Orlando Magic 2017 Season Review: What Went Wrong — Not planning for offense
While the rest of the NBA was putting up historic offensive numbers, the Orlando Magic were left behind. Even when the defense worked, the offense did not.
The Orlando Magic looked at their roster at the beginning of the season and knew a few things would be true.
The biggest of them all was that their team would struggle offensively. It was a risk the team ultimately felt OK taking because of their expected strength on defense. They would get stops, spark transition and that would ease their offensive shortcomings.
That was kind of the path the team had to cut when looking at the roster.
There was no true All Star on the team. They had maybe a couple budding players who could step up into a larger role. Orlando had a veteran player who had never been asked to play with the ball in his hands much. And the team had a lot of promise with no idea if it could come together.
The Magic believed they had defensive talent. With Serge Ibaka and Bismack Biyombo in the fold, they believed the paint would be under lock and key. No one would be granted entry. Aaron Gordon had the potential to lock down the best perimeter player and the rim protectors would clean up the mess.
This was their ticket to the Playoffs. And when it worked, it worked really well.
The Magic had a top-10 defense through the first quarter of the season. The plan seemed to be working and the Magic’s defense felt like a very real thing.
But even then, there was a clear problem: Orlando could not score.
The Magic held opponents to less than 100 points in all but seven of their first 21 games. Considering the offensive numbers put up throughout the NBA this season, it was an impressive run.
But in that same time period the Magic were stopping everyone, they still could not score. Orlando scored 100 points just four times in the first 21 games. The Magic had a 9-12 record despite their 101.2 defensive rating, fifth in the league.
Orlando’s defense was great. But the team had the third-worst offense in the league, scoring 97.9 points per 100 possessions. This was the time period in which the Magic lost a game 87-74 to the Utah Jazz, 88-69 at the Indiana Pacers, 93-89 at the Milwaukee Bucks and 92-87 to the Phoenix Suns.
The Magic’s offense was expected to struggle. But no one expected it to be this bad. And the team never recovered on that end.
When the defense collapsed in early December, the offense could not pick up the slack. In fact, the offense had already let go of the rope and was flailing around just trying to get some kind of grip on it.
None of this was a surprise. The team had a dearth of shooters. Aaron Gordon and Elfrid Payton were poor 3-point shooters. Evan Fournier and Serge Ibaka were the only reliable shooters and the Magic needed them on the ball to help create for the team.
The team had a dearth of shooters. Aaron Gordon and Elfrid Payton were poor 3-point shooters. Evan Fournier and Serge Ibaka were the only reliable shooters. And the Magic needed them on the ball to help create for the team.
With the cramped space created with Serge Ibaka and Nikola Vucevic sharing the floor, it made it more difficult for Elfrid Payton to drive the lane. Teams simply packed the paint and forced him to shoot jumpers. The same went for Gordon. And Fournier was not strong breaking defenders off the dribble.
Without that killer one-on-one threat, the Magic offense became extremely stagnant. The team was able to get Nikola Vucevic and Serge Ibaka some post looks, but the ball usually stops there. There is not the kind of ball movement a team needs to unlock a defense. It was a lot of standing or frustratingly trying to break open the defense.
As much as the Magic ended up making a mistake putting all its bets on the defense only to see it collapse, the team paid the price in the end for not having a functioning offense to give it some margin for error.
Orlando Magic
Who is to say if the Magic are able to produce some more on offense in those early days that things do not work out? Orlando was playing some incredible defense to start the season and was not rewarded with wins. Instead, the team was working incredibly hard to keep scores in the low 90s and struggling to hit that mark.
That had to be discouraging. And eventually, the team let go of the rope as they looked for some answers offensively.
The Magic did not need a killer offense. But they needed at least a functioning one. And in looking at how the Magic built their roster, it was clear that was going to be a big struggle.
After the All-Star Break, when the Magic got some more spacing with Terrence Ross at small forward and Aaron Gordon back at power forward, the Magic were 26th in the league with a 102.9 offensive rating.
Just having that kind of offense seemed like it would have been enough for the team to eke out a few more wins and hover around .500 with the defense the team played early in the year.
The Magic put all their eggs into finding talent defensively but made no regard it seemed to complement the players they were keeping on the roster and making it fit offensively. It was not the great sin of this roster — because their defensive bet ended up not working. But this was a decision that only made their other mistakes look worse.
They just needed an offense able to pull its weight.
Of all the things that went wrong this season, the offense was the one thing everyone expected to be poor. The expectations were already low. Somehow the Magic failed to meet that low bar.
The end of the season push was encouraging. Orlando has the framework to build an offense now.
Next: The Magic are still young and need time to grow
And it may become easier to recruit and build an offense and teach defense moving forward.