Orlando Magic president of basketball operations Jeff Weltman was asked at exit interviews to reflect on his decision to hang tight at the trade deadline.
He reiterated what he said to reporters he spoke with after the trade deadline, the team was getting squeezed a bit -- a natural thing all teams are trying to do -- and ultimately, the Magic found the cost of doing business to be too high for the things they were looking for.
To be sure, the trade deadline was a very different time. In early February, the Magic believed they were getting Jalen Suggs back from injury. They were expecting a major shock to their stability with that return.
As Weltman has pointed out in the days since the season ended, the Magic are also more cognizantly aware of their books and the restrictions that come with being in the first or second aprons. That awareness was likely present at the trade deadline, too. Orlando was not in a position to take on a whole lot more money.
That condition has not changed. And with the promise to add significantly to the offense this summer, the Magic are back in the same predicament they were in at the trade deadline. They are back asking themselves a lot of the same questions.
That win-now mentality that Weltman promises typically comes at the sacrifice of development projects and uncertainty. It comes at the cost of key prospects.
The thing that likely kept the Magic from making a move at the deadline was their evaluation of Anthony Black. He is the young prospect that teams are willing to take a chance on -- and perhaps the cost of taking on higher-salary players. He is the dream you sell to a team looking to rehabilitate itself.
He will again be in the spotlight this offseason. For the Magic to make the significant gains they want to make, it probably starts with how they evaluate Black.
A stronger sophomore season
After two seasons, Anthony Black has shown promise but still has not quite looked ready to compete at a playoff level. He has sometimes struggled to find consistency on offense while providing better-than-expected defense for a second-year player.
The biggest issue is that while Black certainly improved between his rookie and sophomore seasons, he still was not a player the Orlando Magic trusted to start games when they sought some help at point guard, or always trusted to finish games.
In the end, Black averaged 9.4 points per game this season -- nearly doubling his total from his rookie year. But he had shooting splits of 42.3/31.8/76.1 this season. His offense still came in fits and spurts. And constantly, his teammates were urging him to be more aggressive.
When that happened, Black delivered the kind of aggressive playmaking and even shooting they needed. When he was like that on defense, he -- along with Gary Harris toward the end of the season -- was monstrous in the backcourt, creating turnovers and plenty of havoc.
Black showed enough potential to keep buying into in what was an up-and-down season.
"There's obviously good and bad in every season," Black said at exit interviews. "It was growth in a lot of areas that I was trying to get better in. I feel like you've got to take the small wins. Obviously, it was fun contributing to winning down the stretch in the back half of the season and in the postseason. I feel like I grew in a lot of areas, but I still feel like there are a lot of areas I need to grow in."
For his part, Black held up his end of the bargain and showed it was the right call not to move him at the deadline. He played his best after that point, averaging 10.3 points per game and shooting 45.5 percent from the floor, 40.0 percent from three and 77.6 percent from the foul line.
On top of that, he found his groove defensively with 1.2 steals per game.
The Magic had a 107.1 defensive rating with Black on the floor -- 2.0 points per 100 possessions better than the team's overall average. After the trade deadline, the Magic had a 107.2 defensive rating -- 2.4 points per 100 possessions better than the team's average at that point.
Stability in the rotations and knowing where he would play helped. Comfort helped. He played better.
But it was still ultimately an up-and-down season. Nobody really knows how good Black can be.
"I feel like I did decent with what I was given," Black said at exit interviews. "Different parts of the year, it looked different for me with who we had playing and who we didn't. I definitely feel like I could have done a better job with it. But at the same time, I felt like I did what I could when it was there for me."
The future investment
The Orlando Magic should be invested in a player like Anthony Black.
Young players on cost-controlled contracts are valuable to teams that are entering the perils of the luxury tax and the first apron. It is usually bad business to trade players with potential this early in their careers without a big return.
But he should be the kind of player any team would want for his potential and his defense. And on a Magic roster that had a lot of players underperform while sitting on those "sweet spot" contracts, Black represents a player with true potential.
He is the kind of player who might be the actual target for teams in deals. It is easy to suspect that the Magic's hesitation to do anything at the deadline -- both Jeff Weltman and Anthony Parker said the team was looking for short-term relief at the deadline and found the cost too high -- came down to their decision on Black.
With Orlando flirting with the first apron and certain to be a luxury tax team before making any aditions or subtractions to the roster, considering whether they would extend Black's contract after the next season or hwere they see Black fitting in is a key part of this puzzle.
While Black showed growth this season, it is still hard to see exactly where he fits in. And a big piece of the puzzle for this offseason is determining where Black fits in.
That might be a central question in how the Magic proceed this offseason and what they are able to do.
Black is at the center of everything.