Orlando Magic: Small Ball In Their Future?

It’s widely accepted by most people in the world of basketball that there are certain requirements needed to win an NBA championship.

From a superstar player or two (or three in the case of the Miami Heat, with the 2004 Detroit Pistons being a rare example of a team without one true star, although Chauncey Billups tried to fill that role) to the perfect coach and the perfect system, getting all of these things to come together for a couple of seasons is beyond difficult.

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The Golden State Warriors team that won this year’s Finals ticked all of those boxes, and more. They had their superstar (Stephen Curry) playing in a system in which he and all others thrived. The team also boasted excellent and over-qualified role players (Andre Iguodala) who bought into putting the team first, as well as a deep bench.

One thing the Warriors did which caught the attention of many however was their near perfect execution of playing small ball.

This involved having five players of similar stature on the court at the same time, often resulting in Iguodala or Draymond Green playing center. With their team being so deep and talented, what we usually saw was the Warriors having five capable shooters on the court at one time. These guys doubled as an army of defenders who could all do a lot of the same things too.

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Sure they may have been hammered in the rebounding category some nights, but they were so good at so many other areas of the game, that ultimately didn’t matter. Playing like that successfully worked a lot of teams into a frenzy as they felt it was the blueprint to postseason success, especially against the more imposing teams in this league.

For a young and, let’s be honest here different, Orlando Magic team however, is playing this way in the near future an option?

With the players they currently have, you could kind of see it working some nights for them alright. In Tobias Harris, this team has a young wing who is continuing to expand his range (career-best 34 percent from three-point range last season, compared to a terrible 25 percent the year before).

Add in Mario Hezonja, the incoming rookie who showed at the Summer League in Orlando that he’s got the confidence and range to cause problems, and things start coming together a little bit.

Where the problem lies however, is with the backcourt. Victor Oladipo is turning into quite the player, but a truly consistent jumper is something he still lacks. Some spots on the court he clearly favors more than others and he often has success from those positions.

His 34 percent three-point shooting last season was somewhat encouraging too, his efforts from long range at least trending in the right direction (he shot 32 percent his rookie year).

But he’s just better at doing many other things before shooting, and that’s alright. Oladipo does enough other important things for this team, and it’s not like he couldn’t fit within a small ball system at all. It’s just some defenders may sag off him a little to help cover a bigger threat like Hezonja. Once that starts happening, the entire concept of playing small begins to crumble.

It requires a similar skill set from all participants to see the best results.

Which is why point guard Elfrid Payton would struggle even more so in any of these potential lineups. He is yet to find one real spot on the floor from which he is comfortable getting some shots up. The makeup of his game, a high basketball IQ and some nifty passing, means that a consistent shooting touch may never come.

Again Payton does enough positive things for the Magic, including defending to a high standard like Oladipo, that this is acceptable. It just hampers their chances of playing this way.

What a shame that would be too, as Aaron Gordon may be the key to this brand of basketball working over periods of a game for this team. An athletic forward who can get up and down the court, he showed his expanded offensive game during a brief run in the Orlando Summer League, as well as a newfound confidence. He was letting shots fly from all angles, and many were going in.

If you stuck him as the center in a small-ball lineup, he could cause Draymond Green-like problems for opponents. Clearly their games aren’t overly similar, however if Gordon keeps letting shots fly from further and further back, he could at least space the floor the way Green does. Gordon is also more athletic, and capable of getting up to compete with bigger players.

If you put Gordon together with Hezonja, Harris, Oladipo and Payton (assuming the two guards become even a little better at shooting) all of a sudden this team has a new way of challenging the opposition.

Could it work though? I’m all for trying it out myself to begin the season, just to see what it’s like. But that backcourt combo worries me in how they would contribute. The Magic may yet pick up a backup point guard who may actually fit that system better, a ball handler but also an out and out shooter when his team needs him to be.

The flip side of that however, is the thought of seeing Gordon in a system like that makes me genuinely excited.

Big guys like Zach Randolph or Roy Hibbert would have to follow him out of the paint as his shooting improves, and Gordon has the pace to then blow by these bigger guys. Even more positively, that would then create space for Oladipo and Payton to drive into, something they are far more comfortable and better at doing than purely shooting.

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The pieces the Magic have collected have looked like a unique bunch for a while now, but seeing them play in this system may answer a lot of questions about what direction they are headed. On paper at least it’s hard not to think that having the ability to break out a system like this in close matches could put some extra Ws in the win column as well.

A word of warning however, and it’s something that needs to be highlighted. Playing small ball does not guarantee success in this league. It’s still absolutely possible to win with a more traditional approach, and as we saw in the NBA Finals the Cleveland Cavaliers destroyed the Warriors inside the paint at times.

Their players were just so elite at so many other facets of the game, they were ultimately able to win the championship.

So it was not small ball that won them a title, rather it was being able to change how they played when they needed to in order to beat different kinds of opponents. Center Andrew Bogut was brilliant for Golden State last year and was a huge reason for all their success.

Yet he didn’t start a single game in the Finals and was sparingly used in that series in general. That flexibility is how you win big.

So for the Orlando Magic to climb the Eastern Conference, they will need much more than a funky lineup and some of the more unique players in the league playing within that system to make much noise next year.

After all, we didn’t even mention center Nikola Vucevic, one of the best young bigs in the game and somebody who you’d likely have to bench in order to see the full capabilities of this trending style of basketball. Given that he led this team in scoring last year (19.3 points per game) and is a superb offensive big man, is that really worth it?

But trying to play this way couldn’t hurt, and it certainly could pay dividends during some close games next season. It would appear that the front three players to thrive in this system are already in place, especially in the case of Gordon. Now we can only hope that the backcourt duo are locked away in a gym somewhere right now, working on their shooting touch.

This style of play could work here all right, it’s just not the answer to all of this team’s problems.

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