Victor Oladipo, Tobias Harris ready to lead
Victor Oladipo and Tobias Harris came away from Team USA mini-camp talking and beginning to figure out how they can lead and change the Orlando Magic.
Money comes with a certain responsibility. Just as the number signifying where you were drafted.
The Orlando Magic’s young core is starting to face the pressures of accountability in 2016. A new coach is going to demand they produce wins on the court. Fans are expecting them to turn the corner after the team’s misstep in 2015.
Everyone around the team during Summer League noted it was time for the Magic to step up. There is no getting around that storyline no matter who you are with the Magic. Just how the team plans on doing that is another question.
Internal skill improvement and development will certainly play a major role. Improved strategy and accountability from the coaching staff — led by the no-nonsense Scott Skiles — will play a major role too.
Ultimately though, the responsibility falls on the players. It falls on them fulfilling their talent potential, gelling as a unit and playing together. It falls on the team being clear in its goals and working together to achieve them.
The road will not be easy. This is a 25-win team that remains virtually the same and is still a pretty young squad. Leadership is going to come from the coaching staff in a lot of ways, but the young players who now have expectation heaped on them to go out and win for the first time in their careers.
For two of those potential leaders, the responsibility is not lost on them.
Tobias Harris and Victor Oladipo feel that weight. They were both in Las Vegas for Team USA’s mini camp. They both have established their personal place in the league and with the team. And they seemingly both understand that the weight of leadership falls on them.
Harris and Oladipo told Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel they have been talking all summer to each other about what they need to do to get on the same page and become better leaders for the team to accomplish their goals:
"“If you look at the great teams, the best teams in our league, there’s more than one leader,” Oladipo said. “There’s more than one guy doing great things for them. So we’ve just got to find a way — find a way to jell, find a way to make things happen, make things work.”Harris said: “I don’t think it has to be one guy. I think the better teams have a collective effort of a lot of people leading. But, at the same time, if everybody has the same goal and the same mission, it makes things a lot easier.”There’s a reason Harris and Oladipo sound as if they’re on the same page. They said they’ve discussed the issue of leadership and team chemistry over the last few days and weeks. And they’ve decided that the entire team — but especially the two of them — must do a better job of playing together."
The experience for Oladipo and Harris at this year’s Team USA Mini-Camp seems to be eye opening for the Magic’s key duo. Unlike last year when they were both part of the Select Team helping the team train for the FIBA World Cup, this time around they were part of the actual player pool that will be considered for the 2016 Olympics in Rio.
The thing they noticed most was that they were the only players in the group that were members of a losing team. That is not a feeling they want repeated.
Oladipo certainly stood out in the parts the public could see. He scored 25 points in Thursday’s scrimmage and added in these highlights:
That whole event Thursday was fun though. It was not any indication of the work the Magic guard put in with Harris throughout the week for Team USA.
What they learned being around the NBA’s best players likely is more important than anything he accomplished in that exhibition game.
They also know that last season cannot happen again. And it is part of their responsibility to correct the problems that occurred to fix things — both on the floor and off the floor.
With Harris’ future and contract taken care of and Oladipo continuing his ascent (his rookie scale contract will make him a restricted free agent in 2017), there is plenty of stability among the Magic’s key players. If they want this group to work, it is on them to make it work.
At least this summer, Oladipo and Harris are preparing themselves and trying to figure out how to do so.