5 prospects to know for the Orlando Magic’s second-round pick

The Orlando Magic have a bunch of big decisions to make Thursday night in the NBA Draft.

Two Lottery picks will do that. It gives the team the power and the leverage to try to move around the draft or to continue to add young talent to their roster.

Rightly, a lot of our focus has been on the two Lottery picks. Those picks represent some real opportunity to add quality players to the team.

And there is legitimate intrigue over who the team will take.

It is very uncertain which direction the team will go — whether they will take the best player available to them or take the player that best fits their current roster. And there are indeed a lot of players to choose from as there always are the deeper you get into the draft.

The Magic though have one other pick to consider. And we have been very neglectful of it.

The Orlando Magic will also hold the 36th pick in the 2023 NBA Draft. It is another opportunity to add some key role players and talent to this young roster.

Orlando will also make the 36th selection in the draft in the second round. And while the Magic have had a spotty record of keeping their second-round pick under Jeff Weltman — he has traded six of the nine second-round picks he has held entering draft day including trades of Jarred Vanderbilt and Talen Horton-Tucker.

Orlando probably does not need to add three rookies to an already-loaded and young roster. Still, talent is talent. And the Magic should always be looking for ways to add key players to the roster wherever they can.

At the risk of this pick getting traded before publishing once again — last year, the Orlando Magic traded a second-round pick to the Los Angeles Lakers (used to draft Max Christie) in the hours before the draft began — there are still plenty of players for the Magic to consider and pursue in the second round.

Nobody should sleep on a high-second-round pick. At least, not completely.

Where the Magic are focusing a lot on the best player available, the second-round pick probably should be focused more closely on skills that will directly translate and support the roster and current team.

The Magic are going to be spending time on development projects throughout the roster, the second-round pick probably should be a bit more ready-made.

There are always upperclassmen or skill specialists who sneak through. So there is a lot of opportunity still left in the second round.

With a lot of our prep work done on the first-round prospects, here are some second-round prospects to keep an eye on for the Magic.