Orlando, FL – On the night of December 7th, Magic fans across the country tuned in to watch their favorite team play the Los Angeles Clippers. Most of us were simply going through the motions, turning our devices on in support while fully expecting the Magic to elevate their nine-game losing streak into double digits. After all, we were the worst team in the NBA at that time, and it would take a miracle for us to contend for a play-in spot, much less make a playoff run. But to us, that was fine. Our focus as fans wasn’t a race to the top, but to the bottom. We had been watching tape of French phenom Victor Wembanyama all year and salivated at the thought of seeing him in pinstripes next season. All the losing would finally be worth it, if we could win the NBA Draft Lottery just one more time and select him. Our team would finally be complete, and we would be willing to sacrifice this season to see it happen. Everything we had to look forward to would happen in June. The season before that would be a punt year, accentuated with yet another loss, this time to the Clippers.
But we didn’t lose. In fact, we won an overtime thriller against a Clippers team with championship aspirations. It was a close game, too, with a final score of 116-111. To fans of most NBA teams, a score like that would stoke little more than a feeling of relief after winning such a tight contest. But not to us. We watched last year and the year before that as opposing teams made 10-0 runs against us look like 10-0 walks. Embarrassing thirty-point blowouts became just an average Magic loss. Very rarely would we be in position to win by the fourth quarter, and when we were, it usually ended in a heartbreaking loss.
But not anymore.
The Magic are learning how to come back late and hang on tight against the NBA’s best teams. Most of our losses in our nine-game losing streak were by a similarly small margin. This is not the Magic team we’re used to seeing. This is a completely different Magic team from last year, a team that desperately wants to win. And we’re winning games again. Since our upset against the Clippers, we have won six straight games as of the time I’m writing this article, including one against the Hawks in which we scored fifty points in the first quarter alone, and two against the Boston Celtics, the best team in the NBA. I would know. I was at the second Celtics game. This team played with more heart and fight than I’ve ever seen from them. And after Celtics forward Grant Williams missed a last-second three-pointer to give Orlando their sixth straight victory, something became very clear to me, something that I’m not used to thinking about this team.
We don’t need Victor Wembanyama.
We never needed him. Or Scoot Henderson. Or Amen Thompson. Or any of the generational talents that await the league’s worst teams during this summer’s NBA Draft. We don’t need any of them to win basketball games. All we need to win is health, experience, and the players currently on our roster. We can make a serious push for at least the play-in tournament without changing a single thing, something none of us thought possible after we started the season 5-and-20.
A six-game winning streak is nothing to sneeze at, especially for a team that hasn’t won much of anything for a decade. The last time we had a streak that lasted longer than six games was in December 2010. I was only eight years old at that time. Magic forward Caleb Houstan was seven. And if they beat the Atlanta Hawks tonight, Houstan’s team will achieve a feat that they haven’t been able to accomplish in over a decade.
It takes a special team to win that many games in a row. That Magic team that won more consecutive games made the NBA Finals just a year before, and that Finals team had an undisputed franchise face in Dwight Howard, an all-star wing in Rashard Lewis, and a floor-raising guard in Jameer Nelson that knew how to put all the pieces together. But this Magic team is just as special. We have an undisputed franchise face in Paolo Banchero, an all-star wing in Franz Wagner, and a floor-raising guard in Markelle Fultz who knows how to put all of these pieces together. And that’s not even mentioning difference-makers Wendell Carter Jr. and Jalen Suggs, both of whom have been out for this win streak while managing their respective injuries. But Carter returns Friday against the San Antonio Spurs, and Suggs doesn’t seem too far behind. Once we finally deplete our injured list, which would include witnessing the long-awaited return of defensive ace and mythical figure Jonathan Isaac, there’s no telling how much winning we’ll be able to do.
Even though the present is finally catching up to us, we can still look toward the future after this season too. We still have Chicago’s first-round pick this year, barring lottery luck falling in their favor. We can use that pick to fortify our areas of weakness, such as an extra perimeter defender in Ausar Thompson and a wing shooter in Brandon Miller or Gradey Dick. We can have the best season we’ve had in a long, long time, and still get better.
And this team is still very young. Carter and Fultz are just now entering their primes. Banchero’s stat sheets resemble that of most NBA players in their primes and he’s only a rookie. Wagner and Suggs are rapidly improving and already look like some of the 2021 NBA Draft’s biggest success stories. Why does this matter? The Magic might be a play-in team at only a fraction of their strongest form. Their competition, teams like Chicago and Washington, have maxed out the potential of most of their core, meaning that there’s nowhere for them to go but down. The Magic, on the other hand, are just getting started. Once these players gets more experience and becomes the best versions of themselves, the rest of the league will fear us.
Making the playoffs after how poorly we started is no guarantee, especially when considering how much stronger the Eastern Conference is than in years past. But I believe this team can do it. We have the personnel and star power to make a difference now and in the years to come, from the dominance of Banchero, the efficiency of Wagner, the impact of Fultz and Carter, and the logic-defying offense of Bol Bol. But more importantly, this team has something that most other Magic teams don’t have: heart. They don’t want to be stuck at the bottom again, no matter how generational of a talent Victor Wembanyama is if they stumble that far. They want to be at the top, vying for a championship instead of a glorified Bol. We could get there one day, and that journey begins today. From now on, no longer will turning on our TV to watch the Magic be something we reluctantly do. It will be something we actively look forward to, knowing that our team, the Orlando Magic, will soon be a juggernaut for years to come.
