It’s never good to see the preview of your favorite team coming out in the first moments of autumn, but let’s face the facts and it’s not a tragedy: the Magic risks losing a wagon of matches this season. That is the process as we have long said in Pennsylvania, and the Floridian Process will therefore have the objective, from the takeover, of developing some potential cracks in order to make the Orlando franchise a serious contender in… in how long?
To have an aperitif while talking about the Magic season, it’s here!
What happened last season
A fairly incredible start to the season, then the start of trouble with a weakened Evan Fournier, an Aaron Gordon either injured or bad, and a Markelle Fultz bleeding at the start of the year but who saw his season end precipitously, once again. Gradually the Magic slips in the standings and in March takes place one of the most obtuse turns of the recent past of the franchise. Aaron Gordon moves to Denver, Evan goes to Boston and Nikola Vucevic to Chicago, almost ten years of memories are swept away and the Magic enters the tanking system like a bullet.. A season of transition, local heroes leaving, young people trying to assert themselves (Cole Anthony, Wendell Carter Jr. at the end of the season) and in the end a great operation since the Draft will allow John Hammond to recover Jalen Suggs and Franz Wagner, yet rather anticipated in Toronto or Sacramento before the ceremony.
Orlando Magic, the 2020-21 report: all the young people were injured, all the old ones left, all the cries the SOS
Some useful links
The summer market
- They left : Dwayne Bacon, James Ennis, Otto Porter, Chasson Randle, Sindarius Thornwell et Steve Clifford (coach)
- They re-signed: Moritz Wagner and Ignas Brazdeikis
- They arrive : Jalen Suggs (Draft), Franz Wagner (Draft), Robin Lopez et Jamahl Mosley (coach)
A change of direction which had already taken place on March 25, the evening of the trade deadline, with the departures mentioned a little above but, above all because that is what interests us, the arrivals of Gary Harris (not really the beam of the new project), Otto Porter Jr. (since gone to Golden State) and the duo RJ Hampton / Wendell Carter Jr., from Denver and Chicago. Two men who will undoubtedly be found at the heart of the reconstruction, while the useful but no longer Dwayne Bacon and James Ennis are so strong that they still have not found a job to date. The vintage of rookies seems to be full of promise, Robin Lopez also arrives to teach the hooks and the castagne to the young people of the group and, last but not the leastSteve Clifford saw his lease in Florida come to an end and leaves his place to Jamahl Mosleyformer assistant to Rick Carlisle in Dallas and long considered one of the most desired coaches this summer.
The Magic 2021-22 roster
- Leaders: Markelle FultzCole Anthony et Michael Carter-Williams
- Rears: Jalen SuggsR.J. Hampton, Gary Harris et Terrence Ross
- Ailiers: Chuma Okeke, Franz Wagner and Ignas Brazdeikis (two-way)
- Power forwards: Jonathan Isaac et Moritz Wagner
- Pivots: Robin Lopez, Wendell Carter Jr. and Mo Bamba
In bold the potential starters, according to the famous sources close to the file
In the absence of sufficient talent to seek the title in the next twenty years, the roster of Mosley seems to date rather balanced and frankly exciting. Beautiful people on the back lines with almost half a dozen talented guys able to play in both positionsa post 3 which seems weaker but Franz Wagner and Chuma Okeke have the arguments to scratch minutes and progress (Okeke has already started to do so last season), while inside the Magic’s ability to be dangerous will be mainly linked to the state of health of Jonathan Isaac, potentially one of the best two-way players in the League in his position but for the moment determined to follow the path dictated by his body which is a little too fragile.
The banker’s point
Source : basketballinsiders
Incredible lease that this salary grid since we realize that the four highest paid players in the Magic are either players whose future is not necessarily written in Orlando (Gary Harris, Terrence Ross), or players of which 95% of the salary is used for trips between the hospital and the pharmacy. For the rest we are on a fairly low account with a lot of rookie contracts and therefore a fairly incredible price / quality ratioand it’s more in two or three seasons that we will measure the ability of the Florida board to make the right choices.
