I don’t think a lot of people realized it, but D.J. Augustin was one of the Magic’s best players last year. He was right there behind Nikola Vucevic (who was clearly the best). Evan Fournier, Aaron Gordon? Maybe they were flashier scoring the ball, but Augustin was the savvy vet point guard that the team needed to offset the spastic young point guard in Michael Carter-Williams. People may have realized his goodness when he went off and hit a game-winner in the playoffs against the Raptors, but if they did, they quickly forgot as the Magic proceeded to get their butt kicked.
Augustin has not been nearly as good this year. Again, not a lot of people are realizing, either how good he was last year or how much he has now regressed. It’s not the biggest regression I’ve ever seen, I’ve been following the NBA for a while now and seen some truly baffling regressions (most recent: Giannis from the free throw line), but it’s significant, and it’s hurting the Magic. Markelle Fultz is great, but he’s not the steady point guard that Augustin is. And let’s not even talk about MCW.
Perhaps age is catching up to Augustin; he’s 32 now, and he’s not getting any taller. It takes a lot of skill for a 5-11 dude like him to stick in the league for 12 years now (he was part of the Rose-Beasley-Joe Alexander draft, to give you an idea of his contemporaries). But once the prerequisite speed and movement abilities start deteriorating, it’s hard to keep players like that around. So if it’s not happening now (he could just be in a random slump), it’s gonna happen soon, and we’ll have to endure an NBA without his illuminating presence.