Orlando still evaluating all options with No. 1 draft pick
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — School basketball season ended nearly three months in the past, the NBA draft lottery was greater than a month in the past and the draft itself is later this week.
Looks like the method ought to be winding down.
Orlando Magic President Jeff Weltman sees it in a different way.
“I let you know, it’s nonetheless early within the course of,” Weltman stated Monday.
Translated: The Magic haven’t determined but what they’ll do on Thursday night time, when the draft rolls round and so they have the No. 1 decide. Different groups have referred to as to gauge what the asking worth could be in the event that they need to commerce for that choice, and the Magic have evaluated all the highest candidates.
However Weltman sees no purpose to determine something earlier than it’s completely vital, particularly given the chance Orlando has by holding this No. 1 decide.
“Dialogue is all the time ongoing,” Weltman stated. “However, most significantly, we get to do what we would like. That’s the true profit of getting the No. 1 decide.”
The highest candidates for the decide are well-known: Auburn’s Jabari Smith Jr. worked out for Orlando earlier this month, Gonzaga’s Chet Holmgren met with the Magic for a number of days final week and Duke’s Paolo Banchero has been working out with former Magic guard Mike Miller.
Holmgren stated he got here away satisfied that “nice folks” are main the Magic.
“They have a imaginative and prescient for what they’re making an attempt to place collectively in Orlando,” Holmgren stated.
Weltman wouldn’t say that these are the one three candidates Orlando would contemplate at No. 1.
“It’s confirmed that there are a number of gifted gamers on the prime of this draft, that’s for positive,” Weltman stated.
That is the fourth time that Orlando can be making the No. 1 decide. The Magic took Shaquille O’Neal with the highest choice in 1992. Chris Webber was the No. 1 decide by Orlando in 1993, and he bought traded that very same night time for Penny Hardaway and a package deal of future picks that have been finally become Vince Carter and, later, Miller. And in 2004, the Magic chosen Dwight Howard with the primary decide.
The No. 1 decide on Thursday will be a part of a younger core in Orlando that already contains 2017 prime decide Markelle Fultz, a pair of top-eight picks from the 2021 draft in Franz Wagner and Jalen Suggs, and Cole Anthony — the No. 15 decide in 2020.
Orlando additionally has the No. 6 picks from the 2017 and 2018 draft, Jonathan Isaac and Mo Bamba. It’s attainable that when subsequent season begins Orlando might have as many as six lottery picks, 9 top-16 picks and 12 first-rounders on its roster.
That is all a part of the problem for the Magic — who even have the No. 32 and No. 35 picks this 12 months — going into Thursday: Discovering extra youth that matches with the present core, discovering methods to be higher subsequent season and sustainably higher for years to return.
“We do need to get higher however not on the expense of dashing again to mediocrity,” Weltman stated. “And we do need to have one thing sustainable. However you must elevate the usual to try this. You’ll be able to’t simply keep on the basement degree, you realize, interminably. So these are conversations that we’re having, which gamers try this for us.”
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Tim Reynolds, The Related Press
