The conflict of trust and accountability for Scott Skiles

A rotation decision to keep riding the hot hand in Sunday’s loss to the Toronto Raptors revealed Scott Skiles‘ difficulty balancing trust and accountability.

The Orlando Magic were reeling. It was clear some change was needed.

The lineup that had started the fourth quarter so strong and built up a small lead was having trouble holding off momentum. The lineup remained largely intact with Ersan Ilyasova andAndrew Nicholson playing the entire fourth quarter and Evan Fournier and Victor Oladipo getting a momentary rest.

The Magic took as much as a six-point lead running the offense through Andrew Nicholson on the left block.

Orlando was rolling. And then the team was not. This is a game of runs after all.

The Magic ran through Nicholson and he made the right plays and the shots were not falling. Elfrid Payton missed a 3-pointer wide. Ersan Ilyasova and Victor Oladipo followed up with misses of their own. The defense was opening up and Toronto was back in the game.

Toronto led by four points with 5:22 left and Scott Skiles called timeout.

This would be the point to reload the lineup. To put in the lineup that will finish the game. The hot hand in Andrew Nicholson had clearly cooled. The players the coach truly trusts that day on both ends need to come out and finish the game.

The group that came out in this critical moment of a game the Magic very much could have won said a lot both about the state of the Orlando Magic’s roster and Scott Skiles’ coaching.

It is not new for Skiles to ride the hot hand. On many occasions, even if it meant leaving a starter on the bench, it had worked. Or if it had not worked it had at least not played a major factor.

There was always a rationale behind these decisions and always at least some tenet or pillar the Magic were rebuilding themselves with behind those decisions.

Certain buzzwords have continually popped up throughout the Orlando Magic’s season. Tenets that would determine if this season were a success with Scott Skiles as the head coach. The kind of reasons Skiles was hired in the first place to instill.

What was important was building a culture. A culture of accountability where playing time was earned and those who did not meet the grade would not be gifted playing time. A culture of trust. Where players trusted each other to be in the right spot and the coaches trusted the players to do their jobs and perform at a certain level.

Trust is earned of course. It takes time and layers to build. It is something that does not come overnight.

So then how do you make sense of the lineup Skiles opted to close with Sunday?

It had lost the lead.

Andrew Nicholson was the hot hand for the first part of the fourth quarter and then proceeded to miss his final four shots and fail to make a dribble handoff to Victor Oladipo that cost the Magic an important possession late in the game.

This from a player who essentially has not played meaningful minutes for two months who had found himself in the lineup because of foul trouble. He had delivered and had been a good player. But did he earn the trust to finish the game?

Ersan Ilyasova too had struggled offensively. He was not making shots or putbacks. And worse, the combination of him and Nicholson were struggling to protect the rim.

Ilyasova played for Skiles in Milwaukee. He is a veteran and has a track record in the league. Perhaps Skiles is leaning on that track record, assuming he will regress to his mean, rather than looking at what he was providing on the floor.

It was a strange juxtaposition, Skiles opted with his frontcourt to stick with the veteran who had struggled to produce much of anything but had his trust as a veteran and the young player who had not played at all that had the hot hand for a brief moment.

Whatever the reasons for this decision from the coach — Skiles often likes to say he hates going back to the bench when they have been sitting for so long, a problem the coach creates — this decision failed to work out. Ultimately the coach has to answer for that setback.

The question has to be asked: Where is the consistency in this decision? Where is the accountability? What do players have to do to get the trust to finish these games? What do they have to do to have the benefit of the doubt on a bad night to relieve the hot hand when he goes cold or to play through mistakes?

These are problems and questions that have sieged Skiles throughout his coaching career. At a certain point, they were expected to rear their head with the Magic.

Just not this soon.

At a very basic level, Skiles demands accountability. He demands players play to a certain standard to earn their minutes. But the way they get doled out sometimes says something else.

Related Story: Orlando Magic crumble late again in Toronto

Aaron Gordon since entering the starting lineup — a role Gordon had to earn by gaining his new coach’s trust with his understanding of the defense and its concepts — should have gained some of the benefit of the doubt. He has not played his best in the last few games, but that is not a reason to erode the trust he has gained or should have gained.

Yes, the Magic’s options are limited. Dewayne Dedmon is about as inconsistent as any player on the roster. But, like Nicholson, he was doing good things, especially defensively. Just not at the beginning of the fourth quarter when that rotation decision was cemented.

The question is when it became clear the hot hand was no longer working or the lead had dissipated Skiles was not sure where to turn. He made his decision to stick with that lineup. That lineup that was not going anywhere.

And the results were clear. On this day, Skiles put his faith in the wrong players to execute at the end. As the Magic slipped, he held firm rather than make a change.

That might say where trust is on this team and reveal a deeper problem with the roster and its coaches.