Orlando Magic: 5 biggest disappointments from 2017-18 NBA season
By Luke Duffy
5. Ex-Magic players thriving
It wasn’t bad enough the the Magic sputtered along and generally looked like they didn’t know what to do to win games on a nightly basis. No, what compounded this misery even further was seeing former Magic players truly excel in different situations.
Tobias Harris, so scandalously given away to the Detroit Pistons for the artist formerly known as Brandon Jennings and Ersan Ilyasova, was again moved to the Los Angeles Clippers. The fact he is now looking like the best player involved in a trade involving Blake Griffin tells you all you need to know.
Forget about his numbers; his polished offensive game is exactly what the Magic could have done with more of this season. They finished 25th in offensive rating (102.8).
Even worse however, was watching Victor Oladipo blossom into the frontrunner for the Most Improved Player of the Year award. He’s likely a top-15 talent in the league now too, and the fact most Magic fans wanted to see him gone when he still played for the team makes this even worse.
It doesn’t end there, however, as Elfrid Payton gave fans a brief shock when he was moved to the Phoenix Suns at the trade deadline.
He started his tenure there playing pretty well, before regressing to the player we’ve seen in Orlando. He’s (apparently) finally cut his hair though, so be prepared for a bounce back season.
Finally Mario Hezonja finally broke out somewhat, which was great to see. Only he’s an unrestricted free agent this summer, and will be even better on a different team going forward.
There was plenty going wrong within the organization in 2017-18, but the fact that former players were doing so well in other uniforms — with Hezonja likely to join them soon — made it feel that much worse.