NBA March Takeaway: The Orlando Magic rebuilding the rebuild to their rebuild
Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but the Orlando Magic are entering a rebuild after trading away their three best players. I’m not really sure how many rebuilds it’s been since they traded Dwight Howard in 2012, but each rebuild seems to have other mini-rebuild chapters built-in.
Orlando has always seemed reluctant to *really* tank, but that decision has left them in NBA purgatory, never being bad enough to land a post-Dwight Howard star in the draft and only good enough for 2 playoff wins in the last 8 seasons.
But after trading away Nikola Vucevic, Aaron Gordon, and Evan Fournier, the Magic are going all-in on being terrible. Orlando has never been a free agent destination though, so they’ll likely need to land a star in the draft for any of this to pay off. I’m probably higher on their pieces than most, I think Jonathan Isaac, Markelle Fultz, Chuma Okeke, Wendell Carter, and a couple of others are really solid role players in the league. But a group of solid role players, especially with this kind of youth, desperately need a star to play next to if they are ever going to win games.
So the Magic will roll the dice in the lottery to try and turn their franchise around, despite the fact it’s a place that has not been kind to them for a long time. But if there is any team due for some lotto luck, it’s Orlando.