It has most certainly flown under the radar, but this has been a solid offseason for the Orlando Magic. They drafted two top-10 lottery picks in Jalen Suggs and Franz Wagner, and watched as their young core came together early to work out, hang out and generally enjoy each other’s company.
The injured duo of Jonathan Isaac and Markelle Fultz is closer to returning, and new head coach Jamahl Mosley has said all of the right things in preparation for the new season. All of this needs to be remembered by the time Christmas comes round because the Magic will have lost a lot of games by then.
The Orlando Magic have a rookie in Jalen Suggs who has already generated excitement, and who has a real chance at winning the Rookie of the Year award.
The fact that the Magic even have a player in this conversation already is exciting. Since 2012, no player that they have drafted has ever been talked about in this way. There are external factors that influence this as well, such as being in a class with a can’t miss superstar who got selected first overall by another organization.
But even still, this is an opportunity for Suggs to put the franchise back on the map by going hard after that award. If you look at who the Magic have drafted since 2012, Victor Oladipo was the highest as the second overall pick in 2013, and who realistically had the best chance to win the award as well.
Anthony Bennett was taken ahead of him, and he is no longer in the league. Instead, it was, rather ironically, another current Magic player in Michael Carter-Williams who ended up receiving the honor. Proof if anything that winning the award doesn’t always mean much (you can also Tyreke Evans), but nevertheless it should be a goal for Suggs this year. Here are three reasons he can succeed.
Reasons Jalen Suggs can win Rookie of the Year: 3. The timing
Suggs arrives in Orlando as the fifth pick in one of the better draft classes in recent memory. He was expected to be taken by the Toronto Raptors, but once they selected Scottie Barnes, the path was clear for the Magic to swoop in. If you look at the picks before Suggs, it is clear that any one of them could emerge as the Rookie of the Year.
Cade Cunningham will start as the favorite, but these awards aren’t given out before the season begins. In the past, Damian Lillard beat out Anthony Davis (who suffered some injuries), while Ja Morant won it over Zion Williamson (granted, also injury related). We don’t wish injury on any player, and Suggs would need that to happen a lot to have a chance.
But there’s also the possibility that he is just that good, and that explosive a player, that his talents will be too hard to ignore. Especially if the Magic even modestly overachieve on everybody’s expectations of them. It will be harder to do this given that Orlando is a smaller market, but this is an area where Suggs thrives.
Like teammate Cole Anthony, it is clear Suggs has a real chip on his shoulder. It was evident in college, and it was even there for all to see during Summer League as well. You get the feeling that he truly feels slighted at not being selected first overall. The fact the Raptors passed on him at fourth, and then leaked some “anxiety issues“, which was poor form on their part, only adds to all of this.
Suggs will be out to prove that organization wrong, and if anything the anxiety storyline could feed into a wider narrative that could be created over the course of the season. A talented player is overlooked by four teams, goes to a small market and reignites a struggling franchise, all while dealing with anxiety. The NBA thrives off of storytelling, and the story of Suggs is ready-made.
Reasons Jalen Suggs can win Rookie of the Year: 2. The talent
It should be remembered that Suggs was thought of as one of the top four players in the draft, which was why the Magic’s fifth pick was never meant to be able to get him. Even at that, there were plenty of experts who had Suggs as better than some of the guys in that group of four.
As an exciting guard in his one year at Gonzaga, he already looks to have so many of the tools that will make him a success in the league, and with this current Magic roster especially. That talent is also among the most easily translatable when it comes to making a case that he should win the award, assuming he plays to the level he is capable of.
If we again take Cunningham out of the mix (making a case of Suggs versus Cunningham just doesn’t seem possible before a ball has been bounced), then Suggs certainly has the more exciting game compared to Scottie Barnes. As already noted, the narrative between the two comes into play there as well.
Barnes will likely suffer from the same issue that Isaac did when he was a rookie with the Magic (before being injured). Solid defensive skills in your first year are amazing for a team to have, but it just doesn’t grab the attention of the mass media and more casual fans. Highlight dunks on TikTok however, absolutely will. To that end, Suggs is in a great place.
Centers who don’t dominate physically from day one also don’t trend strongly for winning the award. For good reason, as physically dominant rookie centers are typically transcendent types. So Evan Mobley, the third pick, will start behind Suggs in this conversation. He will likely go on to have a great career, but it seems more likely Suggs will burst out of the gates.
It is possible the second pick, Jalen Green, has a similar start to Suggs and captures the imagination. As part of a Houston Rockets team that is going to get buried in the Western Conference, and which already has some established players who want touches, however, it may be harder for Green. Mostly though Suggs is just that good, but he has circumstance on his side.
Reasons Jalen Suggs can win Rookie of the Year: 1. The situation
The most important aspect of it all, Suggs has arrived in the right situation at the right time to win this award. The storyline element we’ve already spoken about, but right now this Magic organization is crying out for a face of the franchise. Even if Isaac ends up coming back and is fully healthy, he is the two-way monster who you pair with the electrifying guard, not replace him with.
Suggs has the game and plays in the backcourt, a position that captures the imagination of fans more easily in today’s NBA. The Magic have also been seriously lacking in guard depth for years now, and although they suddenly have an abundance of it through Suggs, Anthony, Fultz and R.J. Hampton, it is Suggs who looks the most likely to be the guy to build around.
Hampton has clearly worked hard this offseason, and he will be looking for his touches as well. But with the franchise happy to lose games in order to get a couple more lottery picks next summer (with thanks to the Chicago Bulls in that Nikola Vucevic deal), Suggs will be given all of the time in the world to make mistakes on the job and to learn.
Only he doesn’t look like the kind of player who is going to let a couple of bad games really get him down. Instead, it is more likely that there are some surprising wins (to go with all of the losing), and some fantastic personal numbers in a rookie season that will get everybody talking about the fact that the Magic might finally be onto something again.
Consider this. During the first game that Suggs played in Summer League, he was the second most trending topic on Twitter in all of the United States. A Summer League game. Can you imagine if he lights up the New York Knicks or Los Angeles Lakers? It will be among the most talked about stories in the league.
Finally, Suggs has the kind of young talent around him that Isaac, Oladipo, Aaron Gordon and a whole host of others could only have dreamed of. We haven’t even mentioned Wendell Carter Jr., Chuma Okeke and Gary Harris. All players who can elevate the game of Suggs early on, and put him in a position to win the Rookie of the Year award for the Orlando Magic. Don’t say you weren’t warned.