Orlando Magic: All-Star vindication for Nikola Vucevic

After years of toiling away Nikola Vucevic of the Orlando Magic is an All-Star, and few players deserve the accolade more.

Thursday evening, it was announced that Orlando Magic center Nikola Vucevic had been selected as one of the Eastern Conference reserves for the 2019 NBA All-Star Game in Charlotte.

Although Magic fans have believed for quite some time that this could be Vucevic’s year, it was still a relief to see him get the nod, especially with both D’Angelo Russell and Spencer Dinwiddie of the rising Brooklyn Nets having career years themselves.

This makes the selection all the sweeter, and Vucevic will be Orlando’s first All-Star Game participant since Dwight Howard back in 2012. So much has changed since then, with Vucevic coming to encapsulate the highs, and mostly lows, of this prolonged rebuild.

Vooch followed this news up with a 17-point, 10-rebound performance in a 107-100 home win over the Victor Oladipo-less Indiana Pacers, keeping their fading playoff hopes alive. What put Vucevic over the top this season though, and what does it mean for his long-term future with the franchise and how he will be remembered?

Vucevic might be averaging career highs of 20.6 points and 12.0 rebounds per game, but it is the numbers around these that are equally as impressive. His 3.8 assists per game are not only a career high, they’re second only to starting point guard D.J. Augustin on the team (4.7 per game).

As great as that is, the 37.8 percent Vucevic is shooting from deep (on 3.1 attempts per game) is again a career high, but of qualifying Magic players, trails only Augustin (43.6 percent) and deadeye Terrence Ross (38.2 percent).

Vucevic is giving the Magic great offensive scoring around the paint, beyond the 3-point line and is setting others up with his ability to facilitate. People who have watched this team for years now will know there’s nothing new with this, save for the improved long range shooting. The key difference is that the Magic were winning games too.

That may have slowed down, but they have an offensive rating of 108.1 when Vucevic is on the court. Unsurprisingly, this is the highest mark of Vucevic’s career to date too. That number is a much less impressive 105.5 (24th in the league) for the team as a whole on the season.

Perhaps the main indicator for why the big man got the nod, however, is his superb Player Efficiency Rating. With the league average being 15, Vucevic’s number of 25.7 is fantastic. This shows that not only is he posting big numbers, which he has done before, but they’re translating to wins for the Magic, which was not always the case.

Some of the names he finds himself ahead of in PER include Kyrie Irving (25.5), Kevin Durant (24.7) and Paul George (24.1). Elite company.

The knock on Vucevic over the last number of seasons has been how it wasn’t possible to build a winning team around his talents. He was an “empty stats” kind of player — at least, that’s what people said. That is no longer true, which represents a problem for the Magic. Vucevic is an unrestricted free agent this summer, and with the trade deadline approaching, there are sure to be some organizations looking for a short-term option to boost their playoff hopes.

The drawback of this for the Magic, of course, is they couldn’t expect much in return, which is why it may make sense to ride this season out with Vucevic at the helm and see where it leads. Where it becomes interesting is what they’ll do with him this summer.

The last deal he signed (four years, $53 million) was a great one for the team. Expect him to look for more this summer, which is a risk for the Magic. Lock themselves into the prime of his career, and they would have to nail the subsequent free agent signings and draft picks to rise to contender status with him as they cornerstone.

Then again, there are no other players currently on the roster who look ready to take that mantle. Aaron Gordon is developing into an underrated two-way player, and his defensive improvements this season have been key for the Magic becoming a tougher out.

Gordon doesn’t look ready to be the face of the franchise though, and perhaps he will never be. If he ends up being the second- or third-best player on a title-winning team, that will be all right. Jonathan Isaac and rookie Mohamed Bamba are the other hopes for the Magic, but both are too young to lead right now.

That brings us back to Vucevic. it is getting harder to ignore him as a top 12 Magic player all-time, and this All-Star selection only boosts his case. Dwight Howard was an All-Star himself eight times, with six of those coming while he played in Orlando.

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Vucevic is averaging more points this season than on four occasions when Howard was selected (2007, 2010, 2013 and 2014). More interestingly though, Vucevic’s PER for this season is higher than at any time Howard was selected.

Vucevic has never been as good as Howard, and by the time he is finished in Orlando, he won’t have overtaken D-12 in the debate of better player in Magic history.

But the fact he is being mentioned in the All-Star conversation and can boast better stats that Howard in some categories should be recognized, especially when you consider Vucevic was something of a throw-in for the Magic from the Philadelphia 76ers in the trade that sent Howard to the Los Angeles Lakers.

All of which is to say, it has taken seven years of toiling away on bad teams with constant shuffling of head coaches for Nikola Vucevic to get the credit he deserves as an All-Star player. It is the best thing to happen to the Orlando Magic in quite some time, and gives hope that the darkest days of their rebuild are over.

He continues to rise up the franchise’s all-time rankings, and a couple more appearances in the midseason game while playing in the pinstriped blue will only increase his ranking. Enjoy this moment Magic fans, because it’s unclear where the team should go from here.