The Magic made Andrew Nicholson the 19th pick in the NBA Draft nearly a year ago.

It seems like Nicholson has been playing longer, since his refined post game made him an immediate impact player for the Magic. Moreso than any of the other rookies on the Magic's roster.

He still has a lot to improve on -- specifically on the defensive end. But Nicholson's post game and mid-range shooting make him a player that is clearly apart of the Magic's future rotation -- at the very least coming off the bench. Orlando is hoping Nicholson continues to improve and build upon a strong rookie season.

Nicholson though has a strong following and a lot of support to get there. From the vocal St. Bonaventure fans that made the trek to Cleveland twice for Nicholson's games or flood Twitter with support for Andrew Nicholson or his fans in his native Canada and Mississauga outside Toronto.

There are a lot of people very proud of this rookie.

Nicholson brought his experience and expertise to the Five To Watch Conference, honoring five young sports business leaders in Canada, as a keynote speaker at the conference. Knowing how some of his interviews go, that should have been a very interesting talk. But Nicholson has a lot of experience to impart. He came to basketball late after playing baseball most of his youth life. He took to the sport pretty quickly and obviously made the NBA.

The NBA Draft Combine wrapped up in Chicago on Friday, and Rob Hennigan told Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel that the two day event was "very productive."

Many of the top prospects did not participate in the Drills portion, but that is not the point of the event for many general managers. For many of those players, the teams have done their research and their scouting. They know what these players will do and what they need to improve on. The next four-plus weeks are about learning who these players are as people and figuring out how they fit into the team's future plans.

That is why the interview process is often the most important part of the two-day event. Teams are allowed to interview up to 18 players for no more than 30 minutes during the two days. More interviews and individual workouts will follow leading up to the NBA Draft on June 28.

Hennigan told Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel:

It's been very productive. We got a chance to talk to a lot of guys who we've been following throughout the year, and anytime you get a chance to spend half an hour with them, you glean some valuable things.

The way the rules are set up, you're observing these players from a distance for such a long period of time. Then, you actually have a chance to have an interpersonal exchange. So that just adds another layer of information that you put into the cauldron, and you stir it around and then it will help you to try to make a decision.

The Magic interviewed several draft prospects during the two-day event. That included the favorites for the top pick such as Ben McLemore and Nerlens Noel. Otto Porter also interviewed with the Magic. Trey Burke did not, but he is expected to be in Orlando for a workout in the very near future.

The Magic will find out where they will select in the 2013 NBA Draft on Tuesday night when the Lottery teams gather in New York for the annual Draft Lottery. Until then, all the organization can do is its homework.

At the NBA Draft Combine on Thursday and Friday, the Magic began the next phase of their homework getting the opportunity to interview and talk with the Draft prospects for the first time.

The Magic took advantage of that to its fullest extent early on. Yes, they talked to the top prospects as Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel reported. Both Ben McLemore and Nerlens Noel were on their Thursday night interview schedule. Both are confident that they will be the top pick in the Draft and that they can sell themselves to whatever team gets the number one pick.

The real meat of Rob Hennigan's work comes from interviewing the players lower down in the Draft. And here, we at least get a look at the Magic's early draft strategy.

At Thursday's Draft Combine, Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel reported the Magic had already interviewed Lehigh point guard C.J. McCollum and Texas point guard Myck Kabongo. Both are very skilled scoring point guards with lots of talent. Kabongo played only 11 games at Texas because of NCAA rules violations. McCollum missed most of his senior season at Lehigh with a broken leg (that he is fully healed from, he opted not to participate in the combine), but he was a prolific scorer for the Mountain Hawks.

Both of these players project to get drafted in the late lottery at the earliest. They are clearly not in the Magic's draft range.

However, the fact the Magic are interviewing these prospects suggests that they recognize a need at point guard. Jameer Nelson is getting older and Beno Udrih is not likely to get re-signed this offseason. Magic fans seem to favor Trey Burke for that top draft pick, but that may be a bit of a reach unless Orlando ends up with the fourth pick. There is still time for him to climb up draft boards though.

And it is still a very real possibility the Magic trade down. Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel wrote that the Magic's Draft plans likely have not been completely hashed out. Tuesday's Draft Lottery should clear up the picture some.

Orlando is simply doing its homework. If the team opts to trade down, drafting a point guard like McCollum or Kabongo is a real possibility.

That is still a long way off though.

The offseason gives me time to do random pet projects. And also to show how obsessive I can be about the Magic.

