https://youtu.be/m4zCM781K70
I like to think that I have a pretty good memory for things like this, so you should be willing to take my words at face value when I make the following assertion:
The lineup that the Orlando Magic have trotted out for the past few games is a top-five worst-ever midseason lineup.
Note how I added the “midseason” qualifier. Lots of teams field garbage lineups in the final few weeks of the season. It’s honestly expected. But we’re not in the final few weeks of the season. We have over a month to go here, and the Magic have gutted their roster until only scraps remain. Check out these starters: R.J. Hampton, Dwayne Bacon, James Ennis, Chuma Okeke, Wendell Carter Jr. A casual NBA fan would look at the roster with only a blank stare before asking “where’s Dwight Howard?”
Also note that my recollection only stretches back a decade, so it’s quite possible that some crappy team in the 80’s fielded a worse lineup. But the point still stands that the Magic are ridiculously short on talent right now. Their best player is Terrence Ross. Their second best player is Wendell Carter Jr.? Third best, I have no idea. It could be Chuma Okeke at this point. Everybody else on the roster is a fringe NBA player at best, and now some of those dudes are starting games. I’m not trying to be mean here, that’s just how it is. The Magic have extricated themselves from the cycle of mediocrity that their mediocre core was perpetuating, and now we have a temporary situation where all their good players are injured and the only players left standing are unfit for major minutes.
Sounds like a perfect opportunity for a rookie guard to start making his mark on the league! Hampton was buried in Denver, and he would honestly be buried in Orlando too, except all the good guards are injured. He saw that the time is now to start strutting his stuff, and his stuff definitely got strutted in this game. Sixteen points worth of stuff was strutted against the team that saw fit to trade him, in true REVENGE GAME fashion. Now we’ll see if he can keep it up when every molecule in his body isn’t screaming for pure, hateful REVENGE.