Orlando Magic: 5 Christmas Wishes
By Luke Duffy
3. Making Free Throws
The Magic are a bottom-10 team when it comes to making their free throws (72.3 percent, 27th in the league). It can’t be stressed enough how making these free looks at the basket is critical to a team winning close games.
Orlando actually has players like Oladipo and Harris who can drive well to the basket and do get fouled, their just not converting these opportunities.
It’s somewhat strange as well, because Oladipo, Frye, Harris and even role players like Ben Gordon and Luke Ridnour are all good shooters. Even Vucevic has a nice shooting touch for a center, so it’s kind of puzzling.
When it’s a close fourth-quarter game and the pace of the contest slows game and every possession counts, making the above percentage of shots won’t cut it.
Let’s not have the team spending Christmas Day shooting free throws as punishment, but it is something that needs to be looked into and changed in 2015. The aim should be to become a top 15 team in this category.
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