Kim Klement – USA Today Sports Images
The Orlando Magic have a lot of exciting young pieces in place heading into the 2013-2014 NBA season. Not only do they have the second overall pick from this year in Victor Oladipo, but they also have players with a ton of upside like Mo Harkless, Nikola Vucevic and Tobias Harris already on their roster.
Despite all of the young talent that they have on their roster, though, the Magic are still likely going to find themselves in the basement of the league in the upcoming season. After the 2013-2014 NBA schedule was released on Tuesday, it became pretty clear that the Magic were going to have a rough season right from the start.
The Magic have one of the toughest starts to the season of any team in the league. Six of their first seven games this season are against teams with realistic chances to make the postseason this year and three of those six games will come on the road. It seems like the Magic’s foray into the season will be quite unceremonious.
Orlando opens the season at the Indiana Pacers, a team that went to the Eastern Conference Finals last season and then made significant improvement to their roster this summer. They then travel to play the Minnesota Timberwolves, another team who will be greatly improved from last season.
Finally their schedule will take them home, but the Magic will get very little relief. They play the New Orleans Pelicans, a greatly improved young team, then the Brooklyn Nets, who are loaded with talent, and then the Los Angeles Clippers, a contender out west. They finally get a bit of relief playing the Boston Celtics, but then have to travel to play the Atlanta Hawks the next day.
The start of the Magic’s season is about as brutal as it can get in this league. Outside of the Celtics game, they would be extremely lucky to take more than one of those games to start their season. The future is bright in Orlando, but the start to this year is not.
Cody Williams is a Senior Writer with Rant Sports. Follow Cody on Twitter @TheSizzle20, add him on Google and like his Facebook page.
