Line Change: Why the Orlando Magic need to shake up the starting lineup
By Zach Palmer
After eight games the Orlando Magic changed their starting lineup. Now after five with the new lineup, he may need to make another change.
After only eight games, Orlando Magic coach Frank Vogel had seen enough of his starting lineup. Vogel decided to take Orlando’s brightest young piece in Aaron Gordon and glue him to the bench in favor of veteran Jeff Green.
Vogel said he felt that the Magic needed more veteran presence in the lineup. And he probably recognized Aaron Gordon was not meshing well with his frontcourt partners Nikola Vucevic and Serge Ibaka. In all reality, Jeff Green is much more of a natural small forward than Aaron Gordon is, so it makes a bit of sense.
But what truly ails the Magic is far more than a lack of veteran presence.
The Magic are plagued by an abysmal offense, which has not been cured with Green’s insertion into the starting unit.
Green personally has shot 29 percent from the field, including an abysmal SEVEN percent from deep. The five-man unit of Elfrid Payton–Evan Fournier-Jeff Green-Serge Ibaka–Nikola Vucevic actually has a plus/minus of 0 right now. But context is required to understand why that is actually a bad thing.
This lineup is holding opposing teams to 37 percent shooting from the field. That is a great number, but it has not been against the most impressive competition.
In the stretch since Green entered the starting lineup, the Magic have played the Dallas Mavericks without any point guards or Dirk Nowitzki; the New Orleans Pelicans with only one NBA-caliber starter in Terrence Jones; the struggling Indiana Pacers with a one-legged Paul George; the Oklahoma City Thunder, in which Serge Ibaka needed to post a career high to get the W; and the Utah Jazz without George Hill.
Those are not spectacular victories — and the Magic did not even defeat the Pacers or the Jazz.
But it must be noted the defense has improved, even if the caliber of team the Magic have played against has dropped significantly.
The bigger issue is just what is going on with Orlando’s offense.