The complete update on Magic salaries is right here
Les tips TTFL
A perfect team to win… the Exotic League, you know, that contest within the contest of who is going to be the best of the baddest. We will watch Jonathan Isaac without too much conviction, we may be able to ensure the minimum with a Wendell Carter Jr. and we will hope to see Jalen Suggs grab the keys to the truck as soon as possible, but for the rest we are therefore taking a risk 8 or 35the kind of bet not to make if you do not want to find yourself in the troubled waters of the classification from the first evenings.
Homemade TTFL tips for the Magic are right here
Doc’s paragraph
When we look at the Orlando infirmary last season, five names stand out. Jonathan Isaac, for starters, had an injury-ridden start to his career. After one rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament in the left knee in August 2020, he had a white season in 2020-2021. At the dawn of the recovery, it is difficult to assess his state of health and the Magic did not give a timetable for his return. If rumors say he is ready, he confided that he was still “weaning off his brace” at the beginning of September, to be continued… Like his teammate, Markelle Fultz is also recovering from rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament in the left knee. Injured more recently (January 2021), there is little chance of seeing him on the pitch on recovery. Gary Harris, in contract year this year, has not had a full season since 2017/2018. He misses seven games at the end of January for a left adductor strain and aggravates his injury by returning too soon, missing twenty-one more games. His thigh continued to hurt him until the end of the regular season, cutting several of his games short. This year is important for Harris, who must prove that he can stay healthy. Wendell Carter Jr.fresh from Chicago, missed eleven games due to a severe right quadriceps contusion. Not really a concern for this year but we will have to watch WCJ, which has never played more than 54 games in a season. Mo Bamba finally, had a complicated start to the season with a Covid very long which left him very tired with muscle aches. He will know two more alerts with a bruised hip and hamstring pain. Much like WCJ, Bamba needs to prove he can be productive on the pitch while avoiding injury…
Make young people progress, don’t win too many games but don’t take too many beatings
The example of the 2019-20 Thunder is interesting enough to be… taken as an example. A fairly attractive team on paper (with an All-Star border player nevertheless, which the Magic probably do not currently have), with a rookie coach, who wins a few more games than expected, and during the season the decision made to scuttle the little happiness in place to be completely sure to lose eleven games out of ten. Clearly the Magic has what it takes to get a few teams drunk and let go of crazy nights from time to time, but we must not forget the main objective: to transform the teenagers in the group into real basketball players, into leaders. We think of Jalen Suggs obviously, pleasantly recovered on the evening of the Draft, we think of Wendell Carter Jr., we think of Cole Anthony or even RJ Hampton or Chuma Okeke, if we assume that Jonathan Isaac and Markelle Fultz are already very solid when they are not injured, if we assume that Mo Bamba is three corners from FC Bust but we remain optimistic. Some veterans are there to piss off specialists in wake-up failures (Robin Lopez in particular, while waiting to know the future of Gary Harris and Terrence Ross), some middle players can also put their noses out the window (Moritz Wagner?) , and we are in any case on a group far from being a band of no-names and which could surprise. Surprise by trying to allow the Magic to strengthen even more in the next Draft, yeah, we are already talking about tanking, but we are talking about smart tanking.
The Editor’s Prognosis
17 wins and 65 losses, and the last place in the East. We said it in the preamble, nothing alarming, it will rather be a question of putting Jalen Suggs and Cole Anthony in the best conditions in particular, and behind everything that will be taken will no longer be taken. RJ Hampton and Wendell Carter Jr. who must become players who matter, Jonathan Isaac and Markelle Fultz who will try to stay on their feet, a new coach who must prove himself in a difficult context… in short, everything will be difficult this season, but the essentials is elsewhere, on the horizon.
Defeat does not necessarily mean no interest, and in more ways than one this Magic will be scrutinized this season, scrutinized and perhaps even attractive. There is gear in store, kids eager to show off their skills and above all… no pressure for results, and it is perhaps through this prism that the Magic version 2021-22 could surprise us. Chick?