Magic need to set tone, embrace competition in month ahead

The Orlando Magic’s offseason will end Monday, when players and coaches convene at Amway Center for their annual media day. On Tuesday, the Magic will hold their first official practice of the 2014-15 season.

The regular-season opener looms on Oct. 28.

What do the Magic need to accomplish in the month ahead? Here’s a checklist.

Set the tone
With the franchise about to begin Year 3 of its rebuilding project, many experts (and fans) believe it’s time for the Magic to start winning more games after two seasons of bottoming out. General manager Rob Hennigan has said the team is “now shifting into a phase of this building plan where we want to start to establish an identity on the floor” and “growth and progress” are expected.

Embrace competition
Coach Jacque Vaughn expects more competition for playing time than in his two previous preseasons as the Magic’s head coach.

“Our environment will be a little bit different than it was in the past in the sense that there are going to be a lot of minutes earned from different individuals on the team,” Vaughn said.

This year, there aren’t any questions about who’ll make the team’s season-opening roster.

Of the 15 players on Orlando’s roster, big men Kyle O’Quinn and Dewayne Dedmon are the only players whose 2014-15 contracts aren’t fully guaranteed. But O’Quinn and Dedmon are locks to make the roster, and their contracts for the upcoming season will become fully guaranteed on Oct. 28.

On Monday, the Magic are expected to announce they have signed guards Seth Curry, Peyton Siva and Drew Crawford and big man Kadeem Batts. But although Curry, Siva, Crawford and Batts are going to be training-camp invitees, they will not compete for spots on Orlando’s season-opening roster. The team’s plan is to waive them and, if they clear waivers, assign them to the Magic’s D-League affiliate, the Erie BayHawks.

Although Curry, Siva, Crawford and Batts will be in Orlando over the next month to train for the upcoming season, they are not expected to practice with the Magic and will not travel for preseason games.

Clear up the logjam on the wing
The most significant amount of competition for minutes should be on the wing, where the team has plenty of options. Aaron Gordon, Maurice Harkless and Tobias Harris are among the possibilities to play small forward. Evan Fournier, Ben Gordon, Willie Green, Devyn Marble, Victor Oladipo and Elfrid Payton are some of the options to play shooting guard.

To be sure, many of these players can play other positions. Oladipo, Payton, Fournier and Green, for example, can — and will — initiate offense from the point-guard spot.

But at some point, Vaughn will have to make tough decisions about playing time — a welcome problem for him to have. The team will have eight preseason exhibitions to sort things out.

Pick up rookie-scale options
The Magic must make procedural moves before Oct. 31 to exercise their team options on former first-round picks for the 2015-16 season.

The team will exercise its third-year option on Oladipo and its fourth-year options on Fournier, Harkless and Andrew Nicholson before the deadline.

The Magic likely will make these procedural moves relatively close to the regular-season opener. Last year, the team exercised its 2014-15 rookie-scale options for Harkless, Harris, Nicholson and Nik Vucevic on Oct. 26.

Consider Harris and Vucevic extensions
The team has until Oct. 31 to reach contract extensions with Harris and Vucevic, who are entering their fourth NBA seasons. Hennigan has said the team would like to reach extensions with both players.

But, at the same time, it wouldn’t be a crisis for the Magic if extensions aren’t reached. Without extensions, Harris and Vucevic will be on track to become restricted free agents during the summer of 2015, and the Magic would have the ability to match any offer Harris and Vucevic would receive in free agency.

Prepare the rookies
The Magic’s three rookies — Aaron Gordon, Payton and Marble — will face a difficult transition. It’s important for them to get acclimated as quickly as possible so they can contribute early in the season.

jbrobbins@tribune.com. Read his blog at OrlandoSentinel.com/magicblog and follow him on Twitter at @JoshuaBRobbins.