Orlando Magic: 2018 NBA Draft grades
By Chris Murch
With the 2018 NBA Draft in the books, let’s take a look at what the Orlando Magic did with picks No. 6, No. 35 and No. 43.
The Orlando Magic are in a weird space coming into the 2018-19 season. After another mediocre year that featured little excitement and nothing to particularly write home about, they are back in the same spot they were a year ago. This offseason, however, they have to choose a direction for this team after five-plus years of floating in mediocrity.
Their best player, Aaron Gordon, is a restricted free agent this year and will receive big bucks on the open market, which the Magic can match. Do they match? Or do they continue with a rebuild?
They are overloaded in the frontcourt and pretty thin in the backcourt. They have the opportunity to trade some of these frontcourt players to help with this backcourt predicament, but will they pull trigger on this?
Do they draft based on need? Or do they draft best available? Some of those questions needed to be — and were — answered Thursday night in the 2018 NBA Draft.
With the sixth pick in this year’s draft, the Magic selected Texas freshman center Mohamed Bamba. With their two second round picks, they took Tulane’ Melvin Frazier at No. 35 and with the 43rd pick, selected Justin Jackson after trading with the Denver Nuggets for the 41st pick (Jarred Vanderbilt) and a future second-rounder.
How did these picks help the Magic moving forward? Let’s take a dive into who Orlando picked this year.