After yesterday's win between the Hornets and hawks, the Orlando Magic have officially confirmed that they have been excluded from the playoffs this season, and are the first NBA team to be determined not to miss the playoffs this season.
Since Howard was traded by the Magic in the summer of 2012, the Magic have been stuck in years of rebuilding. Although it has returned to the playoffs in the past decade, it has not yet established a clear team core. So, what happened to the Magic during this time?
The youth of Tobias Harris, Vucevic, Victor Oladipo
Since Howard's departure, the Magic have clearly entered a rebuilding period. In the 2012–13 offseason, the Magic first drafted maurice Hakleys with a 15th pick in the first round of the draft, and then in Howard's four-way deal, the 76ers were replaced by Vucevic, who was only a second-year rookie at the time, and planned to build a twin tower team around the two men.
Later, in the middle of the season, the Magic sent core shooter Redick away with Iss Smith and Gustavo Ayon in exchange for Benno Youdri, Tobias Harris and rookie Doron Lamb, which was obviously to make the team's lineup gradually younger, especially Tobias Harris was very promising at the time, and was also called the poor version of Cameron by some fans. After the season, the Magic ended the season with the league's worst 20-62, but also won the 2013 charts, which also allowed them to choose the man from Maryland in 2013 - Victor Oladipo.
As a result, the young combination of Oladipo + Harris + Vucevic has taken shape, and the outside world is also optimistic about the operation of Rob Hennigan, who was still the general manager of the Magic team at the time, especially after Howard left the team so quickly to rebuild a potential combination. In the 2013-14 season, the Magic ranked third from the bottom in the league with a record of 23 wins and 59 losses, but Oladipo became the first team of the rookie team of the year, and won the fourth round of the draft picks of the 2014 draft, and selected the uncrowned dunk king - Aaron Gordon.
Coming to the second season of this combination, all three of them have a good performance in statistics, Harris averaged more than 17 points per game, Vucevic almost broke through 20 points per game (19.3 points) this season, and Oladipo also stood firm in the team's starting lineup. However, even when the trio began to perform brightly, the team's record still did not improve much, especially after suffering ten consecutive defeats in the middle of the season, ranking in the middle and back of the East Coast with a record of 25 wins and 57 losses. At this time, the management could not wait, and decided to sack coach Jacques Vaughan in the middle of the season, and then hired Scott Skyles as the head coach of the new season, and Scott Skyles also played for the Magic.
Entering the 2015-16 season, the team's record began to improve gradually, but the season never made it to the playoffs, and coach Scott Skyles also resigned in the off-season. In the middle of the season, the Magic traded Tobias Harris to the Pistons in exchange for Eisen Ilyasova and Brandon Jennings, and then in the 2016 offseason season, they traded their own selected Oladipo, together with Eisen Ilyasova and the selected Sabonis to the Thunder, in exchange for the 26-year-old Sergi Ibaka, this deal can be seen as a future for the present, but also saw the Magic team's top brass eager to hope that the team can return to the playoffs, but also to dismantle this potential combination.
The alliance between Vucevic and Aaron Gordon was a chaotic period
After the magic team's reorganization, the team officially established Vucevic and Aaron Gordon as the core of the team, with the powerful big forward Sergi Ibaka who had just been exchanged for the game, plus Bismarck Biyombo, who had just signed for four years and 72 million in the off-season, and also hired Vogel as the new coach, and seemed to be ready to return to the playoffs. However, the 2016-17 season ended with 29 wins and 53 losses, even the 35 wins in the 2015-16 season could not be achieved, the tactical policy of the whole season was uncertain, and the Ibaka that was exchanged for Oladipo was sent away in the middle of the season, and the team also lacked a winning atmosphere, and after the season, general manager Robert Hennigan also became a scapegoat.
Coming to the 2017-18 season, John Hammond officially debuted as the new general manager, and the first season was not much improved, and after coming to the 2018-19 season, with the transformation of Vucevic, he entered the All-Star Game for the first time, coupled with Aaron Gordon's powerful performance with a group of green leaves, and finally played the best record of the Post-Howard era (42 wins and 40 losses) for the time being, returning to the playoffs as the seventh on the East Coast. Although it was eventually defeated by the Raptors 1:4 in the first round, this Magic team can be described as a dawn, the team has young potential player Mo Bamba, through the trade in exchange for the 2017 champion Markel Fultz, but also the new star Vucevic, the fiery Aaron Gordon, and a number of excellent green leaves such as DJ Augustine, Terrance Rose, etc., can be described as a sweep of the past reconstruction of the decadence.
But the good times were short-lived, after the 18-19 season, the Magic team has always hovered on the edge of having playoffs and missing the playoffs, and finally the team made up its mind, on March 25, 2021, local time, the Magic sent Vucevic and Aaron Gordon to the Bulls and Nuggets on the same day in exchange for future draft picks, and the period of the two joining forces was also announced.
The Magic team is still struggling to find its way
If the old things are broken, but no new things are established, they will lose their direction. Although the Magic sent away Vucevic and Aron Gordon, it seems that they have not yet found a clear core of the team: Markle Fultz, although he has great potential to build a team around him, but because of injuries, he has cashed in his talent indefinitely; Mo Bamba, although his physical test performance is exaggerated, has not been reused in the current new era of small ball atmosphere; second-year rookie Kerr Anthony, although he has performed well, still needs time to examine. This year, the first team to fail the playoffs, the Magic are expected to receive a pick with a top pick, depending on how John Hammond will use it.
It can only be said that this team from Orlando still has a long way to go to return to the glory of the Howard era.