Good season in Orlando must include a playoff return

The Orlando Magic have improved noticeably in the last 12 months, which creates more expectation around how good their 2019-20 season should be.

A lot can change in the space of a year, especially in the NBA, and never has that been more true than for the Orlando Magic right now. At this stage last season, they were still clearly rebuilding, with no designs on making the postseason and with a new head coach in Steve Clifford who had done well, but flown under the radar, with the Charlotte Hornets.

Fast forward to now and, well you know the story already so there is no point rehashing it once again. The Magic are legitimately good now and heading into 2019-20 have a chance to take another step forward and become playoff mainstays heading into the next decade. This won’t be easy, however, as even in the weaker Eastern Conference, the teams around them improved.

What then would constitute a good season this coming year? Well, it begins and ends with making the playoffs once more. The Magic surprised many by going on a 22-9 run from Jan. 31 onward, playing elite defense on the way to nabbing the seventh seed in the East.

They hadn’t gotten that far since Dwight Howard was around, so to get that monkey off their backs was huge. Should they fail to get there again this season, that will be seen by fans as a step back, especially after bringing back everybody of note who got them to that point, and adding Al-Farouq Aminu to a three-year, $29 million deal through free agency.

Chasing home-court advantage in the first round should be the real goal, although it will be a difficult one. Squeaking in as the eighth seed would bring with it some dissatisfied murmurs, given that the organization are now locked into this group for the foreseeable future, but will still be seen as a positive to even be there in the first place.

On the player development side of things, seeing one of either Jonathan Isaac take the next step or Aaron Gordon become an All-Star would certainly qualify as a successful year. Isaac showed the first flashes of his true potential last season and so far during the preseason his improved handles and passing ability have excited.

Quite what that jump looks like remains unclear, but to have even more of an influence defensively (the Magic ranked seventh in defensive rating last year with 107.6, but were slightly better at 107.3 when Isaac was on the court), would be a great start. Offensively anything more than the 9.6 points he averaged last season would help.

Isaac only shot a lowly 32.3 percent from deep as well, so to see that number rise to closer to the league average would be a welcome sight. In Gordon’s case, he certainly has the potential to be an All-Star this season and while failing to reach that target wouldn’t damage the perception of the Magic’s season as a whole, it is what he should be aiming for.

Nobody played better during their brief playoff run than Gordon, as he cemented himself as the best two-way player on the team. Offensively he looked more comfortable taking all manner of different shots, even if the 16 points he averaged was down slightly on the 17.6 of the year before.

Guarding the opponent’s best player nightly while shooting 34.9 percent from 3-point range demonstrated Gordon’s value to the team and he will look for that to continue this coming campaign. With the likes of Kawhi Leonard and D’Angelo Russell having moved out West, Gordon has the chance to take more of the spotlight.

Sticking to the theme of All-Stars and it would be a disappointment if center Nikola Vucevic doesn’t make the mid-season exhibition game. He should, and at 28 (he will be 29 later this month) is only now in theory entering his prime.

But what would be worrying is if he regresses notably, especially given that he only signed a four-year, $100 million extension with the Magic this summer.

So much of what the Magic do offensively flows through his polished game and this needs to remain the case if the organization want to have what they would view as a good season. A poor showing would damage his trade value down the road, if that’s an avenue they look to take to get better in future.

The mounting expectations on Isaac and Gordon take the pressure off of second-year center Mohamed Bamba. So too does the emergence of Khem Birch, a key piece off the bench for them last season and who returns on a two-year, $6 million deal.

If Bamba again underwhelms, it won’t damage the team’s ability to have a good season. Anything they can get from him would be a bonus.

Which brings us to the last area that could define their season. Point guard Markelle Fultz is back on the court, seemingly ahead of schedule, and he is contributing. D.J. Augustin should remain the starting floor general to begin the season, but if Fultz can become a steady contributor, then the Magic have a chance to take their 2019-20 from good to truly great.

He’s still somehow only 21, despite being the enigmatic emblem of the NBA for what feels like a long time now. His timeline matches that of Isaac (22), Gordon (24) and Bamba (21), and if he can improve alongside those guys as soon as this season, then not only will the Magic surely make the playoffs again, but they will be in position to make a leap to semi-contender status soon.

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That’s the beauty of having Fultz though, and maybe one of the reasons for not only his return to action, but the fact he looks happy out on the court. If this all suddenly goes wrong, and right now that is not looking likely, then the Magic can simply cut ties with him. All it took to bring him in was giving up Jonathon Simmons, and what turned out to be three second round picks.

This allows Fultz to play without the burden of being a former first overall pick, which of course he is, but that feels like a different player. A different person. Even if he is never a feared shooter, there is so much to like about his game anyway that there is no question he can contribute off the bench, at least for the time being.

A playoff spot secured, improved from Jonathan Isaac and Aaron Gordon, no regression from Nikola Vucevic and steady contributions from Markelle Fultz. These are what can make the Orlando Magic’s 2019-20 season a good to great one. A lot to ask, but this doesn’t look like an organization that is done surprising people yet.