SAN ANTONIO — The Magic and the Spurs were originally scheduled to tip-off inside Frost Bank Center at 4 p.m. ET on Sunday.
The game was then delayed to 7 p.m. when San Antonio was stranded overnight Saturday in Charlotte due to a winter storm after losing to the Hornets earlier in the day.
After the Spurs departed North Carolina on Sunday morning, however, their plane was diverted to Atlanta because of a minor equipment issue, according to the San Antonio Express-News. They didn’t depart from Georgia until shortly after 2 p.m., leaving fewer than three hours between arrival in San Antonio and tip-off time against Orlando.
That’s when the league announced yet another postponement: Tip-off was moved to 9 p.m. ET on Sunday.
The Magic could do nothing but wait until their Western Conference opponent that they face just twice in the regular season arrived in San Antonio for the game.
After going 6-7 in the month of January, Orlando enters a crucial month in February that could potentially bring change to the locker room.
The NBA trade deadline is set for 3 p.m. ET on Thursday and the league’s All-Star break takes place the following weekend.
Orlando enters the deadline roughly $5.6 million over the luxury tax and making a move to get under the tax could financially benefit the franchise as its roster gets more expensive moving forward with Paolo Banchero‘s max rookie extension kicking in next season.
The Magic are set have more than $155 million locked up next season among Banchero, Franz Wagner, Jalen Suggs and Desmond Bane alone.
Avoiding paying the tax for this season would delay when the Magic could get hit with the repeater tax, which applies to teams that have been above the league’s tax line for at least three of the previous four seasons. Teams that pay the repeater face a significantly higher tax rate, especially as they spend more into the tax.
And then there’s the league All-Star break, a time in the regular season after which Orlando has used in order to climb the East’s standings in years past.
Two seasons ago, the Magic went 17-10 after All-Star weekend to finish fifth in the conference. Last season, they went 14-12 but won 12 of their last 18 to end up with home-court advantage in the Play-In Tournament.
Coach Jamahl Mosley wants his group to remain focused on each game one at a time rather than worry about what could or couldn’t happen in the future when they travel to Oklahoma City on Tuesday.
“I’ve always said it and we say it as a staff: You control what you can control,” the Magic coach said recently. “Part of that is, we control our effort every single day we step on the court. We control how we take care of people that we’re playing with and who we’re around every single day.
“That’s all you can do,” he added. “All of the other stuff, you kind of just let it go because you can’t control any of that. This group takes care of each other and that’s all we’re going to continue to do down the stretch.”
Jason Beede can be reached at jbeede@orlandosentinel.com
Up next …
Magic at Thunder
When: 8 p.m., Tuesday, Paycom Center
TV: FanDuel Sports Network Florida