With the NBA Playoffs now in full swing, it is unfortunate the Orlando Magic came up short in their pursuit of the Play-In Tournament and, subsequently, the postseason proper.
Both the Miami Heat and Los Angeles Lakers took part in the Play-In, before going on to win their first playoff series against much higher seeded opposition.
The Heat especially are an inspiration for how they managed to lose their first Play-In game to the Atlanta Hawks, before beating the Chicago Bulls to make the playoffs before taking out the league-best Milwaukee Bucks in five games in the first round.
We know the Orlando Magic would have had a hard time beating one of the top two seeds in the Eastern Conference if they had done the unthinkable. But as the Magic prepare for their first postseason, they should think about who would thrive in the postseason.
That does not mean we cannot dream about how well some of their players would have gotten on in a seven-game series. After all, it was Markelle Fultz who once took on the Milwaukee Bucks in a series in 2020, and did not look out of place at all.
These playoffs have thrown up some interesting subplots, so it is not as easy as saying the Magic’s best players, such as Fultz, would be the ones to excel.
We need only look at a player like Terrence Ross, at one point such a valuable asset and now buried on the bench of the Phoenix Suns, to know that talent does not correlate to postseason success.