The situation is just bad for Mario Hezonja, Orlando Magic

Mario Hezonja has fallen completely out of the rotation. The second-year player is disappointing in every way. The situation for him just might be bad.

It is not a question of work ethic with Mario Hezonja. By all accounts, he works hard. He is in the gym doing all he can, trying to keep his head up and wait for his opportunity.

Everything the team has thought about Hezonja still exists. Somewhere. But he has not produced on the court.

Despite Frank Vogel saying a player needs to get playing time to stay fresh, Hezonja was not among the group of players sent down to Erie this past week. Young prospects Stephen Zimmerman, whom the Orlando Magic said would spend ample time in Erie, and C.J. Wilcox got the call down. Wilcox reportedly wanted the assignment to rehab a nagging injury and get some playing time. They both returned to the team earlier this week after their weekend stint.

Orlando’s approach with Hezonja has been frustrating, to say the least, this year.

The fifth overall pick from last year has fallen completely out of the rotation. And, seemingly, deservedly so.

Hezonja is averaging a meager 3.6 points per game, shooting 32.9 percent from the floor overall and an icy 19.4 percent from beyond the arc. Granted, this is all in 10.3 minutes per game. But they are partly the reason for his minutes slowly decreasing.

He simply has not produced. His defense has been shoddy and he is not making shots. It is hard to justify playing that player, especially when there is so much pressure to win now.

For a young player, that is not a good situation to be in. Coach Frank Vogel has said it himself, there is no substitute for game action. And Hezonja has fallen out of the rotation at a time in the season when the Magic had little practice time and little opportunity to prove himself.

“Mario is in a tough spot right now,” Vogel said before Sunday’s loss to the Toronto Raptors. “You can’t earn minutes without minutes. Right now, he’s doing everything he can within that to stay ready and to show that he has a great attitude, which he does, and to show that he as a great work ethic, which he does. He’s handled it exactly how you want a young player to handle it, by double and tripling his work. And just being very determined to be ready when his number is called again and to be a team guy until it does.”

All Hezonja has had is to show that work. As Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel reported last week, Hezonja is working as hard as anyone behind the scenes — Hezonja himself told Robbins he cannot allow himself to be outworked.

But that work in practice and in individual workouts is not translating on the court in games. And for the Magic, on-court production is all that matters with the franchise hoping for the Playoffs.

Particularly for young players, it is difficult to be ready for that kind of pressure-packed situation. Typically top-five picks are the most talented players, but even they struggle to adjust to the NBA. And typically those top-five picks go to rebuilding teams, looking for longer-term rebuilds and projects rather than immediate success. They have the freedom to make mistakes and figure out the NBA game without the responsibility of winning early on.

And typically those top-five picks go to rebuilding teams, looking for longer-term rebuilds and projects rather than immediate success. They have the freedom to make mistakes and figure out the NBA game without the responsibility of winning early on.

Hezonja did not have that freedom. He was never given a starring role, but he entered a team desperate to win.

When the Magic drafted Hezonja, they realized he would be a project. His potential for stardom would take some time. Until then, they hoped his shooting would help him contribute on the floor.

Rookies make mistakes, though. And Scott Skiles, for all the good that he could do, is notorious for not trusting young players, particularly on defense. And that is where Hezonja is perhaps weakest.

This was already not a great environment for a young player to grow up. The team, under pressure to win, did not have time to curate and care for Hezonja’s development, allowing him to work through mistakes. Patience was not optimal for a project like Hezonja.

That is neither Hezonja’s fault nor the Magic’s fault. Perhaps the only mistake was Orlando miscalculating Hezonja’s needs as a young player and the situation they were facing — underestimating their own team’s readiness to compete and integrate this young player into the fold.

For young players like Hezonja, the situation they come into is critical for their development and NBA future. Come in with too much responsibility, and a player may flounder if they are not ready. Come in with too little responsibility and mistakes become habit without the ability to reign it in.

In either case, rookies need the room to make mistakes. They need the ability to learn while having an opportunity to succeed to their strengths. For many rookies, their best contributions to winning teams are as role players. But they have their ups and downs teams have to work through.

Last year, Myles Turner was the biggest rookie to contribute to a Playoff team. He had ups and downs throughout the season, starting for long stretches and then getting pulled back. But Frank Vogel never lost faith in him. In his 60 games last year, Turner did not play for much of the first half of the season, but carved out a role.

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He did so by doing simple things he was tasked with. He played a role on the team.

If there is hope for Hezonja now that he is out of the rotation, it is that Vogel does see the work behind the scenes and will reward it. Especially if he performs well as Turner did when that opportunity comes around. Ultimately performance is the way to get playing time.

Ultimately performance is the way to get playing time.

Hezonja is stuck in a bit of a rotation jam. There are not many minutes to provide him unless Vogel loosens his rotation or takes a chance and Hezonja delivers. He has a lot of development to do behind the scenes to get Vogel’s confidence and get that opportunity.

This is simply not ideal for him or his career. Hezonja probably would have thrived more in a looser situation, where there was no pressure to win and he could make and learn from mistakes in real-time.

Essentially, the Magic drafted Hezonja two years too late in their development. When they took Hezonja with the fifth pick, they probably needed someone who could contribute more immediately and was not such a project.

Hezonja was not that player. And now he is stuck in a bad situation for his development.

Next: Another blowout leaves questions for the Orlando Magic

Opportunity will be fleeting for Hezonja. He just has to keep working and prove he can get playing time. That is his only hope.