How Bismack Biyombo’s skill set will help the Orlando Magic’s offense

Bismack Biyombo‘s elite shot blocking and defensive rebounding prowess could help the Magic in more ways than meets the eye this season.

All eyes will be on the Orlando Magic’s defensive strengths in 2017. But if they are to make a serious playoff bid, they will need to have at least a reasonably dependable and effective offense.

Ultimately the Magic’s defense will turn into offense. And so their best defensive players will be critical to jump-starting their offense. That was made even more clear in the Magic’s season-opening loss to the Miami Heat. Without a strong defense, the offense may get stuck in the mud.

While many analysts decry Bismack Biyombo’s lack of scoring ability and tendency to bog down a team’s pace, part of the beauty of Biyombo’s skill set is how good he is at playing the role of goalkeeper. And how that actually helps, rather than hampers the offense.

Rather than simply being a rim protector, the way he is able to redirect the basketball through intelligent shot blocking and defensive rebounding can impact a team the same way players like Ben Wallace, Bill Russell, and Dennis Rodman could.

Obviously Biyombo is not quite on the level of any of those three, but he did fly under the radar while putting up some remarkable numbers last season.

If you include the playoffs, Biyombo was the only player in the entire league last year with more than 20 minutes per game and a block percentage better than 6.0 percent. Better yet, more than 60 percent of his blocks rebounded by his team.

Those numbers are particularly notable because he hardly ever shared the floor with another prolific rebounder last year with the Toronto Raptors.

While the statistics of elite rim protectors like Hassan Whiteside, DeAndre Jordan and Rudy Gobert may have benefited from the presence of quality board-crashers like Chris Bosh, Blake Griffin or Derrick Favors, Biyombo almost never shared the floor with anyone who had a total rebounding percentage better than 10 percent.

Imagine how many of his blocks will be rebounded when playing alongside Nikola Vucevic, Serge Ibaka or even Aaron Gordon, all of whom are arguably better rebounders than most of the players with whom Biyombo spent significant minutes on the court last year.

The only player on the 2016 Raptors besides Biyombo with more than 4.7 rebounds per game was Jonas Valanciunas. And those two players managed to share the floor for a grand total of three minutes.

Serge Ibaka, Aaron Gordon and Nikola Vucevic, all of whom Biyombo is likely to spend significant minutes alongside, are better suited not only to grab Biyombo’s blocks, but also to run the floor and take the ball downcourt.

Neither Ibaka nor Vucevic will take the ball down the court. But they are better suited to recover Biyombo’s blocks or challenges and outlet it to a guard to initiate the Magic’s break.

The point here is Biyombo is now surrounded by players whose skill sets are better suited to accentuate his benefits to an offense.

Regardless of whom he is on the court with, his ability to turn possessions, prevent second-chance opportunities for opponents and kickstart the Magic offense will still pay dividends.

In the video below, notice how many rebounds Toronto gets from his blocks. And notice how many of those lead to Kyle Lowry or another Raptor getting out on the break.

This is precisely how the Magic want to play. Especially considering some of the weapons they have.

Evan Fournier was one the most efficient fastbreak scorers in the league last season, finishing 11th in points per possession. But unfortunately the Magic were relatively mediocre in total opportunities and fastbreak frequency.

Getting him more opportunities will help kickstart the Magic offense.

That said, there is no statistic available to specifically indicate whether or not the Raptors saw more fastbreak opportunities with Biyombo on the court. But the Raptors’ block rate, defensive rebounding rate, and amount of non-steal turnovers skyrocketed.

Those numbers say a lot, because Valanciunas is not bad in any of those categories himself. In fact, he finished in the top 15 in both block percentage and defensive rebounding last year.

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Still, the Raptors were better in those areas with Biyombo on the court.

Because the Magic lacked a frontcourt player with Valanciunas’ production level last year, the Magic will feel Biyombo’s impact more than it was with the Raptors.

According to conventional logic and basketball wisdom, the defensive plays that Biyombo is so good at making help create plenty of transition opportunities.

The rim protector knocks a shot into the hands of a teammate, that teammate passes out to a perimeter player and that player (and perhaps another) run downcourt for an easy bucket.

The Heat certainly used that among Whiteside’s four blocked shots Wednesday. The Magic could use that too. And several players noted how much they missed Biyombo and his energy to do this.

That is what Biyombo did in the video above. And that is what made the 1960s Boston Celtics, 2000s Detroit Pistons and plenty of other teams throughout history tick.

The Magic certainly are not about to win 11 championships. But this dimension of their offense will improve and help keep an otherwise defensive-oriented team in games where they need an extra scoring punch.

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If Fournier and others can continue to finish so effectively in transition, and Biyombo can continue to do what he does best, the Magic will be getting a much-needed offensive boost thanks to their best shot blocker.