Orlando Magic: 2017-18 player grades for Mario Hezonja
By Luke Duffy
Strengths
Hezonja was always seen as a potentially excellent offensive player, and this was the season he started to show it on a more consistent basis. Of course, he wouldn’t have had the opportunity to snatch a bigger role in the Magic’s schemes if it weren’t for injuries decimating the roster, but Hezonja deserves credit for this as well.
Orlando Magic
Although former head coach Frank Vogel didn’t have much choice, there was still every chance that Hezonja would continue to look like the shaky player he generally, no matter how many minutes he played.
Instead, he produced career highs in points (9.6 per game), 3-point shooting percentage (33.7 percent) and Player Efficiency Rating (13.7).
That doesn’t tell the whole story, however, as Hezonja grew as the season progressed, averaging 15.5 points per game in the month of March and 13.9 per game in April.
Given that he averaged only 2.2 points in December, it shows rapid growth over such a short span. This is even more impressive when you consider many of the team’s key players were injured.
The Magic also averaged 102.4 points per game when Hezonja was on the court, the most influential mark of his young career.
2017-18 was truly the season Hezonja took the first couple of steps in putting it all together, playing 1,657 minutes in the process (he played 960 minutes the season before).