Who will be Orlando Magic’s most improved? Victor Oladipo

The Orlando Magic are a young roster with plenty of players ready to improve. One player may be closest to taking the next step — Victor Oladipo.

The Orlando Magic are a young team. The average age is still younger than 25 years old. All the key players are still relatively new in the league. Nikola Vucevic and Tobias Harris will be in the first year of their rookie extensions — their first real contracts in the NBA — and Victor Oladipo, Elfrid Payton, Mario Hezonja, Evan Fournier and Aaron Gordon are all still on their rookie deals.

Not seeing improvement from these players would be a cause for concern more than anything. This should be a team of constant improvement.

How that individual improvement turns into team improvement is going to be the story of the 2016 season. Whoever cannot produce at this point could see themselves facing the same fate as Kyle O’Quinn or, worse, Maurice Harkless.

Yes, those decisions are starting to get made.

Whenever we get into improvement, I think there are two types: The guy who comes out of nowhere and shows improvement based on coming from a near-zero baseline. And the guy who takes the leap from solid role player to star player.

Both are worthy of improvement, and the Magic have both kinds of players on their roster.

So it would be easy to say Aaron Gordon is going to be the guy to take that leap. But his baseline is so much lower. His confidence and comfort in hitting jumpers and attacking during Summer League showed a marked improvement. Again, we would expect a raw player like Gordon to make that kind of leap in his second year.

More unlikely and, thus, more important, is a player like Victor Oladipo or Tobias Harris taking the step up from very good young player to potential All Star and franchise player.

That is what the Magic are hungry for. And that is what they need.

So why Oladipo over Harris?

You just have to look to the end of last season. Oladipo started turning in All-Star-caliber numbers. After the All-Star Break, he averaged 20.3 points per game and 4.5 assists per game with a 46.7 percent effective field goal percentage. To put that in some perspective, only nine players were able to average 20 points per game and 4.5 assists per game the entire season. All nine were All Stars.

That is the kind of company Oladipo wants to keep. Sprinkle in the occasional 30-point game — he had five 30-point games — and Oladipo had the makings of something special.

It was just the consistency piece that is missing.

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Oladipo has a lot he needs to improve on. He has to become a more efficient shooter and scorer. That was always going to be something for him to work on — particularly that jump shot. A new coach is going to put him in new positions too. There is going to be a small learning curve for sure.

But Oladipo has all the tools and a willingness to improve. That is a good place to start.

All of his shooting stats improved last year over his rookie year — 41.9 percent field goal percentage his rookie year to 43.6 percent his second year; 32.7 percent 3-point field goal percentage to 33.9 percent; 51.4 percent true shooting percent to 52.7 percent true shooting percent.

For a player entering his third year, perhaps with a little more structure and a coaching staff more focused on winning than a nebulous goal like “improvement,” there is no reason to think Oladipo’s rise will not continue.

The improvement Oladipo has already made and the way he closed out the 2015 season suggests Oladipo could be ready to make the leap.

When the Magic were winning in their final 30 games (after Jacque Vaughn was fired and the Magic went 10-20), it was with Oladipo aggressively attacking the basket and playing with tons of confidence. That is a big step for any young player as they set themselves up in the league.

Oladipo is at that stage. He is ready to take that next step.

In 2016, I believe he will.

Next: Why Brett thinks Dewayne Dedmon will be Magic's most improved