National Basketball Association

What In The World Happened To The Orlando Magic?

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 7:51 p.m. ET

Fansided, Alex Eddy/FanSided via Sir Charles In Charge

With hopes of finally breaking through in 2016-17, it all went wrong for the Orlando Magic

The Orlando Magic are sitting in the 14th spot in the Eastern Conference with a 19-31 record. The Magic have failed to make the playoffs the past four NBA seasons, after making it the previous six seasons.

The departure of their superstar Dwight Howard started the decline in Orlando. The Magic used to be contenders in the East, with the Celtics, and reached two consecutive conference finals appearances, including an NBA Finals berth against the Lakers in the 2008-09 season.

Now, they are at the bottom of the East, and their situation does not look pretty.

In fairness, the Dwight Howard deal did bring young players like Nikola Vucevic and Maurice Harkless to Orlando. Vucevic has put up double-figure points in all five of his seasons with the Magic. Although he doesn’t add too much defensively, he is very gifted offensively and has had three double-double seasons with the Magic.

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He has solid moves down low, he is efficient, and has a mid-range game. Harkless was a nice piece too, but the Magic traded Harkless to the Blazers in exchange for a 2020 second round draft pick. Harkless is a terrific role player, but it seemed like the Magic did not want to pay him.

The Orlando Magic found somewhat of a go to guy in Tobias Harris by acquiring him from the Bucks. Even though it wasn’t a full season in Orlando, he put up career highs in points (17.3) and rebounds (8.5) during his first year with the Magic (2012-2013). Harris added versatility offensively, as he could play the 3 or the 4.

Harris was ultimately traded to the Pistons in exchange for Ersan Ilyasova and Brandon Jennings, who are both no longer on the Magic. So, the Magic essentially lost their top perimeter scorer for essentially nothing.

With the addition of Frank Vogel for the 2016-17 season, you would have thought that the Magic were trending upward. Unfortunately, the Magic have made some extremely poor personnel moves. The Magic traded away their best guard and best two-way player in Victor Oladipo, and received Serge Ibaka in return.

The addition of Ibaka has stunted the growth of Aaron Gordon significantly. Gordon, who is a natural power forward, has been forced to slide into the small forward position in order to make room for Ibaka. As if this wasn’t bad enough, the Magic signed Bismack Biyombo to a four-year, $72 million contract in the offseason.

This addition was made in order to balance out the offense of Vucevic with the defense and rim-protecting of Biyombo. However, Biyombo is not a player you devote that amount of money to. He has been in and out of the starting lineup, and is only playing about 24 minutes per game.

Oh, and he is a 47.4 percent free throw shooter. The Magic should have signed a defensive-minded player to a much smaller deal, knowing that their only purpose would be to bring defense off the bench. Vucevic deserves the bulk of the minutes. So, the Magic have four players that they would like to start, but in reality there is only two spots (even though they have been starting Gordon at the 3).

Many of these names are now being tossed around in possible trades. Their experiment clearly hasn’t worked. The Magic team that was a contender had a superstar in Dwight Howard, along with key guys who knew their role. Rashard Lewis, Jameer Nelson, Hedo Turkoglu, and J.J. Redick knew their individual roles, which led to team success.

This Orlando Magic team has no true identity and no contiguity at all. They need to make some significant changes if they want to start progressing upward.