YouTube is a wonderful mine of Magic and NBA video that sometimes goes unrecognized and untapped. In an effort to unearth its treasures, I am endeavoring to post all those videos in one spot. That is the Magic Video Vault. You can access it any time by clicking on the link in the menu.

Right now it is in its infancy, so the cupboard is a little bare. But so far there are at least two classic games in full for you to enjoy.

In the Magic Video Vault in its opening you can enjoy the 1995 Eastern Conference Semifinals Game 1 against the Bulls IN ITS ENTIRETY. You not only get to see Nick Anderson steal the ball, but also Hakeem Olajuwon's postgame interview after the Rockets beat the Jazz on NBC before the Magic game started.

You can also enjoy Nick Anderson doing the Shake after beating Shaquille O'Neal in his first game in Orlando after leaving for the Lakers, again, IN ITS ENTIRETY.

I will be posting other games as I find them.

Please, feel free to give me feedback on how it is organized (I will change organization as I add more video) and suggestions for games to search for and add. You can contact me on Twitter @OMagicDaily or by e-mail at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . This is going to be a community project and one that I hope serves Magic fans well!

Enjoy the videos! And don't blame me if you cannot get any work done. :-)

The Magic are out in full force in Chicago this week for the NBA Draft Combine. While several draft prospects will be focusing on impressing scouts with their skills, many of the top picks are sitting out and participating only in the measurement and agility drills portion Friday. For scouts and front office staff, the more valuable part comes in being able to talk to and interview the top prospect for the first time.

The Magic will obviously do their homework -- they also hold the 51st pick in the Draft -- and look at all the players that interest them. However, Orlando can narrow its focus some and target the top prospects knowing the team will have one of the top four picks.

Fans have turned their focus to Nerlens Noel and Ben McLemore (the consensus top two picks, it would seem). In addition, Trey Burke has become a Magic fan favorite to address a point guard need. Even Victor Oladipo has become someone the Magic may look at with their top pick.

The guy left out: Georgetown's Otto Porter.

The Magic have a nice stable of power forwards and tweener forwards on the roster already. Glen Davis, Tobias Harris and Andrew Nicholson already are on the roster and Maurice Harkless seems entrenched for the moment at small forward. Porter does not quite fit the roster.

But, as I would argue, the Magic are in a position to pick the best player avaialble. Porter very well could be that guy at No. 4 on the Magic's draft board.

Things were going to change this season for the Magic. It did not take a genius to figure that out with Stan Van Gundy departing as head coach and Dwight Howard departing as the team's star.

In the five years those two were together the strategy for the Magic was simple. Either dump the ball into Dwight Howard to get a dunk or easy basket or have him collapse the defense and dish back out to the perimeter for a 3-pointer or a driving lane as the defense rotated back out.

This offense from Van Gundy sought to maximize efficiency by having the Magic take the two most efficient shots -- layups and 3-pointers. Mid-range jumpers were not a premium in that offense.

Partially because of the roster he had and partially because he was trying to implement his own offensive system, the Magic went away from this strategy. They no longer had the sure-fire low-post threat and they no longer had the same number of pure 3-point shooters. Offense would have to be created a new way.

There were a healthy amount of pick and rolls, but also a lot more isolation plays. Glen Davis was involved in isolations for 7.5 percent of his shots and in post ups for 29.1 percent of his shots. Jameer Nelson had 13.1 percent of his shots come from isolations and 46.2 percent come in pick and rolls. Without a clear go-to scoring option, the Magic had to rely on players, perhaps forcing shots to get good looks.

It should come as no surprise, especially considering how much the Magic struggled offensively this year, that several Magic players were forced into difficult, low efficiency shots. And the number bear that out.

Ian Levy of Hickory High compiled a list of players who had the lowest expected points per shot, a metric Levy created to measure the efficiency of shots players take on the floor.

According to Levy, Ish Smith had the 10th worst expected points per shot (0.985 XPPS) among players with less than a 19 percent usage rate, E'Twaun Moore had the 10th worst (0.974 XPPS), Beno Udrih had the fifth worst (0.962 XPPS) and Andrew Nicholson had the fourth worst expected points per shot (0.954 XPPS) among players with a usage rate between 19 and 24 percent and Glen Davis had the 10th worst expected points per shot (0.993 XPS) among players with a usage rate of more than 24 percent.

The Magic made it pretty clear -- particularly at the end of the season -- they were going to go young and play their rookies and young players to speed along their development. Orlando was not expecting any of its rookies to win the Rookie of the Year. Maurice Harkless, Andrew Nicholson, Kyle O'Quinn and DeQuan Jones were bringing brought along slowly.

