Who deserves to be the number one scoring option for the Orlando Magic?

Cole Anthony can be the Orlando Magic’s no.1 scoring option.

Anthony is a strange place to start, especially if you have a soft spot for Ross and would love to see him take his microwavable off-the-bench offensive game and go full-time with it. But it makes no sense for a veteran to be the number one option on a growing team, whereas the case for Anthony is stronger than you think.

Entering his third year, his persona has come to represent the franchise on the court as a whole. Anthony has a level of confidence that borders on controlled brashness, and his hard-working and hungry mentality has had a positive impact on his teammates. You can’t build an offensive framework around these intangibles, and yet they are harder to find in professional players than they should be.

How about the raw numbers then? Anthony averaged a very respectable 16.3 points per game last season, playing 31.7 minutes and starting in all of the 65 games that he appeared in. To do this on a bad Magic roster is definitely something, and year three is typically when players who are going to go on to bigger and better things make a noticeable leap.

To this point, Anthony has looked like nothing more than a sixth man in waiting for a playoff roster, yet there have been moments where he has looked like the real deal. The path to being a high-scoring guard is also there, because Jalen Suggs had a rough rookie season and Markelle Fultz just isn’t that type of player.

So, through opportunity and roster construction, there is a chance for Anthony to be the number one offensive option here. In truth, if this happens, it is because something went wrong, but the Magic could do worse than have Anthony step into this role. The guard depth is better than it has been at any point in the last decade, but nobody else on this roster plays the way Anthony does.