OKC Thunder: Should the Magic be seen a trade partner for George Hill?

With the Orlando Magic losing Markelle Fultz to a torn ACL, they could be in the market for a replacement point guard. Might OKC Thunder veteran George Hill be a viable target?

Though the OKC Thunder may be off to a better start to the 2020-21 season than many had projected coming in, this likely will not change much in regard to their focus being set on the future.

This offseason, the franchise had a fire-sale, trading virtually everyone who helped guide them to their surprise 2019-20 postseason run. In return, OKC brought on a bevy of future draft capital as well as a few “undesierable” contracts, with the popular belief from fans being General Manager Sam Presti will try and flip said players for more draft capital to add to their collection at some point this season.

Perhaps the most highly-touted asset of this bunch is veteran point guard George Hill, who Shams Charania has tabbed as a ‘hot commodity.’ While we here at TI have acknowledged a few specific landing spots that could be interested in dealing for the 34-year-old, recently another team may have emerged as a prime trade partner for the OKC Thunder.

That team: the Orlando Magic.

As many of you may already know, the team’s fourth-year point guard, Markelle Fultz — who was having somewhat of a breakout season, averaging 12.9 points, 5.4 assists, and a steal per game — suffered a torn ACL Wednesday night, forcing his young campaign to come to an early end as well as creating a vaccancy at the one in the Magic’s starting lineup.

While this is a sizeable bump in the road, Orlando still finds themselves in the second seed out East with a record of 6-2 and, by all accounts, is looking to make it three straight years attaining a postseason berth.

However, if they wish to accomplish such a feat, they’ll need to find a way to mitigate the loss they suffered at the point guard position, and Hill could be a suitable filler.

With more than 100 career playoff appearances on his resume, the vet could serve as an experienced leader for this reletively inexperienced Magic roster while also helping improve upon their 21st ranked 3-point efficiency (Hill is coming off a league-leading 46 percent 3-point shooting campaign and is currently shooting 43 percent), 22nd ranked overall shooting percentage, and would wind up benefiting them on defense as well.

Depending on how interested they are in acquiring a replacement for Fultz, the Thunder could theoretically attain that highly-coveted first-rounder or, perhaps, a young and highly-underutilized asset such as Mo Bamba.

Either way, the idea of pursuing trade talks with the Orlando Magic could wind up being beneficial for both parties and should strongly be considered.