Orlando Magic: 3 reasons they’re not tanking properly
By Luke Duffy
The Orlando Magic have endured a rough season, but at this late stage, there is legitimate hope for the future. The NBA Draft is on the horizon, and with it the promise of another young player, via what they hope will be a high lottery pick, to help them climb back into the Eastern Conference playoff conversation in the future.
Yet despite the introduction of a play-in tournament to keep fringe organizations like the Washington Wizards and Indiana Pacers interested in making it to the postseason, and if you’re the Pacers, that is the least of your worries, the Magic have still not sunk to the depths of the standings.
This is contrary to 2012 when Dwight Howard left and they quickly became the worst team in the league outside of the “Process” era Philadelphia 76ers. To be fair to that franchise, that didn’t work out too badly for them, as they have built successfully around Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons.
The Orlando Magic are clearly trying to lose now to secure a brighter future, but there are three key reasons why this hasn’t worked exactly as planned.
After all, the higher the lottery odds for this coming offseason, the better. But as the fanbase capitulates internally on social media, with some bemoaning a team win and others understanding you literally cannot lose every game in a professional league, even if you try, we need to remember that a change to the lottery means just being in the bottom is enough to secure the joint best odds at the first overall pick.
The thinking is that this draft class is five deep with potentially great players, before dropping off. The way the Magic have played recently, it would not be a surprise to see them pick sixth overall, and find themselves looking in like they have done so often in the past. Here are the three reasons the Magic aren’t as bad as most fans want them to be at this stage.