NBA Tank Rankings: It begins

4. Orlando Magic

Front office weirdness is at play over in Orlando as well. Florida likes weird. It’s in all their headlines:

Florida man bites house, sues house for tongue chafing
Florida man buries leg in wet cardboard, wakes up pregnant
Florida man exchanges 4 dimes for a quarter, exchanges quarter for 2 nickels, retains job

Some people call that home. It’s a lovely state if you like alligators, hurricanes, and Mickey Mouse’s dumb face slash attitude toward life. If you don’t like basketball, that helps too. (Before you say anything, Dion Waiters transcends basketball.)

Rob Hennigan wants to win now but mostly tomorrow but to also be employed now but also mostly tomorrow. He is Jerry Buss without familial relations getting in the way. When Jerry zigs, Rob also zigs. They get ziggy with it.

They have their own pick this year and whatever is a worse pick between Toronto and the Clippers. The funnest twig of the big zig tree is that a Lakers pick in 2019 might be theirs as well. Orlando can’t control ping pong balls, and they can’t control the Lakers’ record.

But they can control their own. Orlando is currently sitting with the fourth most ping pong balls. The Lakers are one spot better than that. If Orlando wants a better chance for 2019, they gotta lose enough to wedge themselves between Los Angeles and the odds. This will to wedge has to compete with the will to maybe save some face after trying to get Ibaka ended with trying to get rid of Ibaka. That only took a couple months. It’s impressive, really.

There’s ambivalence here. This keeps them out of the top three for now.