minnesota Timberwolves would have gotten even more heat through the years.

Only now the Kings are legitimately good, whereas the Timberwolves are still celebrating making the Play-In Tournament in ways that will continue to be turned into memes for years to come.

If they fail to steady the ship from the disaster that the Gobert trade has been, who could blame Edwards for wanting to get out of there?

Also going in the Magic’s favor is the fact that the Timberwolves are in a smaller market with a pretty bad perception around the league as a place to go and compete seriously.

Florida then would seem like a welcome change if no big market franchises were able to offer what the Timberwolves were looking for.

The idea of pairing Edwards with Banchero and Wagner is a fantastic one and would fill the Magic’s roster with so much star power at the wing positions.

The organization is also cultivating something real with its chemistry thanks to head coach Jamahl Mosley and players like Cole Anthony, and they are on an upward trajectory.

In other words, they are everything Anthony Edwards currently wants out of a basketball situation, and if the Timberwolves do not make the Playoffs, things could deteriorate there quickly.

So much so that a chance to acquire Edwards this summer, even if it took their two lottery picks from this year and some young players, would not be out of the question.

He is the player for the Magic to keep a real close eye on as this long offseason begins to unfold in ways none of us will be able to predict.

At the very least, this is how the Magic should be eyeing all the postseason failures as they sniff opportunities to dramatically improve their roster.