There's a reason sports organizations can suck, and we intend to get to the bottom of why this one does.
All-Star break has just begun, the trade deadline is in the rearview mirror, and the Orlando Magic begin the 2nd half with more questions than answers-- AGAIN.

Trade at the deadline: TANK!

Orlando unloaded arguably their best player, Elfrid Payton, in a surprise move that netted them what should be a high 2nd round pick (Memphis). Very strange, as Payton was SLOWLY improving each year, and is the kind of point guard who's sneakily very good in a way most NBA fans don't understand. Payton creates havoc on offense bc his play is so untraditional (similar to a TJ McConnell) and he at least shows up on defense even tho he's not exactly a defensive force. What he lacks on defense, he makes up by making his offenses better than they should be. If we were to be surrounded by some better players (no offense to Mr Simmons but Jonathan Simmons is overrated and so is probably Fournier even tho Fournier is a heck of a talent). Payton sure seemed to work well with Vucevic, and Vucevic didn't get much playing time despite being BY FAR the best player on the team this year. Which brings us to our next point...

Frank Vogel: We like Frank, but he's not enough

Look, we don't doubt Vogel loves himself some basketball, but that's not going to make him a great coach. NBA coaching is MOSTLY about allocating player minutes, and secondarily about managing the personalities on the team so you can properly allocated those minutes. Think about Phil Jackson managing the personalities of Shaq and Kobe, that's NBA basketeball coaching in a nutshell. Sure, at the margin it's GREAT to be good a play-calling in tight situations, but if you're managing the personalities and minutes properly, an NBA coach shouldn't find themselves in TOO many tight late-game situations for which a superstar like Kobe, Shaq, MJ, or Pippen (or Bigshot Bob) can't get him out with a W. We don't know if Vogel is a good signal caller, but we still think he hasn't sold himself enough on playing his best players the most minutes. 29 minutes per game for Vucevic is actually not bad for a modern small-ball-me-too driven NBA coach these days, but it's still not enough, and Vogel wasn't playing him enough early in the season (and maybe that's why Vuc is injured?). Jeff Teague is the oldest guy on his starting 5, and plays 33 minutes a night, and he has the LEAST minutes for the Minnesota starters. We're not totally advocating Timberwolves starting 5 minutes, as it's an NBA extreme, but isn't extreme what coaches need to try to get into the playoffs and maybe surprise some people? Minnesota might surprise this year, and they really don't have a lot of injuries despite all those minutes for the starters.
We like what we see, even if it fails-- he's trying. Vogel COULD be that guy, but he hasn't committed. His record in Indiana speaks for itself, so we give Vogel a pass, but not an A+. Count us as on the fence with him, but we don't blame him for the poor Magic season as much as...

GM Issue: Sorry, but John Hammond shouldn't be a GM

Hammond in 2010 won "NBA Exec of the Year" and that probably means something to someone, but here's how it's described on his Wikipedia page... "Hammond was credited with building a Bucks team that went from 34 to 46 victories in one season". WHOA! Is that really all it takes to get Exec of the Year in the NBA? Wait, there's more brilliance...
"He also was responsible for several moves he made before the 2009–10 season, such as drafting Brandon Jennings and bringing in veteran John Salmons in a trade." Sad, and we have no problem with Brandon Jennings either, but come on! Look, there's not enough time to blame Hammond as much as we're unimpressed with his past record. So it's not the GM's fault he's the GM, so that turns our blame for crappy performance by a team for FAR too long with...

PREVIOUS GM: Rob Hennigan, NOW WE'RE GETTING TO THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM!"

Hennigan was hired June 20, 2012 right before that year's draft (28th June), and this is his draft history:
2012
#19 Andrew Nicholson. Honestly, we never heard of this guy. did he even play?
#36 pick traded to Sacramento Kings (Kris Middleton was drafted #39, Will Barton #40) for CASH CONSIDERATIONS
#49 Kyle O'Quinn. Hey, nice draft pick, but did you keep him and play him like GSW did Draymond?

2013
#3 Victor Oladipo. NICE! Oh wait, Hennigan gave up on Oladipo on draft night in 2016, he traded a young developing Oladipo ALONG WITH #11 pick Domantas Sabonis (who's killing it in Indiana), AND Ersan Ilyasova for Serge Ibaka, who was later traded for Terrence Ross and the Raptors 1st round pick. While a 1st round pick might sound like value, it wasn't. Toronto was and still is a really good team, so unlike the #11 pick, Sabonis, the Magic gave up, in return the team ended up with the #25 pick which they then traded to Philadelphia in exchange for some 2020 picks which given Philly's rise will be in the 25-30 ranking. Serge Ibaka started off his career nicely, but OKC got rid of him for a reason-- a reason Rob Hennigan clearly didn't understand. If this is confusing, don't worry, all you need to know is Oladipo is playing this year like he was drafted in the top 2 or something! FAIL.
#51 Romero Osby. yeah, he never played.

