Orlando Magic more likely to use their cap space later
The Orlando Magic have been among the busiest teams this offseason. On draft day, they dealt their best player, guard Arron Afflalo, to the Denver Nuggets for guard Evan Fournier and the 56th-overall pick in last month’s draft, which wound up being former Iowa Hawkeyes’ guard Roy Devyn Marble. They then drafted former Arizona Wildcats’ forward Aaron Gordon with the fourth-overall selection and traded the rights to the 12th-overall selection, Croatian forward Dario Saric and a future pick to the Philadelphia 76ers for the rights to the 10th-overall pick, former Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin’ Cajuns’ point guard Elfrid Payton. They cut ties with long-time point guard Jameer Nelson, guard E’Twaun Moore, big man Jason Maxiell and guard Ronnie Price, but claimed Los Angeles Clippers’ guard Willie Green off of waivers and signed a pair of veterans, guard Ben Gordon and power forward Channing Frye.
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Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders believes the Magic are more likely to use their cap space later on in the season and are finished in free agency.
"The Orlando Magic have roughly $8.34 million in cap space and could free up an additional $2.81 million by renouncing the cap holds on E’Twaun Moore and the draft rights to Fran Vasquez. The Magic are roughly $5.66 million away from the NBA‘s required minimum salary of $56.759 million, although they have until the end of the season to meet that number. The Magic for the most part seem finished in free agency and are more likely to use their space later in the season given that they have basically 13 players under contract for the upcoming season."
The Magic are trying to build around their young core so will like give players like Payton, Gordon and Victor Oladipo chances to play rather than spending money on any more veterans.