The Orlando Magic started the season slowly, but by the time the season was forced to go on hiatus, there were positives to their campaign.
While the ongoing fight against the coronavirus rightly takes priority over everything else that is going on, the potentially abrupt end of the NBA season came at a poor time for the Orlando Magic. They failed to build on their playoff appearance of last season up until around the All-Star break, before finally showing some consistency and better play.
They had put themselves in the mix to finish with the seventh seed in the East, and avoid a first-round playoff matchup with the Milwaukee Bucks. So while there could yet be a silver lining to the games being stopped from a performance standpoint, the organization would much rather be playing games, just like everybody else.
If this is to be the end of their regular season until next year however, there did end up being some positives to take from how the players did on the court. That alone is something to be happy about, given how poorly the Orlando Magic did play on a lot of nights.
Their defensive play did slip compared to how they performed last season, but in some ways, this makes the positives that we are about to examine even more impressive. The roster’s sense of identity was tested, and after a period of adjustment they figured out how to continue being competitive and winning games.
If they can get their play on the defensive end back up to close to where it has been in the past, combined with the good things that are coming up, then there is no reason to think that the Magic won’t be back as an even better team, whenever the games return and we get a sense of normality and structure back into our lives.