At least they care.
At least they care enough to keep trying.
At least they care enough to keep fighting.
At least they care enough to keep scratching and grinding and buckling down and knuckling down to try to salvage a season that has become a series of devastating and debilitating injuries.
“It sucks that guys have been out, especially for an extended period of time,” Magic center Nikola Vucevic said after scoring 37 points in Sunday’s victory over the Detroit Pistons. “It is what it is. You have to move forward. You have to find ways to adjust and play.”
God bless you, Vooch!
It would be easy for you and the rest of the team to wallow in the misery and malaise of a year that has seen four of five starters out for much, if not all, of the season. Instead, you continue to play hard and have won three in a row and are, believe or not, only two games away from the 8th seed and three games away from the 4th seed in the bunched-up Eastern Conference.
We all know the Magic aren’t going to win any championships this year yet, then again, all but about six fan bases in the NBA know before every season that their team has absolutely no chance of winning a championship. Let’s face it, fans in the vast majority of NBA markets would never be happy if all they cared about was championships. NBA fans must take their joy where they can find it.
And if you ask me, Orlando fans should be ecstatic that their team still has enough pride in itself to keep competing even though the Magic have been undermanned and overmatched for most of the season. The series of unfortunate events actually started last season when promising young forward Jonathan Isaac blew out his knee in the playoffs, effectively eliminating him from playing at all this season. Eight games into this season, emerging point guard Markelle Fultz blew out his knee, too, and won’t be back until next year.
Then starting forward Aaron Gordon went out with a badly sprained ankle weeks ago and new starting point guard Cole Anthony went down with a fractured rib shortly thereafter. Meanwhile, there have been a litany of other starters or key contributors — Evan Fournier, Michael Carter-Williams, Al-Farouq Aminu, Chuma Okeke — who each has missed 14 games or more due to a variety of strains, sprains and assorted pains.
The Magic recently completed a four-game West Coast road trip in which they had only eight active players on their roster at various points. That’s right, in this pandemic-plagued season when multiple games have been canceled due to COVID-19 issues, the Magic were just one injured player away from having to postpone games WITHOUT any COVID issues.
A frustrated Magic fan wrote me an email several days ago after the Magic had lost 16 of 20 games and told me that I needed to “be a real sports columnist” and “start holding the coaches and players accountable.”
My response: Accountable for what?
Getting hurt?
I will admit that one of my favorite quotes about my profession is this: “The job of a sports columnist is to observe the battle from the mountain top and then ride down and bayonet the wounded.”
However, let’s be fair. You can’t really rip the players and call for coach Steve Clifford to be fired when they are actually making chicken salad out of chicken spit. I believe Clifford to be one of the best coaches in the NBA and I think this group of players should be celebrated, not castigated, for their refusal to turn into the Eastern Conference’s version of the Minnesota Timberwolves.
If this Magic team were at full strength with their full allotment of players then, yes, their 13-18 record would be an utter disappointment. But the Magic have been the most-injured team in the league and it’s not even close. They have 169 total player games missed due to injury or illness, compared the second-most injured team (the Atlanta Hawks) with 127.
Still, the veterans on this team — Vucevic, Fournier and Terrence Ross — are fighting their butts off to make the playoffs for the third consecutive season. Vucevic, coming off back-to-back games of scoring 30 points or more, is playing like an NBA All-Star and has now bested the 30-point mark seven times this season. Fournier is averaging 25.3 points during the Magic’s three-game win streak while Ross is averaging 23.7 points.
“They’re playing with great fight and determination,” Clifford says of his veterans.
“We’re playing with purpose. We’re playing with energy,” Fournier says. “I like what I see.”
So do I.
And so should you.
The most beloved Magic team of all time was the “Heart and Hustle” bunch of 1999-2000 — a collection of overlooked, undervalued players who finished 41-41 and missed the playoffs on the final day of the season.
This wounded-but-willing team should be called “Hurt and Hustle.”
They may or may not make the playoffs, but, by God, at least they care enough to try.
