The roster spots in the NBA are almost completely dried up.
The Orlando Magic’s roster for the 2024 season is already full with just two two-way contracts to fill for the team. And so there is not much to look forward to this offseason besides the end of Summer League, the FIBA World Cup and the start of training camp.
Of course, the NBA does not stop.
There are still roster moves to be made and there are still big issues hanging around the league — most of all, the Damian Lillard trade request and the continued standoff between the Portland Trail Blazers and Miami Heat as they try to get a deal done (that will almost assuredly require a third team).
Despite how settled the Magic’s roster feels and the stated intentions from the Magic’s front office to use this season as a season of self-evaluation, the conditions for a trade are still very present with an imbalanced roster featuring a lot of guards and several expiring contracts for players with uncertain futures.
Everyone is expecting the Orlando Magic to take a big leap this season. That means everyone is beginning to suspect Orlando is set to enter the trade market. So when and who will the Magic target?
Orlando is probably not making a move this offseason. But everyone senses that the move is coming very soon. Especially if the team takes the steps forward that everyone anticipates this season.
The Magic are not exempt from any rumors still floating about the league’s rumor mill, even if it is just idle thinking believing the Magic are perpetually rebuilding and not a team on the cusp of a prolonged playoff run.
The same approach the Magic use for the draft should then be in effect as the team begins to ponder its next moves and what that all-in move looks like.
President of basketball operations Jeff Weltman constantly says about the draft they are more concerned about the person they are picking rather than the player they are picking (although the basketball skills have to match). And it feels like the Magic need the same approach as they consider what that all-in move might be.
Weltman really kind of confirmed his position to stand pat with this roster and use this season as one of self-evaluation (something general manager Anthony Parker has also publicly said) in an interview with Justine Termine and Frank Isola on SiriusXM NBA Radio earlier this week:
"“I think that you can feel it bubbling,” Weltman said in the interview. “Our guys are 20, 21, 22. We’re not there yet. We did not push chips up to the middle of the table this year. We haven’t spent any money. We haven’t traded picks for vets. We are still growing it at a pace where the young guys are allowed to develop and feel their way through. For us, we have a lot of evaluating to do and self-scouting to do to see how best to serve it forward.”"
The radio hosts compared the Orlando Magic’s current rebuild to that of the Denver Nuggets where they were able to be patient and wait for young players to grow and wait for injured players to get healthy, grow and develop.
Weltman offered they actually have one of the players from those early Nuggets years in Gary Harris and Harris often remarks how similar the feeling growing in Orlando is to those early years in Denver.
The Nuggets did just win a championship so that path at least has been laid out.
Undoubtedly, the Magic though are moving to a new phase of their rebuild and even they acknowledge that.
Weltman said on draft night and repeated in the above-linked interview that the team is hopefully getting to a point where everyone has to earn their minutes. Rookies are certainly not going to be gifted 30 minutes per game.
Orlando certainly hopes that it has developed a bit of depth. But they know that big decisions are on the horizon.
And as much as improving and playing better basketball are part of the storyline for the upcoming season, so too is the future for players like Cole Anthony, Markelle Fultz and Jonathan Isaac. Along with the potential to move other semi-expiring contracts like veterans Joe Ingles and Gary Harris. Not to mention Orlando still holds all of its own draft picks — plus a 2025 first-round pick from the Nuggets.
The Magic have the ability to do just about anything when they are ready to strike. So it is very much who do the Magic go all-in on? And at what point does the team put its chips in, as Weltman put it?
The latest rumor is not about anything imminent but rather a situation the team is monitoring.
Michael Grange of SportsNet in Toronto is reporting there is at least a feeling of discontent among the Raptors’ veterans that has not been eased by the poor performance in Summer League. Few Raptors veterans have shown up in Vegas at this point and it does feel like the team is on the way down after losing Fred VanVleet in free agency.
There are at least a few rumors that the Raptors are making All-Star forward Pascal Siakam available in trades despite Siakam’s preference to stay. And Grange notes the Magic as a team to monitor.
Why the Magic is a mystery to everyone. While Siakam can play some center, his best role is at forward where the Magic have two young players they are looking to build their team around.
It is still very likely the Magic are the boogeyman in trade rumors and negotiations as a team that is primed to get involved in trades for All-Star-level players. It is still about the who.
By all accounts, Siakam is the kind of person the Magic would chase after. He is very much a self-made All-Star and has the versatility the Magic typically seek from their wing players. But the fit does not make sense with the team’s current roster.
The question then the Magic have to be monitoring and be aware of is who is the right person to push their chips in for.
Clearly, the Magic have not found that person yet. That person and player may not yet have revealed himself on the trade market. And Orlando it seems is more determined to see this young group out and give them the chance to prove themselves.
But to be sure, everyone knows the time is coming for the Magic to put some of their future assets into the middle and get some skin in the game to make significant improvements.
And so Orlando is going to be shifting its focus from maximizing their draft value to maximizing their trade value. And finding the right person and player to chase.
When the time is right, of course.