When the duo of John Hammond and Jeff Weltman were running the basketball side of operations in Milwaukee years ago, there was an unspoken directive from the teams owner, Senator Herb Kohl, to find a way into the playoffs. As the top seed, with a chance to win the East? That would be ideal. But even if not, Kohl a least wanted his team sneak in and go for a No. 8 seed.

There were times when it was painfully obvious the Bucks should have swallowed their medicine, sold off assets and gone through a rebuilding period, when even the brain trust knew it. Instead, the owner wanted to give the community a winner, so the Bucks consistently sought out a .500 record, even though it often came with a first-round playoff bludgeoning.

Weltman (who was the No. 2 in Milwaukee but is in charge now in Orlando) and Hammond have been in much the same situation in their time with the Magic, seeking playoff spots and shunning a rebuilding program. Not because it was what the owner wanted in this case but, rather, reflected the pairs desire to see that Orlando took its core of Nikola Vucevic, Aaron Gordon and Evan Fournier as far as it possibly could go before breaking it up.

That happened at this years trade deadline, of course, with all three dealt away for draft picks and (mostly) young players.

"We didn't set out on this path when the season started, Weltman said back at the March trade-deadline post-mortem. We felt we could be a homecourt team. Now that I see how the season went, I feel that even more. We got punched in the nose by a historic wave of injuries."

Ah, but forget that. Injuries happen, and the trades got made. The future in Orlando has been reset.

The early returns from the flood of moves must have Weltman and Hammond giddy about that future now, because the haul Orlando took in, especially in the Vucevic deal with Chicago, is shaping up to pay bigger and bigger dividends with each day, it seems. That is true most obviously with center Wendell Carter Jr., who has helped the Magic soothe away their concerns over big man Mo Bamba, whose development has been promising at times but wildly inconsistent. Carter is playing the best basketball of his career, averaging 13.3 points and 8.9 rebounds, shooting 54.5% from the field.

And he is just 22.

The Magic also have the Bulls pick this season (as well as 2023), protected for the Top 4, and Chicagos swan dive in the past month since the Vucevic trade figures to be a huge benefit to Orlando. The Bulls have fallen out of the playoff picture by two games, and would currently have either the No. 9 or 10 pick in the draftand conovey it to Orlando. With the Magics own pick comfortably near the top of the draft pecking order, Orlando is holding out hope for two Top 10 picks in a very talented draft class.

That puts the Magic in position to pick a franchise cornerstone this year, and add a rotation piece behind him. Jalen Suggs, Cade Cunningham, Evan Mobley, Jonathan Kuminga, Jalen Greenits very likely Orlando will get one of them, and all five have a shot to be stars. They can, and likely will, follow that up with a high-end project in the back end of the lottery, like Turkish star Alperen Sengun, Stanford wing Ziaire Williams or Australias Josh Giddey.

Carter and the potential lottery pick constitute a good start for rebuilding. But the Magic will also get to gamble on young guards Gary Harris and R.J. Hampton, acquired from Denver for Gordon. Harris has struggled with his shot but is coming off his best game of the year, a 19-point, seven-assists, six-rebound showing against Cleveland. Hampton turned 20 in February and still looks raw, but his upside is obvious. If one of those two becomes, at worst, a producive sixth man-type, its another Magic win. Both have that capability.

The Magic also have, in addition to Chicagos first-rounders this year and in 2023, a Denver first-rounnder in 2025 and a $17 million trade exception acquired in the Fournier deal, which can be used to conjure up more assets this offseason. The Magic still have bench scorer Terrence Ross on hand with a reasonable contract ($24 million combined over the next two years), and are expected to shop him for more assets this offseason.

And there are the assets the Magic had on hand already, which, when healthy, have the potential to be he core of a good team. Guards Markelle Fultz and Cole Anthony probably need a veteran for guidance, but both have lead-guard potential. Star forward Jonathan Isaac, who could be he key to the Magics upward move, is recovering from two knee injuries, and wing Chuma Okeke is looking inncreasingly better as he, too, moves on past knee surgeryOkeke is averaging 12.8 pins, 4.8 rebounds and 2.8 assists in his las 18 games, 17 of which he played as a starter.

There is a lot to like in Orlando. And should the Bulls continue to sag, it is only a matter of months before there is even more to like about this team.