The Orlando Magic Are Unraveling

The Orlando Magic started strong, but weak play and poor decision-making has taken Orlando out of the Eastern playoff race quickly.

Way back in November, it seemed like the 2015-16 Orlando Magic were last season’s Milwaukee Bucks, a surprise team made up of both young guys and some wily veterans that was going to take the East by storm and demand a playoff spot.

Now in mid-March, the Magic are revealed as actually being this season’s Bucks, a young team that thanks to injuries and poor personnel decisions is going to miss the playoffs and get yet another shot in the lottery.

So, what happened in Orlando to cause such a dramatic shift? Part of it was simply members of the Magic regressing to the mean after red-hot starts.

Young players often have trouble remaining consistent, and it should be no surprise that a team where the average player is younger than 25 should experience some cold spells.

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Evan Fournier was on absolute fire in November, scoring nearly 18 points per game on 46 percent field goal shooting and 42 percent three-point shooting. Fournier is a good player, but he’s streaky.

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Fournier went on to score less than 12 points per game in December, then just more than 12 in January, then nearly 16 in February, and he’s currently back up to 17 points per game in March thus far.

A lot has changed for Orlando since December besides Fournier’s per game averages. The team traded away Tobias Harris, a productive young forward, and Channing Frye, the best available stretch 4 not named Tobias Harris, at the 2016 NBA trade deadline.

The Magic somehow got a whopping haul of Brandon Jennings, Ersan Ilyasova, Jared Cunningham, and a second-round pick from Portland for those two.

To recap: Orlando dealt one guy that started 49 games and another that started 29 games for two players who have yet to start a game for the Magic, both of whom are currently shooting less than 39 percent from the field (Cunningham was waived before playing a single minute for the Magic).

Oh, and they got a second-round pick. Jennings will hit unrestricted free agency this summer, while the Magic will have the option to keep Ilyasova around for some $8.4 million should they like having Turkish Thunder around.

Those bad trades haven’t shut the window on Orlando’s future hopes, but they aren’t helping anything either. The Magic continue to claim they’re dumping salary to chase a big name in free agency, but who’s really going to settle for Orlando with some of the other big players on the market?

The Miami Heat have the same state, a better city, and one of the most influential owners in the NBA. The Boston Celtics have a young, talented team plus a few good draft picks. The Portland Trail Blazers have what Boston has without the top tier picks, plus two star guards in Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum.

Orlando has two young studs in Nikola Vucevic and Victor Oladipo, some other interesting but not captivating young talent, and the same cap space that most teams will have in the summer. Expecting to land a Kevin Durant is ludicrous, and hoping for Al Horford or DeMar DeRozan is likely wishful thinking for the Magic.

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Instead of simply waiting out the season and truly evaluating the young talent they’ve already collected, the Magic tried to jump the gun and get a headstart on their rebuild. The Brooklyn Nets are testament enough to how well cutting corners works in the NBA.

Unless a true superstar is in town and locked down, there’s no surefire way to get good overnight. Teams like Portland, Boston, and the Utah Jazz have been doing the smart thing and holding off on big moves.

Those three teams have all quietly won trades and collected talent over the past few years, and are now nearing the time to punt on a young guy or two to create the space to add that big missing piece that the Orlando Magic covet so much.

Orlando wasn’t there yet. Now, after a season of losing both games and trades, the Magic are farther than they were at the start of the season.

If/when Orlando strikes out in free agency, the franchise will find itself back where it was at the end of last summer.

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It will be interesting to see if the Magic learn from their mistakes and truly continue the rebuilding process, or if they choose to rush ahead and deal away a few more talented young players for the hope of pulling a great player out of a hat.