The NBA season is right around the corner and the Orlando Magic 2013 NBA Championship Odds are currently at 225-1 ($100 bet pays $22700). They are 100-1 to win the Eastern Conference and their over/under season win total projection is 24,5. Below is the overall season preview by Pregame Pro André Gomes. 

If we exclude the Miami Heat, no other team was more “talked” than the Orlando Magic during the past season, but unfortunately for the worst reasons.  

2011-12 Regular Season numbers:

The Magic’s season was immediately conditioned from the beginning due to the Dwight Howard “soap opera” that really affected the team’s performance. However, Orlando managed to be competitive with Howard on court, even though they also suffered some absurd losses like a 56-87 loss in Boston, a 83-91 loss at home against the same Celtics after leading the game by 27 points or losing in the following day against New Orleans by 67-93!

Orlando Magic month-by-month record:

Stan Van Gundy was able one more time to make Orlando a good defensive team with Howard on court. However, the Magic weren’t an elite defensive team anymore, something that we can consider as normal, as excluding Howard, the Magic had on court Jameer Nelson, Jason Richardson, Hedo Turkoglu and Glen Davis, so as soon as Howard got injured, the Magic literally stopped defending:

Even though they lost 11 of their last 16 games, Orlando quickly qualified for the playoffs due to the good record that they had achieved with Howard on court, but they easily turned into the team every team in the East wanted to face on the playoffs. This “privilege” ended up being given to the Pacers, who quickly eliminated Orlando in 5 games, after losing only one game and on overtime.

Offseason moves 2012-13:

The firings of Coach Stan Van Gundy and GM Otis Smith were expected and while Dwight Howard didn’t want to stay in Orlando, he also didn’t have condition to remain on the team after what happened last season.

Rob Henning was appointed as the new GM and everybody was waiting to see the deal he would be able to make with Dwight Howard. The fact that Howard didn’t guarantee that he would sign a new contract with the team was a huge obstacle in getting good offers for him and it was public that Howard wanted to sign with the Nets.

Apparently, Orlando’s goal in Howard’s trade was to at least get a talented young player, while at the same time they would try to get rid of some of their “bad” contracts that they have with some of their players. The Magic rejected several offers from the Nets that included Brook Lopez and Marshon Brooks until the Nets had enough and gave up on Howard; it was also public the interest from the Rockets that offered several draft picks to the Magic until the Lakers entered the dispute for Howard.

Everybody thought that Orlando would accept trading Howard for Bynum, but that wasn’t what happened. The “best” player that Orlando managed to get from the draft was Arron Afflalo, who has a contract for the following four seasons, while the team wasn’t able to get rid of Hedo Turkoglu’s bad contract.

Jason Richardson went to Philadelphia, while Orlando didn’t have any interest in counting with the most improved player of the year Ryan Anderson that left for New Orleans on a sign-and-trade in exchange for Gustavo Ayon. Orlando also received Al Harrington, Nikola Vucevic, Josh McRoberts, among others.

From contenders to the worst team in the league

Orlando’s goal for this season is very clear: get a top draft pick in next year’s draft, while only time can correct the bad contracts that Orlando will have to carry this season: Hedo Turkoglu, Al Harrington, Jameer Nelson or even Glen Davis.

Orlando is now without their frontcourt duo from last season in Dwight Howard and Ryan Anderson and for this season, the lack of quality and options is well visible, as the likely starters will be Glen Davis and Gustavo Ayon.

Ayon took well advantage of the chances he had last season with the Hornets due to the frequent injuries from Okafor, Kaman and Landry, but he still lacks talent to be a starter on a NBA team. Vucevic seems to have more talent and he will definitely have more opportunities to play this season than he had on his rookie season on a very competitive team like the 76ers.

Al Harrington and Glen Davis will fight for the minutes on the PF position and so, Orlando will have a clear deficit on defense and rebounding with these two players, but if they are able to be at least effective on offense, then not everything will be lost on the team’s frontcourt.

Backcourt with no speed and no explosiveness

Jameer Nelson, J.J. Redick and Hedo Turkoglu remain on the team and this means that Orlando won’t be having an athletic backcourt this season. Afflalo’s arrival in Orlando gives them more explosiveness on the backcourt and even though he is mostly known for being a good defender, Afflalo improved considerably on offense over the last season by shooting almost 50% FG and +40% 3pts. Afflalo left a competitive team to a losing team, but he will now have more chances of individually shine than the ones he had in the competitive Nuggets.

Jacque Vaughn is the team’s new coach and it will be interesting to know which style he wants to insert on the team. Having in account Orlando doesn’t have a lot of athletic bodies on the roster, in theory a half court style would fit better the current roster than a fast paced style. However, Vaughn has already stated that he wants to give the team an “up tempo free-willing approach to his offense”. Vaughn’s mentor is Gregg Popovich, so we can say that he couldn’t have had a better teacher than the league’s current best coach. 

Final Thoughts

A lot of positive things would need to happen to Orlando in order for them to be competitive immediately on the first season since the Dwight Howard – Stan Van Gundy era ended.

Honestly, not even the organization expects them to be competitive this season, as the team’s rebuilding will only happen via draft and the only way from that to happen is if Orlando is one of the worst teams in the league in order to get a high draft pick.

The problem is that Orlando practically doesn’t have young players to develop, while the team isn’t competitive, so this means that most of the minutes will be given to veteran players who sooner or later will eventually leave Orlando.

Jacque Vaughn doesn’t have a lot of expectations for this season, but if Orlando is minimally competitive, then it’s because Vaughn did a good job on his rookie season as a NBA head coach.

 Follow Andre Gomes on Twitter @GomesCapper

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