Orlando Magic: Nikola Vucevic should be an All-Star, but won’t be

Something you can count on in today’s NBA is the sustained excellence that is Orlando Magic center Nikola Vucevic. He’s a big man who is a walking double-double, and among the most well-rounded offensive bigs in the league today. Now 30, he is about the only good thing left of the Magic’s wreckage of a season.

In fact, it’s actually quite sad to see Vucevic toil away on a franchise that, after two postseason appearances in the previous two campaigns, is once again destined for the lottery. Vucevic has done his time as a guy who put up big stats on losing outfits, yet somehow despite the best efforts of the front office, has found himself back in this position.

This is frustrating not only for him but the loyal fans who have stuck by him throughout his time with the organization. What makes this even worse is that Vucevic is in many ways having the best season of his career, and yet one-quarter of the way through the year, we already know it will be for nothing.

Nikola Vucevic should once again be an All-Star for the Orlando Magic, but he won’t be.

It is a depressing statement to read, because of how much the guy deserves it. He actually deserves much more than that, but that is a subject for another day. Vucevic has been an All-Star once before, in 2019, as he led the Magic back to the playoffs. It was clear then that there was finally some young talent coming through to play around him.

That year he averaged 20.8 points and 12 rebounds a night. It was clear then too that he was trying to expand his game, out to the 3-point line. He took just under three attempts a game, connecting on a respectable 36.4 percent of them. You don’t always want your big man standing outside the 3-point arc, but Vucevic grabbed enough rebounds and did enough work inside the paint that this was not only acceptable but welcomed.

Defensively he put in a lot of work to make himself, at the very worst, average on that end of the court. The disastrous free agency signing of Bismack Biyombo is something we would all do well to wipe from our memories, but one small positive that came out of it was that Vucevic became more committed to being a better defender to take minutes from Biyombo.

So much so that by the time Biyombo was gone again, the Orlando Magic had the better defensive rating when Vucevic was on the court than when Biyombo was. For those keeping score at home then, a big who the Magic were able to build an offense around, who could do damage both inside and outside of the paint, could pass the ball really well, and who became a better defender.

Fast forward to this year and it is more of the same, only better. Vucevic is averaging a career-high 22.5 points per contest. The rebounding has dipped slightly on two years previous (11.9) but is still the third-best mark of his career. This despite playing alongside a depleted roster for a lot of the year so far (Frank Mason incoming).

The 3-point attempts have gone way up (6.1 a night), and yet Vucevic shoots it lights out from deep, at 43.3 percent. This is not sustainable, but given that the Magic rank 28th in offensive rating (103), it is a truly horrifying thought to try and contemplate where they would be without Vucevic’s outside scoring and all-round offensive play.

Those calling for the franchise to blow it up as a result of the injuries and bad luck that have occurred to a team who started the year well would do well to remind themselves of the potential drawbacks of doing so. That doesn’t necessarily mean getting rid of Vucevic, but at this point, his trade value will likely never be higher. Lose him though, and this roster takes a significant step back.

When you are that important to an organization, when you are the organization in many ways, and when you have shown that with the right help you can be the key factor to winning basketball games, then surely an All-Star appearance is the least you can expect? If you believe that, then you don’t know what it is to follow Orlando Magic basketball.

The franchise gets overlooked when it is doing well, but now that they have sunk to the bottom of the East again, you can forget about it. Which is such a shame, because Vucevic isn’t going to be at this level forever, and as things stand he already should have more national attention and accolades to his name (he’s also an amazing fantasy guy, but if you’re reading this you already know that.

We are witnessing a standout season from what has been an elite career for years now, and it is going to waste because of bad luck and an inability to give Nikola Vucevic the best chance to succeed. He should be an All-Star this year, his great personal numbers and what he means to the Magic the reasons why. Only he won’t be, and we all know the reasons for that too.