Orlando Magic: 5 biggest disappointments from 2017-18 NBA season
By Luke Duffy
1. The curse of the injury bug
Without question, the worst aspect of the season for the Magic was something that basically lasted all season, and that was constantly having players on the treatment table.
Their woes started early, but by season’s end, five of their top-seven players had missed significant time.
- Nikola Vucevic (missed 25 games)
- Terrence Ross (missed 58 games)
- Jonathan Isaac (missed 55 games)
- Aaron Gordon (missed 24 games)
- Evan Fournier (missed 25 games)
It is impossible to win in any capacity in the NBA today when so many of your core players — no matter how limited that nucleus is — miss so many games.
To the credit of Birch and later Rodney Purvis, they stepped up and played as well as they could have, but that was never going to be enough. It made watching an already poor team even more unbearable, and tuning in to see them play was almost like a chore.
That 6-2 start the team had, when everybody was smiling and playing together as one, made what followed even tougher to digest. Clearly the front office felt the same way, as less than a week after the regular season finished up, their athletic and strength training staff were let go too.
The season wouldn’t have gone a whole lot differently if not for the injuries, which ran rampant through this team. But they would have unquestionably won more games, and the vibe around the team would have been better as well.
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This was the defining aspect of their season, and easily the worst part about watching the Orlando Magic for what turned out to be 82 long games.