2014 it can't ALL be bad, can it? No
#4 Aaron Gordon
Gordon was a fantastic defensive pick, who had the athleticism to be a good offensive player too. And for two years, Gordon took his defensive prowess and earned his keep, while developing his stodgy but athletic offensive game. The trouble is, the Orlando organization allowed Gordon to forget his defensive game to focus on what pays the bills in the NBA--> offense, dunks, scoring, shooting 3s. But Gordon's stats only look good bc his minutes climbed each year: 17, 24, 29, 34. He also has been allowed to shoot more, despite his 3 is merely about league average now at 34%. But over 36 minute average, his assists are flat, his rebounding is down, his steals are flat, his blocks are down, and his turnovers are up. Too fast! We have trouble blaming Gordon, the organization is responsible for player development. Who is Gordon's mentor? Does he have a Kevin Garnett, just one example, to explain defense must always be a focus unless he's a top 15 offensive player? Vucevic and Biyombo are good for totally opposite reasons, so they aren't going to have a great influence on a two-way player; in fact, since Vucevic gets more girls (just kidding, we mean praise) than Biyombo Gordon probably will default to focusing all his energy on his weaker game-- his offense. HUGE mistake. While we're sure Gordon is improving his individualized offensive skills, we're not even convinced he's a better offensive player. When you shoot a 3 and you shoot 34%, it's probably WAY more important that you get the ball to a player (Fournier for one example, career 38% shooter from deep) who shoots better than you do. Aaron Gordon this year shoots as many 3 pointers as Fournier-- PREPOSTEROUS! Even when Orlando is picking well, they are ruining that pick with poor development. Is it coincidence Oladipo is an all-star for ANOTHER team?
#12 Elfrid Payton
Again, we love Elfrid Payton-- not as your primary scorer or offensive threat, we just think he's a starting-calibre PG who could be a piece on a winning team. Elfrid & Anthony Davis together? All day long. Elfrid & Vuc? Sure. The problem is Hennigan traded UP to get this guy, and gave away the farm to get him. SUCKERED BY SAM! Wow did this trade hurt.
Orlando lost an ADDITIONAL first rounder, a 2nd rounder, ALL TO MOVE UP TWO PICKS. This would be so bad, if Elfrid was appreciated in Orlando, but he was just traded for a high-ish 2nd round pick. So Hennigan moved up 2 places in the draft, and spent a large chunk of Orlando's future, and ended up with a high 2nd round pick in the end. Ever see a GM trade a 1st round pick, a 2nd round pick, and a #12 pick for a high 2nd round pick? No, we didn't think so.

By the way, Orlando ownership, liking what they see in Elfrid and Gordon we guess, extends Hennigan thru 2018 before the 2015 draft.

2015 Draft, Hennigan
Folks, this is already ugly, do we even need to mention the utter hapless botch-job Orlando organization pulled on a now improving Mario Hezonja, drafted a WAYYYY TOO HIGH 5th in the 2015 draft? Let's keep it short, Orlando just said F.U. to Hezonja this year, refusing to pick up their "free" option to keep him around next year. That would be fine if they found a way to let him go be good somewhere else. But thanks to fate Hezonja after being rejected by his own organization, was handed the keys to all the minutes he could handle, thanks to some timely injuries. Terrence Ross and Jonathan Isaac are both down with injury, so the scorned Hezonja is now jacking up big numbers for Olrando! He's starting to look like he might actually be a decent player, which is ironic bc now Orlando won't have a chance to have him on the team next year. If Hezonja has any pride, he'll be out of Orlando after his last minute played on the court this year. Unreal. This wasn't Hennigan's fault tho, or was it? Hezonja really was given a shoddy chance in his first 2 years, as sometimes if you have a top 5 draft pick and your team sucks anyway, you just start him every night until his confidence and game graduate to NBA level. Not Orlando, they pretend like they are contending or something. Just more bad organizational stuff, we don't know whether the coach is to blame or the GM or higher, but we're sniffing around aren't we?
#51 pick: Tyler Harvey
This pick was a lot of fun, we give it that; Harvey was the leading scorer of his draft year, all 6 foot 4 Eastern Washington Eagles of him. Are you sensing that Hennigan might undervalue the strength of schedule for NCAA players (Elfrid overpayment, Hezonja instead of some NCAA players from good schools, and Tyler Harvey from a faux division 1 school). Look, if you're good at this sort of thing, fine. But Hennigan had no proof he could shine a turd-school star into an NBA player. We even give him credit for Eflrid Payton, but come on, Hennigan with some patience and tight lips (we don't think Hinkie wanted Payton, Hinkie just knew how bad HENNIGAN wanted Payton) could have gotten Elfrid in the middle to late 2nd round. We don't care what a certain popular Boston sportswriter says either.
#56 pick: Devyn Marble. He, let's ignore missing on 56th picks, Hennigan got Fournier and this pick for Afflalo, that's a good trade. Maybe this is the exception that proves the rule tho.
Cleveland used the #33 pick to get Joe Harris, a Kyle-Korver like player who's fun and a sharpshooter from deep who now plays for the Nets (see our Nets 2nd half primer in our blog que), but this was the blunder of the PREVIOUS GM who also stunk it seems. Are you noticing a trend here? All Orlando GMs seem to be bad at their jobs, so it's it really THEIR fault they were hired?

