The Orlando Magic are one month removed from blowing up their core in favor of another rebuild, and all things considering things are pretty good right now. There’s still plenty of losing of course, but with such an exciting draft class coming this summer, it is an easy sell to fans. Especially when arenas aren’t at capacity yet either.
This is a far cry from the disastrous rebuild of 2012, when the Magic were terrible but never yielded a first overall pick, with Victor Oladipo being as good as it got at number two in 2013. The other key difference between now and then is that there’s already a number of talented young players on board to get excited about.
While Nikola Vucevic, Aaron Gordon and Evan Fournier are no longer here, there are players who have stepped into their roles, and to this point have performed pretty admirably. It hasn’t translated to wins, despite the best efforts of head coach Steve Clifford, but that will surely come in time.
It is going unnoticed, but the Orlando Magic have a host of young players who are showing real promise right now.
The following is a list of three guys who are top of that list. That’s not to say they are more talented than everybody else on the roster, or even that they are going to end up having the best career or have the highest ceiling of the players here either. Rather, since the trade deadline, these are the players who have stood out for all of the right reasons.
They’ve also brought some excitement to Magic games which, if you’ve been a fan for a long time, will know that is far from guaranteed at all times either. The fact Markelle Fultz and Jonathan Isaac aren’t going to appear here because of injury being further proof that the organization is in a healthy place going forward.