Orlando Magic: 5 takeaways from 2017-18 NBA season

3. Mario Hezonja was a pleasant surprise

Mario Hezonja came into the season knowing that it would likely be his last with the team. The team option on his contract was declined and so he would hit unrestricted free agency when the regular season wrapped up.

Fans didn’t care too much, as Hezonja had been pretty awful his first two seasons with the team and it looked like the rebuild had passed him by.

Yet if you really looked at the guy play, it was clear he was just lacking (badly, it has to be said) in the self-confidence department. It didn’t happen often, but there were moments where Hezonja looked like a viable contributor on this team.

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Then you looked at his numbers and saw he only averaged 14.8 minutes per game his second season with the team.

This, despite there being plenty of playing time to go round on a Magic team that didn’t know what it was. Still, Hezonja was overlooked.

That changed this season because of necessity more than anything else. Injuries hit this organization, hard.

What happened next, not even the most ardent of Hezonja supporters could have predicted though. He started playing well. So well, in fact, that he carried the team offensively for small bursts.

The 28 points (including eight 3-pointers) he poured in against the Detroit Pistons in mid-January will live long in the memory, but there was much more to like than just that.

Hezonja averaged 13 minutes a game in October, even less than last season. It wasn’t looking good for him.

Yet in the month of April, that number shot up to 30.1 minutes per game, as Hezonja proved his worth. Career highs in points per game (9.6) and effective field goal percentage (51.5 percent) were welcome sights too.

But as with everything positive around the Magic these days, Hezonja’s mini-breakout of a season presents negatives too.

He can walk for nothing this summer, and after the way the team overlooked him for most of his three seasons in Orlando, you couldn’t blame him if he moved on. Should he go, he would be missed as his sixth man potential for this young team is getting harder and harder to ignore.