Nikola Vucevic, defense and the definition of “improvement”
Nikola Vucevic became a centerpiece for the Magic on offense and tried to show defensive improvement. What that means was a big question left from 2015.
Nikola Vucevic started his season on a strong note. A fresh four-year, $48 million deal in hand and long-term security. He was his usual double-double machine and made a run for a spot on the All-Star team. He made a huge leap offensively.
With that contract in tow and expectations suddenly heaped on him, his weaknesses became more abundantly clear.
So can we say Vucevic got better, or has the magnifying glass zoomed in on Vucevic’s weaknesses under the pressure of his new deal?
Vucevic was not a strong defender before, but Glen Davis was good at getting into position on rotations. The Magic’s defense rose to mediocrity, which considering the team’s record was a positive sign. It made the Magic believe they could be a defensive team.
That did not quite work out. Their big free agent signing was a stretch-4 in Channing Frye and he just could not play up to a strong defensive level. Frye and Vucevic were a disaster defensively on the floor together. Neither could protect the rim and block shots, but more alarmingly, they struggled to rotate and cover for each other on the pick and roll. Neither had the speed to recover.
The Magic have obviously made an investment in Vucevic and in Frye. Neither appear to be going anywhere in the next year. Orlando will have to find a way to make things work — even if it means separating the two, which had limited success.
Vucevic certainly does not have a strong defensive record. Nor a strong defensive perception.
Defensively on pick and rolls, Vucevic gave up a decent 0.93 points per possessions against the roll man in pick and rolls. Channing Frye was more of a target defensively on pick and rolls than Vucevic. Where perhaps Vucevic struggled was not in cutting off the ball handler on pick and rolls but rotating back to Frye’s man as Frye rotated to cover the roll man.
Vucevic though does not fare well at the rim though. He gave up 53.7 percent shooting at the rim. Dewayne Dedmon gave up just 43.7 percent shooting at the rim. It is not Vucevic’s strong suit.
The team’s defensive rating with Vucevic on the floor also took a bit of a hit. It was at 106.6 points per 100 possessions this season when Vucevic was on the floor compared to 105.6 the previous season. The Magic were a worse defensive team with him on the floor in 2015 than in 2014.
No one is about ready to say Vucevic is a lock-down defender — another stat for you, teams posting up against Vucevic posted 0.90 points per possession, a pretty solid number — but he is probably improved over the perception of his defense.
“Defensively, he has gotten much better,” James Borrego said. “He’s challenging more shots. He’s a little more physical inside than what we’ve seen in the past. His challenge is to do that more consistently throughout a game.”
So that brings up the question: What does it mean to improve?
Can we objectively say Vucevic was better in 2015 than before? Or did he plateau?
The numbers are mixed on his defense.
Offensively, he did continue to put up better and better numbers — 28.9 points per 100 possessions and a team 109 offensive rating with him on the floor according to Basketball-Reference. He showed of an improved jumper and an ability to score both from close range and from 18 feet. Occasionally throwing in a 3-pointer.
Playing Dewayne Dedmon next to him would not have worked at all offensively without Vucevic’s growing ability to shoot from the perimeter.
But that was not all.
“Offensively, we’re seeing a much more confident player,” Borrego said. “One of the biggest strides that we saw in that Milwaukee game [in April] is when he is double teams or a crowd around him is he is kicking it and making the right play. He produced a lot of those open threes for us in Milwaukee [in April] by just making the right play.”
Vucevic had 2.0 assists per game this year, but 4.6 assist opportunities per game. He was still shooting the ball most of the time. But both his assists and his assist opportunities (1.8 assists per game and 3.4 assist opportunities per game) from 2014 were up in 2015.
So objectively, on the number, Vucevic got better on the offensive end. He showed some improvement defensively. Maybe not enough to become something transcendent and not enough to salvage the Magic’s poor defense throughout the season.
Vucevic’s player evaluation is coming down the pipe and will address a lot of these issues.
It seems though Vucevic is becoming the favorite scapegoat among the Magic’s core players. It might also be because he is the most experienced, most accomplished and, starting next season, the highest paid. His 2015 season did not quite seem to hold up.
So how do we define Vucevic’s progress? Did he improve? Did he regress? Did he stay the same?
In some ways, the answer to all those questions are yes.
And that fact is part of the frustration of the 2015 season.