What Is The Orlando Magic’s Ceiling?
By Luke Duffy
The Orlando Magic’s ceiling may not be very high, leading to possibly getting stuck as middle of the pack team in the NBA.
No matter what your thoughts on the moves made, there’s no doubt that the Orlando Magic were active this summer. They went out and got a borderline All-Star in Serge Ibaka, while also cutting ties with young guard Victor Oladipo.
From there, other veterans like D.J. Augustin, Jodie Meeks and Jeff Green were added to make this team more competitive next season. Only one move, the addition of Bismack Biyombo for four years at $82 million, cost the team a substantial amount of money.
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Every other move made fell into one of two categories. The first being short-term deals (Green signed for one year, at $15 million) and the second longer ones that are easy to move if necessary ($29 million over four years for Augustin).
Certainly then it feels like this is an organization with ideas of going after marquee free agents next summer as well. The hope must surely be that a return to the playoffs may convince the likes of Ibaka to stay, while also adding more established players.
The only problem with that, however, is that the Magic will be going after free agents at a time when most teams have a lot of money to spend, as well as a convincing argument as to why they should choose to play for their team.
Combine that with the fact that we live in a world where Kevin Durant can join the Golden State Warriors, and this new landscape makes things even tougher for Orlando. To be fair though, they did try building through the draft for several years and had no joy.
Heading into next season then, what is this team’s ceiling? More worrying still, does it even matter given that they may lose Ibaka and Green next summer anyway? Will they be forced to start over having already given away guys like Oladipo and Tobias Harris for potentially nothing?
While that’s a negative view to take, the fact it’s a possibility is troubling. The Magic appear to have gambled an uncertain future for an uncertain present.
The one positive however, is that the organization decided to make some moves at all, instead of continuing to stick with what they had.
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The two teams that come to mind when trying to analyze this current version of the Magic are the Atlanta Hawks and Dallas Mavericks. In fact, right now Orlando looks like a mix of the two. That’s not a good place to be in for a number of reasons.
Beginning with the Mavericks, for close to a decade now they have elected to sign players to short contracts and put them around all time great Dirk Nowitzki. The idea being that every year or two they reload their team, as opposed to rebuilding in the later years of Nowitzki’s career.
That method has brought the Mavs one championship, and a playoff appearance every year except one (2012-13) since the year 2000. The last three years however, they have failed to get out of the first round.
It’s not that their approach is wrong, more that it’s getting harder to constantly reload their team with Nowitzki now 38 years old. They will likely begin rebuilding once he retires.
However, there are elements unique to the Mavericks that have allowed them to have success despite constantly turning over their roster.
They’ve got an outgoing owner in Mark Cuban who will spend money, a top five all time power forward in Nowitzki who has played his whole career there and possibly the best head coach in the league today in Rick Carlisle.
The Magic have none of these, with Ibaka having some similarities to Nowitzki’s game about the only thing the two franchises have in common. If the team knew Ibaka was planning to re-sign (which they may already know) they could possibly operate in this way, but Ibaka is no Nowitzki.
Orlando Magic are lowkey lit but at the same time not lit because you know they're still gonna suck
— app (@_TheAppleManCan) July 2, 2016
So signing veteran backups like Meeks, Augustin and C.J. Watson to pair with possible one-year rentals like Ibaka and Green is risky business when you consider it will not get them close to a championship.
If this season doesn’t go well there’s nothing to stop Ibaka and Green walking away, leaving gaping holes in their roster once more.
In terms of the Hawks, they had a talented core for more than half a decade, and even that wasn’t enough to get them a championship. They’ve made the postseason every year since 2008, but only advanced to the conference finals once (being swept by the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2015).
During that time, they had All-Stars in Al Horford, Paul Millsap and Joe Johnson, while Jeff Teague grew to become a top level point guard as well.
Kyle Korver was added to the mix late on, leading to the organization’s most successful period (going a franchise best 60-22 before that sweep by the Cavs). This team was a constant in the playoffs, but only once in nine years did they make it to the last four.
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Although now disbanded, that Hawks core is miles better than anything the Magic could realistically put together this season. Guys like Elfrid Payton, Mario Hezonja and Aaron Gordon may one day come to form a Big Three of their own, but it’s not happening anytime soon.
If the Magic are Atlanta-lite, is that really where they want to be? Right now they look like a team that has the worst trait of both those Mavericks and Hawks teams of the last decade or so: being stuck in the middle of the pack.
Orlando was a contender when Dwight Howard was around, and slipped right to the bottom when he left. Once down there, they had many opportunities to snag incoming rookies who could accelerate their return to relevancy more quickly, but they failed to do so.
They got tired of returning to the lottery, and so they moved some of their better young players along so as to possibly make the playoffs and get bumped in the first round. Is that really a sign of progress, or did the Magic just take two steps forward, only to take three backwards next year?
It’s extremely difficult to become a legit contender in the NBA; you need at least two All-Star players. The Hawks had four at one point, and still couldn’t win a title.
Right now the Orlando Magic have half of one in Serge Ibaka, and he might not even stick around beyond next season. Excited for the new campaign yet?
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The Magic will be better this season no question, but it may come with the caveat of getting sucked further into the purgatory known as the middle ground in the NBA. You can ask the Hawks and Mavericks all about that.