Orlando Magic: 3 most promising young players right now
By Luke Duffy
Shining star No. 2 for the Orlando Magic: Cole Anthony
Cole Anthony squeaks by Okeke on this list because of recency bias, and because of the kind of player that he is. As a rookie, he started the season like you would expect a young player to. Tons of enthusiasm, that often translated into trying to do too much or just being worked over by more veteran players.
This is still true of Anthony, but he players with a chip on his shoulder that makes you forget about these mistakes a lot of the time. This is particularly great for the Magic because they just haven’t had a lot of guys like that in the last decade. Certainly, not many young players have come in with that aggressive and scrappy attitude.
Even better though is that Anthony has the game to back it up. You can clearly see there are the makings of a high-level guard in him, particularly in the way he is able to score the ball and get into the paint. In the future, it will be fascinating if he is paired in a backcourt with Fultz, because of the complete contrast in their styles.
Fultz is fluid and plays at his own pace, and is the better passer of the two. He sets the table his way and is almost effortless in how he can maneuver into the paint. Anthony has a more loud style but already looks like he’ll go on to be the more complete scorer as well. It would not be a surprise if, when this roster is fully healthy, he slides over to be more of a two-guard.
Back to the present though, and because Anthony missed considerable time with a cracked rib, before the trades took place, to have him back and playing with more freedom on a tanking team has been great to watch. He’s just flat-out entertaining and has been a breath of fresh air amongst all the losing. Like Okeke, this is Anthony’s best month of scoring so far too (13.4 points per game), as he takes advantage of the opportunity to get more shots up.