After going nine years between having top-ten lottery picks, the Orlando Magic find themselves drafting within the top-five picks for the second consecutive year. Last season the Magic took Victor Oladipo with the second overall pick and by all accounts it was a solid pick; the unfortunate thing was that they tried to play Oladipo out of position at the point guard spot and that in itself produced some struggles for the rookie.

There are definitely some signs of optimism in Orlando though as they have some significant salary cap dollars to work with as well as a decent nucleus of young players like Oladipo, Arron Afflalo, Nikola Vucevic and Tobias Harris. Add to this mix the fourth overall pick in this draft and the building blocks are in place for this franchise as they move forward.

The Magic have a couple roster problems to deal with; one of which is that they lack any toughness up front and another is that they are an incredibly young and inexperienced team. They could probably address the toughness by adding a decent veteran forward via free agency; however, the inexperience is what will ultimately doom the Magic to yet another lottery selection next season.

Biggest Draft Day Need:

I don’t think anyone would disagree with the assessment that Oladipo would be better served as a two guard rather than running the point. Although the Magic have a team option on Jameer Nelson it comes with an $8 million price tag which might be too steep for management to justify knowing that they won’t be a playoff team with or without Nelson there.

There is no question that point guard is the biggest need for this club the only real question is how are they going to address it. Once the Magic are on the clock with the fourth overall pick there figures to be two solid point guards available here for them to choose from.

Australia’s Dante Exum and Marcus Smart from Oklahoma State are the highest ranked prospects at the position and both figure to contribute in their own ways. Exum is the more intriguing of the two players as his intangibles and player ceiling figures to be higher than those of Smart’s.

Smart is more NBA ready than Exum as having played the more competitive Division-I basketball and he could adapt quicker to the longer schedule, physicalness of the game and speed at which it is played at. Exum again can’t compete right off the start with those attributes; however, he is just 18-years old and yet to really mature into his potential as a player.

Adding intrigue to this already difficult decision is the fact that Joel Embiid’s foot surgery is likely to cause his draft status to slide and he could very well be available here whereas he was once thought of as a lock to be a top three pick. Despite having a need at point guard, if Embiid is available here it must give considerable pause for thought.

Orlando has a reputation for drafting successful big men and riding them to success. First came Shaquille O’Neal followed by Dwight Howard and now could we see Embiid get brought into the fold? Picking Exum here makes the most amount of sense for the short-term. Long-term, I could see the Magic making a deal to move Afflalo and his salary and then gamble on the injured Embiid with the idea of bringing him along slowly and maybe not at all for the first year.

Even with the injury risk to Embiid, I still don't see him slipping past the three spot; which would mean that the Magic are back to picking between which point guard they like better. When that decision does get made the Magic will see that Exum has more potential and upside that Smart and ultimately it will be the 18-year old Australian who gets his name called.