Answering Orlando’s Questions
Once again, many of the “experts” are doubting the Orlando Magic. After nearly every NBA analyst in the country was proved wrong after picking the Magic to lose their 2nd round series to the Boston Celtics and the Eastern Conference Finals to the Cleveland Cavaliers, these critics have found several new ways to question the Magic.
Kevin Pelton of Basketball Prospectus, thinks that the Magic could have had a better offseason.
Everyone is up in arms about the loss of Hedo Turkoglu to the Toronto Raptors. Critics think the Magic are spending Turkoglu’s money on Bass, Gortat and Carter, but Orlando gave Turkgolu a more than generous offer before signing Bass and matching the offer for Gortat. After Orlando offered Hedo a 5-year, $45 million contract in Florida where there is no state income tax, it was clear that the influence of Hedo’s wife and desire to move to a place with a bigger Turkish community, outweighed his desire to stay in Orlando and play for one of the favorites to win the NBA Championship. Besides that, Vince Carter is a 7 time All Star, has stayed healthy over the last few seasons and is only 32, just 2 years older than Turkoglu. Turkoglu was probably never going to stay so how is spending money on a better overall player (Carter), your own up-and-comer (Gortat) and a player who plays a position of need at PF and will surely improve the team’s rebounding (Bass) a bad offseason? Considering the circumstances, I don’t see how the Magic could have done much better.
Like every critic of the Magic this offseason, Pelton thinks that the trade of Courtney Lee may have been a mistake. These critics are right when they say that Lee is a nice up-and-coming player, but that’s all he really is – a nice player. He’s a solid defender and a pretty good scorer. Critics always talk about how Lee won the starting SG role – that’s not really true. He didn’t become the starter until Mickael Pietrus went down with an injury. Lee averaged 8.4 PPG, 2.3 RPG, and 1.2 APG. Sure, he was a rookie but we’re making a big deal out of extremely pedestrian numbers. Pietrus on the other hand, averaged 9.4 PPG, 3.3 RPG, and 1.2 APG. Pietrus is also a bigger player and although Lee is very skilled on the defensive end, as Pietrus proved in the postseason, he is the superior defender and is one of the better wing defenders in the league. Lee was just rookie and will surely improve on these statistics, but at 23 years old, he is only 3 years younger than Pietrus. Pietrus also became one of the most important players for the Magic during the playoffs. He upped his averaged to 10.5 PPG, really turning it up after Lee’s sinus injury. Pietrus averaged just 5.2 PPG in the first round, but he was playing significantly less minutes. When you have a 26 year old player like Pietrus, you can afford to trade a promising young player like Lee, especially when that promising young player is going to net you a player that has played in 7 All Star games, has a career average of 23.5 PPG and a career playoff average of 25.9 PPG. With Mickael Pietrus’ versatility allowing him to be an effective player at SG or SF, it’s no big deal to replace a good SF (Turkoglu) with a better SG (Carter) and sacrifice Lee to do it. I would have like to have kept Lee, he is a good, young player, is tough, and seems like a very nice guy, but much like Hedo Turkoglu and Marcin Gortat, his value became a little overinflated after Orlando’s win in the Eastern Conference Championship.
The other player the Magic received from the Nets was Ryan Anderson. I don’t think people realize just how good of a player Anderson can be, especially playing with this team. Anderson averaged 7.4 PPG and 4.7 RPG last season. These are numbers that are very comparable to Lee’s rookie season, but Anderson didn’t get as many minutes as Lee. Anderson was selected one pick ahead of Lee in the 2008 NBA draft and was actually higher on Orlando’s draft board than Lee. Anderson is also just 20 years old, three years younger than Lee. Plus, at the time of the trade, he played a position of bigger need than Lee since the Magic do have Pietrus and JJ Redick played some effective minutes against Ray Allen in the 2nd round.
Rafer Alston and Tony Battie were also lost. Battie has gotten older and less effective so he would really only be missed in the locker room. There are rumors that the Nets may buy him out and the Magic could go back after him. Alston created controversey when All Star Jameer Nelson returned from injury so he had to go. Sure, he played well for Orlando but a healthy Nelson is an easy answer for any question involving Alston.
Another often asked question Magic move is the one they made to bring Marcin Gortat back. Pelton doesn’t agree with the move.
"Lo and behold, Orlando has done just that, bringing Gortat back last Monday. That’s where I start to jump off board. I understand the logic, in that Gortat has proven to be a valuable asset who commanded the interest of multiple teams."
The Magic did not want to lose Gortat for nothing. It was a good move for the Magic – in fact, I think it was their only move. Why let a player leave for nothing when you can keep him on your team, play him more minutes and eventually trade him. He thinks that the Magic have too much money invested too much money in their backups at PF and C, but I don’t think this is true. As I said earlier, it was unlikely that Orlando was ever going to retain Turkoglu, so what else could they have spent their money on? What moves would have been better? I don’t think they had any better options.
Although it looks likely that Rashard Lewis will remain the starting PF, it’s not set in stone. If the Magic don’t acquire another swing man like Matt Barnes or Von Wafer, they could decide to leave Lewis at SF and let Gortat and Ryan Anderson back up Dwight Howard and Brandon Bass. Gortat has even said that he wanted to challenge for the starting job at PF, so there’s another possibility but it’s probably unlikely. I do agree with Pelton when he says that with these 2 in the game at the same time, it would hinder Orlando’s shooting ability a little too much (although Gortat claims to have a nice jumper). They could play together in spurts, but starting both players would not be a good idea.
If the Magic do indeed sign Matt Barnes to round out there starting lineup (leaving Lewis at PF), then Anderson could spend time at both SF and PF while Gortat and Bass come off the bench up front. Pietrus would be able to play minutes at both SF and SG, rather than being the starting SF and Redick could play the leftover minutes at SG. The Magic would rather have Barnes than not have Barnes, but the team’s success does not hinge on whether or not he is signed by the Magic.
You can’t say that the Magic will not be as good of a team with Lewis at SF. Sure, their lineup and their game plan may be a little more conventional, but that’s because the Magic will not need to rely on the 3-pointer nearly as much. They won’t have to score 100+ points to win games. The Magic will be an even better defensive team and a far superior rebounding team to last season’s version. Not to mention that Lewis has actually been a more efficient player at SF, although he’s made the All Star team at both positions. He’s not a very good rebounder for a PF but is decent for a SF. He would also present a lot of matchup problems with smaller 3’s trying to match up with 6’10 size.
In the current market, with the upgrades made in Boston and Cleveland, the Magic had to make some moves. Now, when Dwight Howard gets in foul trouble, as he’s prone to do, the Magic have real depth off of the bench inside. In fact, they have more depth up front than any team in the league. Some say the Magic now have a logjam inside, I say they have more solid defenders to throw at the newly-acquired Shaquille O’Neal in Cleveland and the big man trio of the returning Kevin Garnett, Kendrick Perkins, and the newly-acquired Rasheed Wallace in Boston. The Magic have surely become a better team and are better equipped to deal with the other 2 beasts of the east.
(Andrew Melnick is Howard the Dunk’s lead blogger.Subscribe to his RSS feed and add him on Twitter to follow him daily. Check out his ACC Coastal Division Football preview here.)