Orlando Magic: Top 10 moments from 2017-18 NBA season
By Luke Duffy
9. The Magic shared the ball
The season might not have gone the way the Magic would have liked, but at the very least they didn’t resort to playing one-on-one basketball every possession. They finished ninth in assist percentage, with 60.4 percent of their field goals coming via assist.
Given that the team lacked in so many areas, being top 10 in any category is a cause for celebration (another indicator of how poor their season was).
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On a nightly basis, however, it was great to see first Elfrid Payton, and later D.J. Augustin, distribute the ball so that everybody could get touches.
A more negative way to look at this would be to argue that the team didn’t have a real go-to offensive player, and this is why the Magic lost as many games as they did.
True as that may be they be, it was more pleasing throughout the dreary games later in the season to have a team that shared the ball often. Even more encouraging was the fact the Magic had an assist-to-turnover ratio of 1.61, right around league-average (16th).
This shows an ability to take care of the ball, which will hopefully continue to be the case next season and beyond. It’s a small yet worthy foundation to build upon.