With every bucket that Markelle Fultz scores, with every assist that Markelle Fultz dishes out, with every minute that Markelle Fultz spends on the court, another brick is added to the wall which will keep D.J. Augustin out of Orlando. Permanently. That should be a comforting thought to Magic fans who have had to watch Augustin for four season despite him being way too old to ever be part of a team’s “core”. And with Augustin currently injured, he can do nothing but watch helplessly as the quarantining wall encircles him.
When the Magic acquired Fultz, it wasn’t a guarantee that he would be able to force Augustin out. It was like, “if this guy pans out, cool, otherwise we have this steady vet that can play thirty minutes per game if we need him to.” And now that gamble is paying off (not that giving up Jonathon Simmons was much of a gamble): Fultz is regularly adding bricks to the wall that he’s constructing, and now you can barely see the top of Augustin’s head, that’s how tall the wall has become. In just a few more weeks, assuming that Fultz keeps up a steady level of passing and scoring, the wall will be tall enough that Augustin couldn’t crawl over it even if he wanted to. And that wall will only be dismantled when a.) Augustin gets traded or b.) Augustin signs somewhere else.
Speaking of building walls to isolate players from infecting their team with contagious suckage (and coronavirus), maybe Fultz should start working on a wall for Michael Carter-Williams too. MCW can contribute his own bricks to the pile because he shoots a lot of them. BURN!