What Went Wrong: Shooting
The Orlando Magic were not considered a good shooting team in 2015. The key to their development is spreading the floor more for their driving guards.
The Orlando Magic knew shooting would be an issue in the 2015 season.
This was a known and recognized weakness. Victor Oladipo was still working on his jumper. Elfrid Payton had a developing jumper. Fourth overall pick Aaron Gordon was a project who hired a shooting coach in season to keep working on his game throughout the season. Tobias Harris was an improving 3-point shooter, but defense were not quite respecting his shot yet.
The Magic signed Channing Frye in hopes of helping spread the floor and give Oladipo and Payton driving room and Nikola Vucevic room to operate in the post. Frye shot the ball well, but he struggled rotating defensively and teams were perfectly willing to let him shoot.
Payton and Oladipo found the paint jammed when they tried to drive. Vucevic could not roll into the lane for fear of committing an offensive foul or getting in the way of the ball handler trying to drive into the paint and to the rim.
It was not just a lack of spacing, it was a lack of shooting.
“I think we all see that,” Magic general manager Rob Hennigan said. “We have to improve our ability to make shots. We believe in our players’ ability to improve their shooting. We need to continuet o add shooting to the team. And I think A lot of it is learning how to win. It’s a cliche, but there are growing pains that young teams go through. We may have gone through some more growing pains this season than we had originally hoped. However it is part of the reality.”
The Magic shot a somewhat respectable 45.3 percent from the floor for the year, better than the Thunder, Blazers and Rockets. They shot 34.7 percent from beyond the arc. Not a great number, but not the worst in the league by any stretch. Their team effective field goal percentage was 49.4 percent. Again, right in the middle of the pack.
The problem for the Magic was not making shots. It may not have even necessarily been about getting shots. It was being efficient with those shots. The Magic posted a 99.6 offensive rating, 27th in the league.
The Magic took the fifth most shots per game from 5-9 feet (10.4 per game). The Magic were not a great shooting team and they were taking a fair number of shots in mid-range. That is going to hamper an offense.
In order to see Victor Oladipo’s field goal percentage in the paint rise and see the players get more efficient shots — with ball movement! — the floor needs better spacing.
“Shooting is a big part of our growth this summer,” James Borrego said. “It will be a focus of ours. We don’t hide from that. We don’t shy away from it. We will become better shooters in this program. Secondly, is the leadership quality. There is a piece to this entire puzzle where we have to find leadership from within to grow and take the next step. I don’t mind being the guy with this group and taking that leadership role on. But as a group, where teams make major strides over a summer is leadership starts to build from within.”
It will take a lot to turn the corner shooting-wise.
Oladipo this year made 13.2 percent of his points on mid-range jumpers. However, 68.4 percent of his field goal makes were unassisted. Oladipo and Payton had about nine drives to the rim per game, according to NBA.com, Payton shot 43.4 percent and Oladipo shot 41.8 percent.
This is all to suggest that they had few outlets to get the ball out to the 3-point line. They had to take tough shots and have their drives be a low possession shot. In an ideal world, Payton and Oladipo’s driving would be their greatest weapon.
Frye obviously had a high percentage of catch-and-shoot 3-pointers, the expected product of drives and dishes back out to the perimeter. He made 40.1 percent of his catch-and-shoot 3-pointers. Tobias Harris hit 38.0 percent of his catch-and-shoot 3-point field goals. Evan Fournier was a solid 39.5 percent.
There are potential shooters on the roster. They just have to gain the defense’s respect by making more and more of these and Payton and Oladipo and the Magic’s drivers have to get better at getting it to them cleanly.
“A lot of it is just making sure our guys maintain that hunger and that spirit to want to improve and to want to continue to get better,” Rob Hennigan said. “The one thing I love about our guys is that they are committed to turning this around. They are committed to getting better. It’s not a situation where they are sitting here feeling sorry for themsevles or succumbing to the trials and tribulations of a rebuild. They are using it as fuel, they are using it as incentive to get better and to start to turn it around.”
The tools are there. They just did not deliver this season. Not in the way the team needs.
Noticeably absent from that list of stellar catch-and-shoot 3-point shooters was Victor Oladipo. He made only 32.7 percent of his catch-and-shoot 3-point attempts. He was 32.4 percent total on catch and shoot opportunities.
That would suggest Oladipo needs to be working off the dribble to create offense for himself. He cannot spread the floor without the ball in the same way Harris potentially could or Fournier can or, yes, Frye can.
Then you get into the missed opportunities throughout the year.
Elfrid Payton had 12.9 assist opportunities per game, but just 6.5 assists per game. Payton could nearly double his assists with more made shots. Oladipo has 8.1 assist opportunities per game and 4.1 assists per game. Again, there are opportunities left on the board. Both players get their teams opportunities.
The league leaders though are at 15 assist opportunities per game — led by Ty Lawson‘s 19.3 per game. The Magic can still create more assist opportunities and that will free up shots.
It all adds up in the end.
The Magic need better shooters and to make 3-pointers to spread the floor for their drivers. And they need those drivers to get into the paint and suck the defense in to get more open shots and more assist opportunities.
In any case, the Magic just needed to put the ball in the basket more.