Orlando Magic: 2018-19 player grade for Evan Fournier

Strengths

For all of the improvements  the Orlando Magic made, they still lacked a true closer to finish games for them. This is something that Evan Fournier more than anybody else looks comfortable doing, and there were times when he came to his team’s rescue during the season.

This explains why he still averaged the second-most minutes per game of any player on the roster (31.5).

Only Aaron Gordon played more each night (33.8 minutes per game) and Fournier was on the court to close out games as well.

His overall scoring was down to 15.1 points per game from the career-high 17.8 of the previous season, but those raw numbers are deceiving and actually point to growth for Fournier personally.

He averaged a career high 3.6 assists per game, which is not a lot but went towards the Magic ranking fifth in this category (63.2 percent) while also finishing fifth in assist-to-turnover ratio (1.94) as the team as a whole took care of the ball.

Gone were the games when Fournier would put up good scoring numbers in a loss, as he played smarter and as a part of the system that was implemented.

He also developed a solid two-man game with friend Nikola Vucevic, with Vucevic in particular really benefitting on the way to an All-Star nod.

Fournier’s importance offensively can also be seen in the Magic’s rating in this category when he was on the court. They ranked a poor 22nd (108.2) on the season as a whole.

When Fournier was on the court however that number jumped up to 110.1, right around the league average. His 3-point shooting percentage of 34 percent was the worst mark of his career though, and he achieved this while shooting 5.6 of them per game.

Still, it is clear the Magic would have been in a much worse position without his offensive game, and he learned to change it up for the good of the team some as well.