What an NBA expansion would mean for the Orlando Magic 

Expansion is on every basketball fan’s mind, it seems. The WNBA is expanding, adding the Golden State Valkyries and bringing a franchise back to Portland, and the NBA is preparing to add new teams as well. For the NBA, a possible expansion is still a few years away, but it has still been a topic of interest. Las Vegas and Seattle are currently the preferred destinations. 

Adding new teams will change the landscape of the league, impacting every franchise already in existence. The Orlando Magic are no exception. But what exactly would an expansion mean for the Magic? 

The Magic could lose players in an expansion draft

Before new franchises can begin playing, they will have to get their players from somewhere. One way to do that is the expansion draft in which the new teams get a chance to select players from their opponents’ rosters. In recent expansion drafts teams were allowed to protect eight players, preventing teams from selecting them. For the Magic, some of the players they would protect are obvious. 

Teams can rarely protect all the players they would like to keep around, though. So, when the time comes, the Orlando Magic might have to watch a role player depart and join one of the new teams or give up assets to prevent something like this from happening. ESPN’s recent mock expansion draft, for example, had the Orlando Magic give up the 2025 first-round pick Denver owes them to convince Tim Bontemps to pick Cory Joseph instead of Cole Anthony for his hypothetical Las Vegas franchise. 

Losing Joseph, who is not expected to play a big role this season, is much easier to stomach than seeing Cole Anthony depart, but giving up a draft pick in this situation is also less than ideal. Yes, the Magic would be able to retain a rotational player but have to give up a pick that could be used to make an important trade. 

While we do not know what the Magic’s roster will look like when the NBA is actually ready to expand, an expansion draft could cause some complications if the Magic have a roster as beloved and deep as the one they have now. 

An expansion could realign the conferences 

Adding new teams to the NBA would not only change the number of opponents each team would have to face and force changes to the schedule. It might also force the league to change its conferences. 

If the two expansion teams are indeed in Seattle and Las Vegas, it would add two teams to the Western Conference. That would mean moving two current Western Conference teams to the Eastern Conference. As outlined in ESPN’s expansion FAQs, the teams primed for a conference change would be the Minnesota Timberwolves, New Orleans Pelicans, and Memphis Grizzlies. 

That would mean the Magic and the rest of the Eastern Conference would have some new star power to deal with. Again, there is no way of knowing what certain teams will look like when expansion rolls around, but all of these teams have big names who probably won’t go anywhere. Anthony Edwards, Ja Morant, and Zion Williamson are all still young enough to be some of the top players in the league when the NBA expands and their teams may be moved to the Eastern Conference.