Orlando Magic: Jonathon Simmons has disappointed this season

Jonathon Simmons has disappointed for the Orlando Magic this season, but is that more down to the player or the organization?

When the Orlando Magic signed Jonathon Simmons last summer, it was seen by many as a real get for the organization.

Not just because LeBron James tried to recruit the player to join his championship drive with the Cleveland Cavaliers, but on top of that, San Antonio Spurs fans, who Simmons had spent the previous two seasons impressing, voiced their displeasure at seeing him leave.

Everything was all set up for Simmons to seize his chance and play a much bigger role with a rebuilding team, and in doing so bring his trademark work ethic and defensive effort.

Despite early promise, his first season with the Magic did not ultimately go that way. It may yet prove to be his last with the team too.

But who is more responsible for this player’s large dip in performance — Simmons himself or the Magic organization?

Before pressing on, we also need to highlight the fact that Simmons hasn’t been horrible on the court all year from the team. For the first six weeks or so, he was great. Since then, he just hasn’t progressed like the team would have hoped. He has also regressed in several areas.

It is also just disappointing to see a player who did so well in smaller bursts with the Spurs not carry that momentum onto a team that desperately needed it.

The other real negative to the play of Simmons this season has been how his trade value may be hampered going forward. He was signed to a three-year, $18 million deal last summer and this represents fantastic value for any team that employs him.

Even more so for the Magic when compared to the money that Bismack Biyombo and Evan Fournier are contracted to take home for years to come.

There’s no doubt he could do a great job coming off the bench for a playoff team, but the market for his services has dwindled now as a result of how he’s played this season.

Whereas before, asking for a first round pick in exchange for Simmons wouldn’t have been out of the question for the Magic, now it feels like it would be. The poor season he’s had in Orlando could have an unwanted knock-on effect for the organization going forward.

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Back to the season Simmons has had though, and straight away his defensive lapses can be explained through how poor the team has been.

The Magic currently rank 21st in defensive rating (108.1) and despite some recent improvement in that area (they rank 11th over the last 10 games) they’re going through the worst two-year stretch on that end since the rebuild began.

Simmons has also missed the last six games due to injury, so he hasn’t really contributed all that much to the late season improvements either.

This shows in the Magic’s defensive rating when Simmons is on the court for them, a terrible 110.9. That is worse than even the lowest team in this category (Phoenix Suns, 110.8).

Still, essentially every player on the team is having their worst season on that end, and so head coach Frank Vogel must take some blame for that.

What is concerning though is seeing Simmons go from posting an incredible 96.7 in 17.9 minutes per game in that category last season to the 110.9 in 29.4 per game this year. That’s a big drop.

Beyond that, and it is clear Simmons failed to truly grasp the opportunity to be a bigger feature on the offensive end as well. His 13.9 points per game so far this year more than double his previous career high (6.2 points per game), but that’s not exactly saying much.

Looking past that, his offensive rating of 103.8 when on the court is a career low. Last season saw him post a 105.5.

Obviously playing in the fabulous system the Spurs have in place to move the ball is always going to inflate player’s scores here. But Simmons had a chance to not only take what he’d learned in San Antonio and use it in Orlando, but also have the offense run through him a bit more.

Which it still did, as Simmons has a career-high 21.9 percent usage rating when on the court. That is also the fifth highest mark on this team.

It just hasn’t manifested itself in improved offensive play for the Magic. Interestingly though, some of what Simmons does when the team needs him to carry a bigger load still shows up.

He posts a higher points per game total on the road (14.4) than at home (13.4). Simmons curiously also averages 19.5 points per contest on the second night of a back-to-back.

He has played in 13 such games this season. Yet, when the team has three or more days rest between games, he puts up 9.5 points per game.

Is this proof that Simmons still brings maximum effort to the team when others might be struggling with the schedule? Absolutely, but that massive drop-off after some rest is concerning.

Even more worrying than that is the Player Efficiency Rating (league average 15) that Simmons has posted this year. His 12.8 might be a career high, but that speaks more to the limited role he had in San Antonio that this is the highest he’s ranked in his three-year career in that category.

Right now that number is even lower than guys on the team like Khem Birch (12.9) and Shelvin Mack (13.3). Even Biyombo (13.5) can boast a better rating.

Birch has been a lovely defensive addition, while the qualities of both Mack and Biyombo have been documented before. But for Simmons to have less of an impact than these guys on this team really illustrates not only how his year has been, but also why the Magic have struggled as badly as they have.

Jonathon Simmons was meant to be the player who, through leadership and providing a voice defensively, helped this team take the next step forward. Instead he has been largely anonymous.

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You could blame the player for this, but in the end it looks more likely that the terrible culture which has seeped through the Orlando Magic got to one of the more hardworking players in the league.