As of Thursday’s closing of the NBA trade deadline, the Orlando Magic are below .500 and did nothing. They made no deals and no roster changes to upgrade in hopes of salvaging an opportunity to meet their preseason expectation of hosting a playoff series.

President of basketball operations Jeff Weltman told the Orlando Sentinel’s Jason Beede, “I really want to project this out to our fans: ‘We’re OK… We’re in a very good position right now. I know that we had a really great start to the season, and I feel like that’s who we are.”

In short, if the Magic had more time with franchise forward Paolo Banchero, second star Franz Wagner, and point guard Jalen Suggs all playing together, they would likely have a winning record and sit above eighth in the Eastern Conference standings — and maybe enough confidence from the front office to make a move this season. While the trio has only recorded six games of the first 54 (and counting as Suggs is currently sidelined), not making a trade at this point feels like a capitulation that Orlando is settling for being a traveling team in the NBA Playoffs.

While the Magic as a guaranteed playoff team in a top-six seed for the East is a possibility, does a healthy core of stars and sixth-man Mo Wagner staying healthier fix the issues on offense and shooting the basketball? While they would likely be better than a league-worst 103.8 points per game heading into Saturday’s 112-111 win against the San Antonio Spurs, would it be enough to put them in the company of the elite of the East?

While they did beat the second-seeded Boston Celtics and the third-seeded New York Knicks (who both average just above 117 points per game) at earlier moments in the season, the Celtics were without star Jason Tatum that night and the Knicks were without their versatile big man Karl Anthony Towns. The Magic series with New York has concluded at 1-3 while they are 1-2 facing Boston as their final game at the KIA center in the regular season on April 9th.

There’s validity to Weltman avoiding a bad deal made in desperation for a year that won’t render an NBA title, but it’s pretty clear that the Orlando front office is waiting for the summer to make a move. Something made clear by Weltman who has faith in what’s already in his building. “We’ve got to get healthy again. Our young guys are going to get better and better, and we have all of our assets in our pocket.”

With the head of basketball operations blaming injury for the franchise’s struggles with his words in this campaign, it only makes the Magic’s actions — or rather their inaction — speak louder. There’s a line of thinking that says this young core of players will only get stronger with the adversity of this season, but only so much more time remains before Bacnhero commands a max contract against the salary cap. The Magic need to get right and do so quickly.

That’s not to say the Magic can’t at least make a little noise this season. With the Magic playing a stretch of 10 in 11 games at home starting with Saturday’s Spurs win and a 26-28 win-loss record.

The Magic host their fellow Southeast Division-mates Atlanta Hawks on Monday for the first time this season. They then head into the All-Star break with the Charlotte Hornets on Wednesday, February 12th. If they win out, a .500 record awaits with an eight-day break before heading to Atlanta on February 20th to face the Hawks again.