Listen, before we go any further, there’s one thing you need to know about me. Years of supporting teams that have won next to nothing across a variety of sports has made me equal parts cynical and realistic about what the future holds for those teams.
The Orlando Magic are no different, and this season has gone how I thought it would for the most part. Some decent young pieces, but ultimately not enough quality to close out late games. Never was this clearly than in the second loss to the Toronto Raptors.
The team was clawed back that day, as they just didn’t have enough quality throughout their squad to pull out a W. But then, this team also pulled out neat wins over the Detroit Pistons and Charlotte Hornets, making their record look not too bad all of a sudden.
Yes, that record is 6-10, but in the Eastern Conference, that’s not actually that bad. Which got me to thinking, could this team actually sneak into the playoffs?
Before this season started, I would have thought there was no way this team was making the postseason. Optimistically, they were going to win just more than 30 games, and that was this team playing at it’s full potential.
Right now having watched them quite a bit, winning 30 games still seems a bit of a challenge on most nights. But then you look at who is below the Magic, and you realize that actually they might be the least bad, of what has been a bad bunch.
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Let’s not get ahead of ourselves though, this is still very much a rebuilding team that has got a nice, young core. So in no particular order, and only looking at the teams below Orlando, here are a list of things that make me think the playoffs won’t happen this season.
Carmelo Anthony, the Hornets figuring out who they are and going on a mini-revival tour of inside-the-paint-pummeling, Al Jefferson-inspired victories, the Brooklyn Nets remembering that although they’re old, they also have a lot of talented players.
Less likely to happen but still a possibility, Frank Vogel gets the Indiana Pacers to play Chicago Bulls level defense (likely) while Solomon Hill turns into an All-Star (less likely). Also for the Boston Celtics to play as well as their parts allow. So you see, there’s a lot of teams currently below Orlando that have their own issues.
For the Magic, there only real issue, at least among fans, is that of their head coach. Think what you want about Jacque Vaughn and whether he deserves to lead this team, but he has them leading the league in 3-point shots made and playing hard on both end of the courts.
When you also take into account the hopeless Detroit Pistons and Philadelphia 76ers taking up two spots in the Eastern Conference, there then becomes less ground separating the Magic from the promised land of the playoffs.
So, simple math and the misfortune of others actually give us reason to be optimistic that this is a surprise playoff package team waiting to happen, right?
Well, not exactly, and this is where the beaten down fan in me pipes up again. If this team was in the West, of course they wouldn’t be talked about as trying to sneak into the playoffs.
As it is, a lot of strange circumstances have conspired to put Orlando in this position early in the season, including Paul George‘s injury, the return of the triangle offense with the Knicks, Philadelphia trying to lose, Brooklyn forgetting how to win and Boston also rebuilding.
If things were as they should be, Orlando would be a cellar dweller.
But this has already been one of the strangest seasons I can remember, and that’s what gives me hope that this can maybe be a playoff team. Granted, the schedule hasn’t been brutal thus far, and it does get harder down the road.
But Orlando has played some good teams, and although they have lost more games than they’ve won against the better outfits, they’ve been competitive in a way they weren’t before.
Do you want to know the best part though? It’s all right if this team falls away in the next couple of months. Being up there was never the target anyway, at least not yet.
It looked more like a final trip to the lottery, coupled with some player movement next summer, to position this team in a strong position for when the money filters into the league as a result of the new television deal, was the plan here.
But some strange circumstances have put Orlando here, and it’s added another layer of intrigue to what has been a fun season so far.