A normal NBA season presents numerous challenges. Teams know injuries are coming and players are going to miss games. They prepare themselves to deal with losing streaks and scoring slumps. They try not to get too high or too low.
Hardship arrived just 12 games into the season when center Nikola Vucevic and forward Aaron Gordon were hurt during the team’s Nov. 20 loss to the Raptors in Toronto.
Less than two weeks later, forward Al-Farouq Aminu went down with a knee injury that would lead to season-ending knee surgery. Roughly a month after that, the Magic were dealt another blow when forward Jonathan Isaac, who was having a breakout season, sustained what appeared at the time to be a season-ending knee injury.