Orlando Magic’s season gets a reset at the All-Star Break
The Orlando Magic’s first half of the season was forgettable. A failure, even. It demanded change. After the All-Star Break, the Magic can truly reset.
29. Final. 79. 38. 107
The Orlando Magic’s season was already off the rails before the All-Star Break began. They made their move to try to salvage something from their season and begin building toward the future.
Terrence Ross was on the sideline in street clothes. The NBA could not finalize the trade in time for the Magic to activate him. The future will have to wait.
The present? After 58 games entering the All-Star Break, there is only one conclusion to draw from the present.
This season has been a failure. In almost every way.
The Serge Ibaka trade was an admission of this. The Magic traded away their key acquisition from the summer Tuesday in a deal that seemed necessary to recoup some lost value.
But the failure of the season goes beyond the decision to move on from that key piece. One player certainly should not make a team. And Terrence Ross is not the kind of player to make that impact alone.
No, what was the failure, as it has been for several weeks, is the lack of consistency from the team.And that consistency goes everywhere — from the offense to shooting to playmaking to manning roles to effort to execution, on and on and on.
Orlando came into the year with high hopes for its future and looking forward to a Playoff berth. Or at least to compete for the postseason.
They enter the All-Star Break now 21-37, well behind their pace even from last year’s frustrating 35-win season. Orlando is 6.5 games out of the Playoffs with 24 games to play. The Magic are 14th in the Eastern Conference, even behind the perpetually rebuilding Philadelphia 76ers.
This season’s character has absolutely changed and left the players with only questions for themselves how things turned so wrong.
“We’re trying to every day to find a reason,” Nikola Vucevic said. “I think there’s not only one reason. There are multiple things we need to take care. Hopefully, we take this break to rest a bit and think about all the stuff we can do better each of us individually and come back with some positive energy to try to do the best we can in the second half of the season to turn this thing around. There is definitely a lot of work to do.”
There were elements for a lot of the Magic’s struggles and frustrations throughout the Magic’s 107-79 loss to the San Antonio Spurs at Amway Center.
Orlando Magic
The Magic found themselves trailing early, discouraged as a better team corralled them and forced them into difficult shots. Nikola Vucevic said the Magic allowed the Spurs to dictate their offense too much. Orlando trailed by as much as 30 points, a far too common occurrence for a team that has sat in the locker room embarrassed by performance after performance.
Wednesday too saw the team outhustled to rebounds and loose balls. Forced to drive into traffic, the Magic struggled to create plays for each other. Players tried to do too much to dig themselves out of the hole. Often that meant individual play rather than moving the ball and forcing the defense to react.
The Magic’s defense had its moments of energy, but they quickly dissipated. Buried beneath the frustration.
That has largely been how the season has gone too. The team put itself in a hole early and has spent time trying to dig themselves out. Each desperate ploy only seems to dig them even further with only flashes of what this team could be if they could put everything together.
These more than anything are the reasons why Rob Hennigan had to make a change. The roster he had built with these Playoff ambitions just was not working.
“You never know with sports,” coach Frank Vogel said before Wednesday’s game. “There was always the potential that adding one guy, adding one tweak could change a lot of things within your team. We’re probably more than a few tweaks away from getting this really going in the right direction. Things happen in sports where one small move can have a big impact.”
The Magic made more than a few changes this summer. But they hoped a more directed goal in the players they acquired and the direction they wanted to go would produce results.
The gamble has clearly not paid off. And the trade the Magic made is a shift in itself. Both Vogel and Hennigan said the makeup of the roster will have them playing smaller lineups as opposed to more traditional power forwards. They simply do not have a power forward like Serge Ibaka anymore to play those kinds of lineups.
And the trade the Magic made is a shift in itself. Both Vogel and Hennigan said the makeup of the roster will have them playing smaller lineups as opposed to more traditional power forwards. They simply do not have a power forward like Serge Ibaka anymore to play those kinds of lineups.
The Magic will use this All-Star Break to reset itself again. This is a new roster and a new team for the final 24 games. This final stretch of the season is something new.
Both a symbol of the failures that came before it and the hope it may provide for the future for the Orlando Magic.
Many of the characters and players are the same (for now). They will have to erase the baggage and make the most of this final stretch — in whatever form that may come.
The All-Star Break is a mental reset for each individual player. With the Magic washing away some of the mistakes and frustrations.
There may not be enough time to save the season and make the Playoffs. But there is still time to discover a direction to get there in 2018 and reset this rebuild.
Next: Grades: San Antonio Spurs 107, Orlando Magic 79
The All-Star Break will serve as that dividing line for the Magic this season. And with one last thud, the Magic’s first half came to a close Wednesday.