The Orlando Magic and Toronto Raptors met on Sunday evening in Orlando, with the Magic cruising to a 111-96 victory that got here as little shock given the present trajectory of the 2 groups.
Orlando is a younger workforce on the rise, sitting fifth within the East, making the leap into playoff rivalry this yr behind Paolo Banchero’s progress into an All-Star together with regular enchancment from the younger forged round him. The Raptors, in the meantime, are starting their rebuild after lastly buying and selling OG Anunoby and Pascal Siakam to construct round Scottie Barnes, and can certainly look to what Orlando’s achieved as a possible blueprint for the way greatest to construct a younger roster that may compete on each ends of the ground.
After the sport, the 2 groups’ first spherical picks from a yr in the past, Gradey Dick and Anthony Black, met at midcourt and hashed out a plan to do a jersey swap, recognizing an ideal social media alternative once they noticed it, resulting in the Magic tweeting out this picture of the 2 children (which ultimately obtained deleted after somebody made a cellphone name I’m certain, however the web lives eternally).
In case you have been questioning in the event that they knew what they have been doing with this swap and their positioning, after all they did, as Rob Perez identified on Twitter you could possibly see Dick say “f**ok it” as they mentioned whether or not to make the swap or not (and Black modified what aspect of Dick he was on to verify they obtained the funniest potential picture opp).
You’ll be able to see Black attempting his greatest to not snicker, and I might guess that Gradey Dick might be a very talked-about jersey swap within the NBA as his profession goes on as a result of, deep down, everybody remains to be a youngster at coronary heart.
