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Orlando Magic: It’s Postseason or Bust

By Maxwell Ogden

Jan 25, 2015; Orlando, FL, USA; Orlando Magic guard Victor Oladipo (5) high fives forward Channing Frye (8) and center Nikola Vucevic (9) and guard Elfrid Payton (4) and forward Aaron Gordon (00) against the Indiana Pacers during the first quarter at Amway Center. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
Jan 25, 2015; Orlando, FL, USA; Orlando Magic guard Victor Oladipo (5) high fives forward Channing Frye (8) and center Nikola Vucevic (9) and guard Elfrid Payton (4) and forward Aaron Gordon (00) against the Indiana Pacers during the first quarter at Amway Center. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports /
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Since trading Dwight Howard in 2012, the Orlando Magic have been unable to piece together any measure of reasonable success. They’ve gone from 20-62 in 2012-13 to 23-59 in 2013-14 to 25-57 in 2014-15.

Slow as that progression may be, it’s postseason or bust for Scott Skiles and the Magic in 2015-16.

Admittedly, every team’s goal is to make the playoffs and compete for a championship. For a large portion of NBA franchises, however, progress and personnel development can be achieved at a time when wins are still tough to come by.

For Orlando, nothing positive will come without reaching the 2016 NBA Playoffs.

Orlando has utilized the NBA Draft and the Howard trade to find a player with star potential at all five positions. Rookie Mario Hezonja has yet to take the court, but the other four have all shown flashes of brilliance—three of whom with consistency.

Thus, the question beckons: why can’t Orlando play with that same level of consistency as a team?

The Youth Movement

Tobias Harris, Victor Oladipo and Nikola Vucevic could all solidify their respective rises to stardom and compete on All-Star Weekend. Elfrid Payton could improve his shooting and continue to thrive as a triple-double threat.

Mario Hezonja could step up as a rookie and show the NBA community that he’s already prepared for the spotlight. Even Evan Fournier and Aaron Gordon can work their way into the starting lineup.

None of that will matter if Orlando fails to make the playoffs.

In the backcourt, both Oladipo and Payton are potentially elite defenders with offensive upside. Payton has emerged as a gifted facilitator—8.3 assists per game after the All-Star Break—and Oladipo has done the same as a scorer—20.3 points per game in the same window.

Both players must continue to progress, but they’re already one of the top backcourts in the Eastern Conference.

In the frontcourt, Harris averaged 17.1 points, 6.3 rebounds and 1.3 3-point field goals made on a slash line of .466/.364/.788 as a hybrid forward. Vucevic was viewed by most as an All-Star Game snub after tallying 19.3 points and 10.9 rebounds per game on 52.3 percent shooting from the field.

According to Basketball-Reference.com, Vucevic and DeMarcus Cousins were the only two players to average at least 19.0 points and 10.5 rebounds in 2014-15.

Unfortunately, that surplus of talent failed to provide the Magic with success as a team. Not only was it 25-57 overall, but Orlando compiled just 13 wins at home.

Orlando is still young, but a team with that type of talent cannot produce just 25 wins in the Eastern Conference.

Five Individuals vs. A Team

It seems strange to say about a 25-win team that’s barely added anything, but Orlando’s roster is postseason-caliber. Four spots in the starting lineup are possessed by genuine rising stars, and either Fournier, Gordon or Hezonja could soon become a fifth.

The veterans who are excluded from that conversation—Channing Frye, Jason Smith and C.J. Watson—all bring experience and a valuable skill set to the table.

Thus, it’s becoming increasingly more difficult to understand why Orlando is having such trouble winning games. Perhaps it was forgivable a season ago, but even then, the Magic were expected to make some type of progress.

Instead, they went from 23 to 25 victories and never seemed to gel under Jacque Vaughn or James Borrego.

More times than not, the Magic were a team with talented individuals who were playing on an island. According to NBA.com, Orlando was No. 4 in drives per game and No. 23 in field goal percentage on such attempts.

It also ranked No. 23 in points created via assists per game, per NBA.com—as telling a statistic as you’ll find about the 2014-15 Magic.

New Coach, New Identity

Come 2015-16, a new head coach will be at the helm: Scott Skiles. Skiles held a head coaching gig in every season but one from 1999-2000 to 2012-13, making six postseason appearances.

With 876 regular season games under his coaching belt, Skiles has a career winning percentage of .506.

The hope in Orlando is that Skiles, who played point guard for the Magic from 1989 to 1994, can restore some of the past glory. The Magic have mastered the draft and acquired two excellent young players, Harris and Vucevic, in the Howard trade.

What Skiles hopes to bring is defensive consistency and ball movement—two vital traits that were absent in 2014-15, when Orlando was No. 27 in defensive efficiency.

The Eastern Conference is growing stronger, but few teams have a starting lineup quite like Orlando’s. It isn’t ready to contend for a championship, but having four young players of Harris, Oladipo, Payton and Vucevic’s caliber is quite rare.

At the very least, what Orlando needs from Skiles is to continue doing what he’s done in the past: elevate the team to the point of .500.

Orlando isn’t experienced enough to win the NBA championship, but it’s been together long enough to secure the No. 8 seed. Overachievement is required, to some extent, but the talent pool suggests otherwise.

It’s strange to say about a team that won 25 games in 2014-15, but in 2015-16, it’ll be postseason or bust for the Orlando Magic.

Next: Where does Channing Frye rank amongst the NBA's starting power forwards?

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