BDL’s 2014-15 NBA Season Previews: Orlando Magic (Ball Don’t Lie)

This is what happens when a rebuilding process is forced on you, and you fail to recognize as much. The Orlando Magic walked away from the Dwight Howard trade as the clear winners, but that's not saying a whole heck of a lot. Worse, because the Magic's previous front office convinced itself (and, for a time, Dwight Howard) that the center would be staying past the end of his contract, the team missed out on early chances to blow it all up in more progressive ways. It's true that the squad would have probably been saddled with Andrew Bynum just as the NBA washout began dogging it, but that only would have made this attempt at reshaping go much faster. As a result the Magic played a very bad year in 2012-13 with no rookie lottery pick to give minutes to. They played a very bad season in 2013-14 while handing minutes to a very raw rookie pick taken near the top of the weakest draft in decades. They'll play a very bad year this season with a mish-mosh of a roster, this time handing minutes to two lottery-bred rookies that may have been a reach at their selection point. They'll also, sooner rather than later, have to give up some of their earned salary cap flexibility in order to...