Tired Yet? You should be, but we're too close to the end of this Hennigan debacle to stop now, final draft...
2016 Draft, Hennigan
#11 given away, we did this one already, Sabonis is now kicking ass for Indiana
#41 Stephen Zimmerman. Who? Is he the pitcher for the Washington Nationals? UNLV (tier-II-like program, again)
#47 Jake Layman. Maryland senior. Maryland is... you know what? never mind. Hennigan is fired; results is results.

So obviously Hennigan was a complete and utter five-alarm disaster for the Orlando Magic. But again, really his fault? He didn't hire himself! Who did?

Alex Martins? He's the "CEO" of the Orlando Magic

We didn't even know NBA teams HAD CEOs, did you? Alex Martin was hired in 2006, and therefore is reponsible for the last 3 poor GM showings. He's a PR guy with a degree in business from Villanova. Is this really the guy picking the GMs??? If he is, wow, Orlando is more messed up than we think!

Who is that man behind the green curtain? It's Richard DeVos!

Who the hell is Richard DeVos and how the hell could he be responsible for the destruction of an entire sports frachise?
DeVos is one of those billionaires who barely cares what he owns in terms of sports franchise, he's from Michigan and is maybe classified as a Florida 'snowbird' by Michigan standards. He's been trying to gather up sports franchises for decades now. He claims, via his book "Compassionate Capitalism", to have a big heart in business. Want heart in business? Pay for your own NBA basketball arena, don't finagle the taxpayers to pay for YOUR money-making arena.
We're not political, we could care less about his daughter-in-law being the current Secretary of Education (Betsy).
We don't care which ONE of the TWO awful political parties he belongs.
We DO care, however, that all his money was made in Amway, which is basically a form of ponzi-ish multi-level-marketing scheme which is somehow (in a country with Sherman Anti-Trust-- an even MORE awful law) legal in the United States.
Our opinion of Amway? About the same as our opinion of the Orlando Magic. It all comes back to the fountainhead, doesn't it?

Richard DeVos is the reason the Orlando Magic perenially suck, and they always will so long as he owns it. Ultimately, he makes the final decisions on who runs the organization, and the people running the Magic have been awful-- which really isn't debated at this point. If you don't believe us, just re-read this article, it's all there, almost ALL of the transactions of the past 7 years, and we didn't even go longer than that. We know you're tired of reading about a bad organization, so we had to limit the scope to a snapshot of DeVos's ownership regime which started in 1991 when he bought the team for a very cheap $85 million. He's botched almost every basketball decision since then, but we'll let YOU look up the pre-Hennigan stuff. Will Orlando be bad as long as he owns the team?
Sure, he COULD get lucky, like the owners of the 76ers or Eagles for instance, but to do that (win Super Bowl, get team to playoffs from the cellar in 4 years) you'd have to make SOME good decisions (hiring Sam Hinkie for instance) in life even if you overall make very poor decisions (like hiring the Colangelos). We see nothing "compassionate" about Orlando Magic as a business, a "compassionate" organization might have given Hezonja (jury still out on that guy, but he sure plays well when he's no longer tied to the Magic-- like say..... VICTOR OLADIPO!?). So we don't think whatever Kool-Aid DeVos sells in his books make a lick of difference over time. Orlando is going to be bad, unless they get lucky, and we're not big believers in luck, altho you'd almost have to be UNlucky to have as many high draft picks as Orlando gets and STILL be bad!

So next time you wonder how an organization could be so ratty as the Orlando Magic, read up on Mr DeVos and we'll think you'll find an ass attached to the back of the horse you're looking at!