They all still had great seasons. Harkless and Nicholson seemed to have good enough seasons to gain All-Rookie team consideration.

Nope. Not so much.

The NBA announced its All-Rookie teams Tuesday and the Magic's rookies were left off. NBA Rookie of the Year and Portland guard Damian Lillard headlined the first team and the lone unanimous selection along with Washington's Bradley Beal, New Orleans' Anthony Davis (the top overall pick), Cleveland's Dion Waiters and Golden State's Harrison Barnes. The second team is Detroit's Andre Drummond, Toronto's Jonas Valanciunas, Charlotte's Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Detroit's Kyle Singler and Cleveland's Tyler Zeller.

The All-Rookie teams are voted on by the coaches and are selected regardless of position.

Maurice Harkless, for what it is worth, was the first player left off the second team. He actually tied Zeller with 15 points and apparently lost because he received only one first place vote to Zeller's three. Hopefully it keeps him hungry.

The season has wound down and the season recaps and highlights are coming out. I already did a collection of the year's highlights for the Magic in a full season recap shortly after the season ended.

Now the NBA is back at it with some of the lighter moments from the NBA season.

Yes, the Magic make a few appearances. Nothing too embarrassing though. Just the PB&J incident, Kyle O'Quinn hitting a Nets player in the head while trying to save a ball from going out of bounds and Glen Davis diving head first into the stands against the Cavaliers (a win, by the way).

Enjoy:

Since we are talking frivolities, the NBA released its nominees for its Social Media Awards. No, there were not any Magic players included in the list. But it has me thinking, what were the social media moments of the Magic's season?

My memory probably is not as good as yours, so I am crowdsourcing for nominees for the Magic Social Media Awards.

The categories and suggested nominees come after the jump:

Over the next few weeks Orlando Magic Daily will be taking a look at the things that went right and wrong this season as Orlando ended its season with its first Lottery season in six years.

When looking at the Magic roster at the beginning of the season, you could assume offense was going to be a problem. The roster did not have a single player who had been a first option offensively before this season. The key players were all nice role players, but hardly anyone you wanted to give the ball to and create offense.

There was no consistent low post threat, no consistent and proven dribble penetrator. There were certainly guys who could do it for short stretches, but no one who had sustained carrying a team for an 82-game season. Asking Jameer Nelson, Glen Davis and Hedo Turkoglu to carry the load was going to be asking a lot.

Still, someone was going to step up and into that role. Someone was going to have to drive this team's offense and help the team push forward, creating for himself and others. Even if it was a different person each game, someone was going to be the lead guy.

The problem of scoring was made more difficult though because the Magic simply could not get to the free throw line. The Magic finished last in the league with 1,359 free throw attempts this season. That turned out to be the fewest free throw attempts in an 82-game season. The team's 16.6 free throw attempts per game were the fewest in league history.

It was not that the Magic did not shoot the ball well from the line. When they got to the line, they made them at 75.5 percent (15th in the league). Orlando even finished 29th in the league in free throws made, impressive considering how few free throws the team shot.

Over the next few weeks Orlando Magic Daily will be taking a look at the things that went right and wrong this season as Orlando ended its season with its first Lottery season in six years.

The No. 6 has hung in the Orlando Arena and Amway Center rafters since 1990. It has always been a symbol for a passionate fan base in a small, but growing, town. There was a jersey retirement ceremony that second season after fans stuck by their new pro franchise through the hiccups and growing pains of an expansion year.

As many fan bases would, the interest has come and gone in the last 24 years with the team's success. When things are great, the O-Rena (or whatever the name on the building is) is rocking. Magic fans are some of the best in the league when the arena is full and engaged. That has not always been the case in the Amway Center.

This is not about in-game atmosphere though or the possibly late-arriving crowd that has plagued Orlando some since moving to the Amway Center.

This is not even about attendance -- which the Magic finished 16th in the league averaging 17,596 fans per game. That was expected to drop with the team expected to lose a lot of games. Orlando went 20-62, the league's worst record, and 12-29 at home.

This is about something deeper. Something that truly went right for the Magic this season. Despite, the league's worst record, Magic fans stuck by their team and remained optimistic. There was frustration from the losing, but there was also an unbridled sense that the team was on the right path. Fans loved the effort from the young players and saw the best in their potential moving forward.

Orlando will certainly cash in on some of it. But that is something for the future, not for this year.

The great thing about running this blog is the opportunity to interact with fans and disucss the Magic. It is really fun to hear what fans are thinking. And over and over again in my conversations the last year with Magic fans there is a hunger to return to winning but an understanding of where the Magic are in the process and the steps ahead.