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in 1996 when Shaq left the Magic did not rebuild, they tried to stay competitive, to mixed results. They made the playoffs a few times, they even finished first in the eastern conference during the lockout shortened year, but because of their lack of talent, lost in the first round to Philadelphia.

After that Penny moved on, but the magic again did not do a full scale rebuild, instead they banked on the summer of 2000, AKA the Tim Duncan/Grant Hill year. They were better than expected and finished 41-41, 2000 was a terrible draft anyways, and we did get Mike Miller.

The Magic succeeded in luring superstars to town, it didn't work out but their plan worked.

Then 2003-2004 happened, the magic were awful and got the no.1 pick, and once again they did not elect for a full scale rebuild. Tracy McGrady had asked for a trade, and instead of loading up on futures to pair with Dwight Howard, they opted for the short term solution of Francis/Mobley/Cato. This had multiple consequences, first instead of once again drafting top 5, and maybe having a chance to draft CP3 or Deron Williams, they finished 11th and drafted Fran Vazquez. Enough said. They did not get any first round picks to stash for the future, and they eventually got pretty much nothing for all 3 players, on top of missing out on opportunities to draft high talent guys to pair with Dwight Howard.

Maybe things turn out a little differently with Dwight if there had been a willingness to be patient and rebuild the team properly, instead of aiming to just be "competitive" sure the magic had their run from 08-09 to 09-10 but it could have had a bigger window with maybe even better success if they hadn't rushed a rebuild.

that leads us to today, this summer the magic once again made a bunch of short sighted decisions, to their credit they did try to rebuild and have been a little unlucky with the draft, and over the course of the last year they have made some terrible moves. say what you want about oladipo and harris, but the fact of the matter is we should be getting alot more in return for those two, plus a 1st round pick than what we have netted so far. They decided to hotshot the team this summer and add a bunch of pieces that don't fit together and just hope it worked....it seems like a familiar refrain.

My point? Magic ownership time after time has shown while willing to spend money, that they are unable to make championship moves, they just want to be competitive and that is dangerous and can get you stuck in the middle.

Rob Hennigan is going to take the fall most likely, but nothing is going to change as long as Alex Martins and co. are around they don't have the patience to execute a plan. Maybe we'll get lucky and draft a franchise player, but it won't lead us to championship contention without the right management and ownership

Interesting points. There is an argument that there's a 'morality' to not tearing it down. Houston and Indiana are often praised by the likes of Zach Lowe and Kevin Pelton for being able to stay competitive and drafting / trading well to do so.
But the counter argument to this is that neither have won a championship and IMO are not close to one.

If I could put the Magic in any team's position in terms of rebuilding, it would be the T-Wolves. Great future, great coach.

I think the Magic ownership and front office has been patient enough with Hennigan's rebuild. 5 years is enough. Its time for Hennigan to go. We've beaten like a dead horse his meh drafts. Sure we were unlucky and didn't get top 3 picks but we could have done a better job at drafting.

Its time to fire Hennigan and blow this disaster up and start again. It is not too late to try to get a top lottery pick for the 2017 draft.

Hennigan collected assets + lottery picks, but has basically been giving them away.

We're like the Miami Dolphins of the NBA, because we have some talent but can never get our **** together. Except we don't have Jay Ajayi.

We have Jeff Green.

You are wrong. The Magic would have been much better off trying to be competitive this time around than doing a full scale rebuild.

The reason being: we tried the full scale rebuild. It failed miserably.

We are not in as bad a shape as Brooklyn was a year ago but our management's inexperience has directly led to this result. You can make an argument for the ownership but even so we made it to the Finals twice in 25 years and it's not like you can fire the owner.

JMO, but there is an inherent difference between rebuilding and tanking.

The Magic got lucky before with tanking, but not this time.

There are a few teams that have had great success from tanking.

More often, teams that fail on purpose get stuck in the quagmire the Magic are currently in now.

I don't care about winning championships as a Magic fan (winning one would be great), what I do care about as a fan is being competitive as a team (50 wins) annually.

As a local that was there when the Magic broke ground on the old O-Rena, I've seen the good and the bad.

Right now, this is the "bad" that beats all since the inception of the franchise. (I am excluding the moments of drama).

And, it appears there is no way out.

In politics, the re-election phrase that is used is: "four more years", which looks to be a good phrase for the Magic "rebuilding" as well.

Disinterest is the only thing being built here. "Four more years". Lol.

Yep we need another 5 ,maybe 6 years waiting for gordon,payton,hezonja and why not,oladipo and harris to develop.
We could bring back also harkless,o'quinn,nicholson,you never know

Building a team i so much more than collecting assets,people at some point have to understand this.

We half assed and rushed this rebuild. Sure... it's the closest we've come to doing it properly, but yeah. Other than that, you are completely correct. Our problems start with ownership.

It appear now that the Magic are going to be stuck at the bottom for as long as they would have been stuck in the middle being competitive. At least being competitive, the team may have been able to lure a top free agent.

Orlwillbeback wrote:You are wrong. The Magic would have been much better off trying to be competitive this time around than doing a full scale rebuild.

The reason being: we tried the full scale rebuild. It failed miserably.

We are not in as bad a shape as Brooklyn was a year ago but our management's inexperience has directly led to this result. You can make an argument for the ownership but even so we made it to the Finals twice in 25 years and it's not like you can fire the owner.

The magic tried to rebuild, but then they started making panic moves little by little.

the first was giving frye a 4 year deal, then it was CJ Watson, who they are barely **** utilizing why? idk. then it was the idiotic harris trade, then it was the ibaka trade, then it was 72 million dollars for biyombo(WHO I LIKE but the roster has to change to utilize him better)

they hit the panic button especially this summer and built a team that is the complete opposite of how the current NBA is played.

if you're going to trade harris/oladipo/1st we should have done alot better than what we've gotten in return. my overall point is once again the organization could not stick to a plan they had to hotshot everything and now have one of the worst rosters in the nba

Before I proclaim everything as hopeless, I want to see how the Magic flip the assets they have now. I have followed the team closely since it's inception and this is the most flexibility I can remember us having while fielding a bad team.