How long do you get to prove that you can be a successful coach? Well that question isn’t as simple to answer as it may sound. First you need to establish a timeline and figure out what expectations were for the coach when hired, so that’s what i’m going to do here.
Flash back to July 30th, 2012: Rob Hennigan publicly announces his decision to hire Jacque Vaughn as coach of the Orlando Magic. Flash forward to August 10th, 2012: the Orlando Magic trade Dwight Howard and officially enter the rebuilding stage, thereby drastically reducing immediate expectations. Now flash forward to today, and the Orlando Magic have accrued the least wins in the NBA since Jacque Vaughn’s tenure began. Vaughn was originally given a three-year contract that included an option for the fourth season, which the Orlando Magic chose to exercise earlier this offseason. So technically Vaughn still has two-years left on his contract, however I believe that last year of that deal isn’t a guarantee that Jacque will be back. It’s more of an attempt to make Vaughn feel less pressure.
However, make no mistake, Jacque Vaughn is under pressure this year to perform. Therefore, we need to attempt and gauge what a successful year would be in his position. The Magic have won 20 and 23 games respectively the past two seasons. During those years Orlando, unloaded the likes of J.J. Redick, Glen Davis, and Josh McRoberts, clearly rebuilding correlating to low expectations.
Now let’s take a look at Orlando’s off-season this year, it sets a very different tone. The Magic signed vets Channing Frye and Ben Gordon whom both expect to play somewhat significant roles (more so for Frye) this season. They also ended up with two top 10 draft picks which turned into Aaron Gordon and Elfrid Payton, both of whom expect to see significant roles this year. They traded Aaron Afflalo for Evan Fournier, who is expected to play an important role right away rather than trading him for draft picks. All of these moves give the impression Orlando is looking for some serious improvement in the win column this year.
Now, I’d like to start off by saying wins shouldn’t be the sole factor in determining success as a coach; you have to take into account injuries, talent level of the players, and so on and so forth. With all that said, coaches have a myriad of duties and Vaughn has shown some positives among his many negatives. Let’s start off with what Jacque Vaughn is good at: He’s a great motivator. You never see players tune him out and they always play hard. He’s a players coach: what I mean by this is that Jacque always finds a way to take positives out of the numerous and sometimes overwhelming losses his teams have taken. Young players really need that confidence to build off of something positive with all those negatives around them.
What are some of Vaughn’s negatives? Well just about everything else. I’ll start with rotations: while Rob Hennigan hasn’t done a great job of giving Vaughn a balanced roster to work with, Vaughn routinely turned to a three SG two PF with no rim protector lineup. That lineup consisted of no ball movement, and no interior defense and was routinely ran out of the gym. It became so painful to watch that many Magic fans claimed it as definitive proof of Orlando trying to tank.
More from Analysis
- 2023 Orlando Magic Playoff Lessons: Philadelphia 76ers can’t seem to avoid conflict
- Orlando Magic FIBA World Cup: Franz Wagner can be a star if he takes it
- Orlando Magic are going to find out who they are in 2024
- 2024 Orlando Magic Player Outlook: Moe Wagner is the spark off of the bench
- NBA 2K Ratings represent Orlando Magic’s hope and skepticism
This off-season Hennigan has done a much better job balancing out the roster and Orlando should never see the atrocities that Vaughn put on the floor last year. Somewhat related to the previous issue, Vaughn needs to do a much better job of putting his players in a position to succeed. One thing that really stuck out to me last year was Orlando’s insistence on putting Andrew Nicholson out at the three-point line. Nicholson is a very good post player, but Orlando made the decision to let him camp out on the perimeter where he wasn’t as much of a threat. We also saw many instances where players such as Doron Lamb and Arron Afflalo were assigned to defend players that were much taller than them and couldn’t contest shots properly.
Now on to the most important thing Vaughn needs to improve on: TEACHING HIS MOTHER######### PLAYERS HOW TO INBOUND THE BASKETBALL IN CRUNCH TIME. *Ahem* sorry about that, what I mean to say is drawing up plays to help his guys get open to create scoring chances for his players. I’ll give Vaughn some credit, there were a couple of times last year where Vaughn drew up some plays that got his guys wide open, in fact I remember Arron Afflalo getting some good looks on 3’s last year in crunch time. However, way too many times I saw Victor Oladipo isolate or somebody settle for a contested shot off the dribble. Orlando doesn’t have any great individual creators so it’s imperative that the Head Coach is able to draw up some plays to help his guys out.
Listen, I’m not saying that Orlando needs to come out and make the playoffs because I don’t find that likely but you need to see Jacque make better decisions as a coach. This year when watching the Magic you need to be able to think, “This team isn’t trying to tank.” You can’t see anymore of those head scratching lineups that made you think “why?” No more of those awful inbounds turnovers because coach didn’t draw up a successful in bounds. No more learning on the job, the time for Jacque to begin his metamorphosis into a coach that displays winning tendencies is now.