Only one team entered the 2023 NBA Draft with two picks in the draft lottery. Courtesy of another losing season from the Chicago Bulls, the Orlando Magic had in hand the No. 11 pick in the draft in addition to their own No. 6.
Add in pick No. 36 and the team had a lot of potential to add to their young roster to continue building for the future.
By the morning of the draft, most analysts had zeroed in on Arkansas’ Anthony Black as the pick at No. 6, and that is who the Magic drafted. A few picks later they went for more of a surprise pick, taking Michigan’s Jett Howard. The second-round pick was then shipped off to the Milwaukee Bucks for a 2030 second and cash.
The Orlando Magic went for youth in the 2023 NBA Draft but seemingly went off board, eliciting negative reactions and questions throughout Magic fandom as they look ahead to the team’s future.
Anthony Black is a 19-year-old entering the league after his freshman season, as is Jett Howard.
Rather than try to use either pick to trade for a veteran, or to trade up in the draft, they stood pat and added two young players. They have almost exclusively drafted freshmen over the past few seasons, playing a long game of developing a team that contends for a title.
How did the Magic do?
Let’s evaluate each of their picks, then add in the trade at the end to give them an overall grade for their performance on draft night. Will the Magic get a passing grade at the end?
Grading every Orlando Magic 2023 Draft pick
Anthony Black, Arkansas
The Orlando Magic were linked to all sorts of players in the pre-draft process, with popular choices being Ausar Thompson of the Overtime Elite and Taylor Hendricks of UCF. In the end, however, Thompson was off the board by the sixth pick and the Magic went for backcourt help over another forward.
That was certainly understandable given their roster situation.
They have long-term starters at all three frontcourt positions in Franz Wagner, Paolo Banchero and Wendell Carter. As a rebuilding team you never want to value fit too highly over player value.
But at some point, the Magic need to figure out their starting backcourt and taking a guard was always going to make sense at No. 6.
The problem for the Magic is that there was not a point guard available with pull-up shooting chops. After Scoot Henderson, that player did not really exist anywhere in the first-round range, depending on what you thought of Kobe Bufkin and Jalen Hood-Schifino’s ability to be a point guard.
Adding to the backcourt meant either sacrificing the playmaking or the shooting.
Unsurprisingly, the Magic valued the playmaking over the shooting. And it is hard to blame them given everything else Anthony Black brings to the table. He is a 6-foot-6 point guard who is not simply a good passer but loves to pass, an unselfish floor general who tries to put his teammates in the best positions to succeed.
He is a pick-and-roll champ, has a tight enough handle and enough shake to maneuver through the defense, and can finish well.
Defensively he is a true thief, generating steals on-ball and off-ball, with a preternatural ability to know where the ball is going and get his hand there. He should be a really good defender in the NBA.
The problem is his shot. He shoots a low percentage from the line and from deep and is reluctant to take jumpers as well.
If that develops into a league-average weapon, Anthony Black can be a De’Aaron Fox type of impact player. If it does not, he is going to struggle to be a long-term starter.
When you factor in that the Magic already have two on-ball guards who play excellent defense and cannot shoot, and it is going to get crowded in Orlando.
Still, Black is a great young talent, and this was a reasonable range to take him.
Grading every Orlando Magic 2023 Draft pick
Jett Howard, Michigan
When the No. 11 pick came around to the Orlando Magic, they had a plethora of talent available to them.
Cam Whitmore, onetime a top-5 lock, had fallen out of the Top 10. Gradey Dick was the draft’s best shooter and would address a huge need for the Magic. Kobe Bufkin was on the board if they wanted to address the backcourt again, while Dereck Lively II was an option as the longtime backup to Wendell Carter.
So many options.
Instead of taking any of those players, the Magic reached down the draft board and selected Michigan’s Jett Howard.
On the surface there was a theory to the case: Howard has one of the best jump shots in the class, and he is comfortable shooting it off the catch or off the dribble. He can handle the ball enough to attack closeouts and make plays as a passer in certain situations. At 6-foot-8 he has good positional size.
The problem is Howard is truly terrible at everything else, in such a way as to cast doubts on him ever being anything more than a shooting specialist at the next level.
He is a poor athlete who did not rebound or finish inside while at Michigan. He is a turnstile on defense, with poor footwork, a tendency to lose his man and little strength when his man initiates contact. He does not get steals, does not get blocks and does not draw fouls.
For Howard to make it in the NBA, he is going to need to shoot like Duncan Robinson, because otherwise the rest of his game is like . . . Duncan Robinson.
And he did not shoot like that. His form is pure, sure, but the end result was just 36.8 percent 3-point shooting as a freshman. He needs to be better than 40 percent to have a chance at mattering.
Some of that may come down to ankle injuries that both he and the Magic admitted to toward the end of Michigan’s season.
When you look at the other players on the board, it is truly painful the Magic reached for Howard. Dick is a much better version of what the Magic hope Howard can become in every area. If the Magic wanted a shooter with size who can put the ball on the deck and not get truly killed on defense, Dick was their guy. To take Howard instead looks like a massive miss.
I had Jett Howard ranked at 26th because of his jumper and the hope it can come around. Orlando Magic Daily had him completely off their board — we do not even has a player profile to share before the draft. A consensus draft ranking of eight top analysts averaged to put Howard at 20.6.
All of our projections are just that, projections, and Howard could find a way to put things together and be worth this pick.
It just does not look like great value or the right bet to make for the Magic. And to miss that big in the lottery is even worse.
Grading every Orlando Magic 2023 Draft pick
Grading the Magic on the entire draft
The final move the Orlando Magic made on draft night was to trade out of the No. 36 pick in exchange for a 2030 second-round pick and cash from the Milwaukee Bucks.
That was understandable. The Magic are already adding two rookies to a full roster, so not wanting a third makes sense.
Given the value other teams got for trading down at the top of the second round, though, you would have liked to see the Magic get a couple of picks here. Still, if it is the Bucks’ own pick, they could be quite bad by 2030, so it is a decent upside play.
The Magic came into the draft needing an on-ball playmaker who could shoot. They did not add that player unless Anthony Black makes a huge leap as a shooter. But that player also was not really available to them.
Taking a chance on Black given everything else he brings to a team makes sense.
Their other need was for off-ball shooters, and that is where the Magic failed spectacularly.
Taking Anthony Black meant they passed on Taylor Hendricks, but they doubled down at pick 11 taking Jett Howard over players like Gradey Dick or even Jordan Hawkins.
They reached past proven shooters with other NBA skills to take a merely good shooter with huge NBA issues. Take Dick at 11, and this grade is probably an A-. That is how baffling and ultimately misguided their selection is.