Orlando Magic: Why Are They Losing Often?
By Luke Duffy
It being the festive period, a lot of what I have written about recently has been focused on the bright future the Orlando Magic have. Young talented players, cap room, a decent team now even with plenty of unproven players, it’s been all good. Down the road, this has the potential to be a great team.
Sadly though, the here and the now are not so great, with Orlando in a bit of an (expected?) slump. They’ve been losing in all manner of ways, but yet still have slim playoff hopes. Let’s take a look at what needs to change to put some more W’s on the board.
At the risk of alienating some fans, I elected not to delve to much into coach Jacque Vaughn and his impact on the team here. Vaughn seems to genuinely spilt opinion among fans. Some can’t stand the guy, and believe long-term he should not be the guy in charge. To them, he is the root of the problems this team currently has on the court.
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I’m not in love with how he’s coaching this team, but it hasn’t been altogether bad. So I just went with the players themselves and what they’re doing on the court.
It’s funny, in Victor Oladipo and Elfrid Payton, the Magic boast a relatively inexperienced backcourt that already is one of the better defensive duos in the NBA. A few years from now, they could be the stingiest tandem there is. They get steals, stops and generally disrupt opponents.
Center Nikola Vucevic isn’t where he should be as a rim protector, and Tobias Harris has an underrated defensive game. It’s puzzling then, that Orlando have had the third-most points scored against them so far this season. Only the Los Angeles Lakers and Phoenix Suns have had more points scored on them. Not ideal.
Feeding into the theory that this team isn’t all it’s supposed to be defensively given the talented defenders they boast, opponents are shooting 50.5 percentagainst this team. While that might seem quite high, that’s still good for 16th in the league, meaning Orlando is doing something right on the defensive end at least.
They just could be doing more though, especially when you see how much their starters in particular can make defensive stops. Let’s not get into the bench though, as there’s next to nothing going on defensively there. It’s ugly at times.
Vucevic is averaging 11 rebounds a contest, good for sixth in the league. You would think this would make the Magic fearsome on the glass, but the rest of the roster just isn’t pulling its weight. Vucevic does admirable things, he gets a lot of loose balls, but yet this team still ranks 28th in the league in rebounding at 40.8 a game.
Only the shorthanded New York Knicks and the short Miami Heat are below them. Without Vucevic, who admittedly has missed time with injury, they would surely be bottom of the pile. As it is it’s an ugly stat, and a puzzling one too.
Payton is long for his position, Harris and Oladipo are both really athletic, Kyle O’Quinn may be a tad undersized but gives effort and even Channing Frye has the body to do more. If Aaron Gordon were healthy, they’d surely be a little bit higher on this list, but from these numbers it looks like they’re getting outworked in a key aspect of the game.
Allowing 43.1 rebounds against them a game also puts them below average in this category at 18th, although it could be worse.
Clearly then, the defensive side of the game is the reason they’ve dropped three straight and seven of their last 10. Thankfully the offensive end has been better, or so it would seem. This team led the league in three-point percentage earlier in the year, and is currently fifth now, a great place to be.
The three-point shot is the way to go these days, and Orlando has multiple threats in this area. Frye, despite having an underwhelming year, does chip in with some threes and stretches the floor as well. The news that his recent elbow injury suffered against the Charlotte Hornets returned negative scans is good news at a time when this team needs it.
But yet their 19.9 assists per game puts them at a terrible 26th in the league, not good considering this team doesn’t have a ton of players that can generate their own offense. For now they’ve gotten by, and that’s fine, but that number would want to change as well if they have designs on continuing to fight for a playoff spot.
Yet for all the above numbers that need to change, there is still lots to like about this team, and that is a truly great sign. The playoffs this season are slipping away, and that’s all right. Just seeing this team stay competitive for longer will have been enough for some. They need to get better defensively in the short term though, as it will go a long way to helping their long-term goals.
With an upcoming West coast road trip however, it will be tough.