Post-Mortem: 2020-21 Orlando Magic

[ElectricMayhem]

I thought this would be a good idea to do for all of the eliminated teams. Each day I will post one team that did not make the playoffs and any playoff teams that were eliminated that day. Answer as many of the following questions as you'd like:

GM: Change or keep?
Coach: Change or keep?
Relative to expectations, how did they fare this year?
Rising, falling, or treadmill?
If you were in charge, what would you do this offseason?

Notes:
Players under contract next year:
Gary Harris ($20m)
Jonathan Isaac ($17m)
Markelle Fultz ($17m)
Terrence Ross ($13m)
Mo Bamba ($8m)
Cole Anthony ($3m)
Chuma Okele ($3m)
Michael Carter-Williams ($3m)
R.J. Hampton ($2m)
Dwayne Bacon ($2m) (not fully guaranteed)

Team Options:
Wendell Carter Jr. ($7m)

Free Agents:
Otto Porter
James Ennis
Mo Wagner
Ignas Brazdeikis
Chasson Randle
Sindarius Thornwell

[Ice Trae]

Been curious about this as well, what's the consensus on Mo Bamba? Do Magic fans want to keep him for another year or is it time to start shopping him around and see what kind of return you can get for him

[IceIceBelly]

Would love to see more on social justice from the entire Magic team. They are one of the least active teams out there. That alone is an L for me and a need for change.

[FinnTheHuman]

fire the coach, fire the gm, performed worse than expected, rising team(trust the process!)

[dsg2003mach1]

Injuries they had to key players (won’t start in on the medical/training staff) you couldn’t expect much

Fire the gm (and martins too), keep the coach. See what draft nets you and getting your 2 mail guys back

[orlando_joe]

fire the coach, fire the gm, performed worse than expected, rising team(trust the process!)

i think did better then you could expect with all the injury they had,,but put as expected..gm did great with trades...coach did great with what he had

[ElectricMayhem]

GM: I'd say keep him. John Hammond was around in Detroit for the assemblage of the Go To Work Pistons championship. He went to Milwaukee and made a pick that is the reason why Milwaukee is an annual contender. Now he finally made the decision to hit the reset button in Orlando and cut bait with Vucevic and Gordon. Hammond is definitely not unassailable, but he's made enough progress with his teams to warrant his existence as a GM.

Coach: My theory on Clifford is that he's been a good coach when he doesn't have a strong negative influence on the team. His teams with Dwight Howard and Lance Stephenson bombed. Most of his other teams have achieved to their potential. I think he's good when he's got guys open to listening to him even if he's not the leader-of-men type. Keep him, I guess.

Expectations: Considering the injuries and then the trades, they ended up right about where they were expected. I'm sure they were hopeful of a return to the playoffs at the beginning of the season, though.

Offseason: Mo Bamba. Play him or deal him. He seems to not be in favor so try to get some kind of asset for him. Make sure you have a great medical team to get Fultz and Isaac back to where they need to be. Avoid overpaying middling free agents to become a competing-for-the-8th-seed type of treadmill team. Collect your good draft pick play another year with the youngin's, get one more good draft pick and then start your development.

[ElectricMayhem]

Would love to see more on social justice from the entire Magic team. They are one of the least active teams out there. That alone is an L for me and a need for change.

I don't know how NBA teams' social justice is measured, but I'm sure you're right. I wouldn't expect too much from a DeVos-owned team in that regard, though.

[Big J]

Fire the owner and move the team to Seattle.

[Harry Garris]

Keep Hammond for sure, he's the first half decent GM the Magic have had in a long, long time.

Fire Clifford. I don't think he's a bad coach but he's shown to really resist playing young guys and developing them and prefers overplaying vets and trying to eke out wins, not what you need in a rebuild.

I didn't expect them to go full tank this season but it's about time.

The Magic have a couple promising young players but no star and no one that looks to be a sure thing either, so draft for best player available the next few years and don't be afraid to move on from these young guys if you can get a good trade. The last thing you want as a rebuilding team is getting stuck with a bunch of 20 million a year contracts for guys that are just above average role players.

[spacemonkey]

Like your post-mortem idea, OP. It's more work for you, but I think putting in current draft assets in the OP could help posters vote more.

[ayyayyron]

Been curious about this as well, what's the consensus on Mo Bamba? Do Magic fans want to keep him for another year or is it time to start shopping him around and see what kind of return you can get for him

I'm not a Magic fan but I think Orlando will choose between Bamba and Wendell this offseason (or at the deadline). Bamba's ceiling is still pretty high, but his floor is still low. He showed flashes post Vuc-trade, but it'll still be hard to develop when sharing minutes with Wendell Carter

[clyde21]

no reason to fire anyone in the FO/coaching staff yet, the best thing you can do for young players is maintain some continuity, I don't think anyone thought this Orlando team was supposed to be a PO or anything this year.

u gotta bring back WC Jr. obviously, you have a good young guard rotation already in Fultz-Hampton-Anthony, u got your bigs in Isaac/Carter, focus your two first rounders on wings (Green or Kuminga with the first and then maybe a Franz Wagner with the second).

i actually like where this Orlando team is heading, really like Hampton, Cole and Okeke, Isaac took if he can stay healthy, just need to continue drafting well and developing.

[Mob Byers]

I picked keep the GM, fire the coach (I just don't like Clifford), performed as expected, and rising team

Dont they potentially have 2 lotto picks this year? They seem to be in good shape, I like the moves they made. They need THAT guy though. Good pieces but not a main centerpiece yet (although I haven't watched them much so maybe I'm wrong?)

[basketballRob]

I questioned the coach and GM prior to the last trade deadline. When they came here they really had no players with value.

The new president of basketball operations said, they have to the playoffs to build the value of the players.

They brought in Clifford who's coaching style can make mediocre teams make the playoffs. He also really brought the value up on AG and Vuc.

At the trade deadline, I think did an amazing job. Watch for Hampton, he won rookie of the final month, and is close to the same age as most of the players in the lottery.

Okeke is going to be way better than he's shown so far.

Sent from my SM-G950U using RealGM mobile app

[ElectricMayhem]

I'll be honest, I'm a little sad people didn't care this much about the Pistons' Post-Mortem thread.

[rand]

Brilliant season. Post trade deadline tank put them in top-3 lotto position in this huge draft. The two protected FRPs they picked up from Chicago in the Vucevic trade are very promising speculative assets. They may have made a huge steal with Hampton. A huge upswing for this franchise is possible if they just get a bit lucky with lottos and health.

[sca]

I don’t see how one can categorize them as a “rising” team when their most promising player is Wendell Carter Jr. who could someday become an above average atarter at best. What’s so promising about the Magic?

[dacrusha]

Magic finally dumped Vucevic, Gordon and Fournier ALL of which contributed to their yearly 7-11 treadmill status.

Have to give the front office a few years to fix the stink that has pervaded the franchise since Dwight Howard left - thankfully they have a couple of high picks to use to start the rebuilding process right away.

[dsg2003mach1]

Keep Hammond for sure, he's the first half decent GM the Magic have had in a long, long time.

I have a hard time with this when it took them four years of "observing" to decide this roster wasn't going anywhere and blow it up.