Orlando Magic: 5 takeaways from 2017-18 NBA season

4. Defensive frailties

Vogel might have been coming up with the defensive schemes, but he can’t actually go out on the court and execute them himself. This is where the Magic’s players let their head coach down. The effort they showed was at best casual and at worst catastrophic throughout the year.

The Magic finished the season 20th in defensive rating, posting a mark of 107.7. If anything, a late season commitment to playing harder on this end only helped to make that number look better.

The truth is the team toiled around the bottom seven teams in this category for most of the season. Players like Biyombo (110.4) and Simmons (110.9) had their worst seasons defensively to date.

When somebody like Biyombo is getting paid $17 million a season (making him the joint highest earner on this team) and will be again next year, you need him to do the one thing he can do well: defend.

The fact he could not do that is testament to where the Magic are as an organization defensively right now. Occasionally they show a bit of interest, but they’re slow to rotate, to chase shooters away from their spots, to do … everything really.

Far too many times throughout the year even casual fans could see what an opponent’s offense was about to do, and watched as the team failed to react.

That late season rise (the last 10 games of the season they shot up to seventh), however, brings hope that the team can improve considerably in this area next season.

Given that this two-year period has been as bad, if not worse, than any rebuilding season defensively before this one, it would want to be.