It is hard for Jacque Vaughn to plan too far into the future at the moment.
Every time it seems the team is about to take a step forward, another malady befalls his team. He prepares to get Channing Frye back, and loses Kyle O’Quinn. Now that Victor Oladipo has settled in some, Aaron Gordon is out indefinitely with a fractured foot and Tobias Harris goes down with a calf strain. Vaughn has not had a full roster at all this season — training camp, preseason or regular season.
Considering that, and considering what expectations for this team might have been, Vaughn holding this team together at 6-9 has been quite amazing. It has been hard for Vaughn to put an exact finger on what he has in this team, even 15 games in, because he just has not had the whole team. Not even during training camp.
“Unfortuantely because of the NBA and the way the schedule is built, we are going to have to use games as conditioning and as rhythm-wise for him to learn his teammates,” Vaughn said of Channing Frye’s return in early November. “It just can’t happen in practice. I can’t ask Nik to play 38 minutes and come in the next day and have a two-hour practice.”
Fortunately, the Magic have been able to run relatively the same offense. The principles of their offense allow for mixing and matching and plugging players away. There is still an adjustment that has to go on though, without doubt.
“We haven’t changed anything since they left out,” Vaughn said. “Everything we’ve put in foundationally offensive and defensively is as if they were in and playing and on board with us. Hopefully seamlessly we will be able to incorporate those guys and off we go.”
Frye has played in 14 games so far this season and has really found his rhythm. He is averaging 9.9 points per game and shooting 43.7 percent from beyond the arc. He is still getting his feet wet defensively, but he was not necessarily signed for that role. Frye is spreading the floor and helping the Magic offense get out to a surprising start.
It still took him a while to get into the flow of things and it was clear he was a bit off in some of his early games — he himself called his debut against the Wizards in late October, “hot trash.”
Even a veteran like Channing Frye needed a few games to acclimate to teammates and find his rhythm. Photo by Alex Goodlett/Getty Images North America
Slowly but surely Frye has found a way to get himself open and find a flow in the offense.
Victor Oladipo has had just seven games this season. He missed all of training camp with a sprained knee and then, in his first practice back, suffered the facial fracture which knocked him out the first three weeks of the season. This has more or less been his preseason, and it has taken the guard a little bit longer to round into form.
He is averaging 13.6 points per game and 3.1 assists per game. He is shooting 41.3 percent from the floor. Those numbers are in line with his numbers from last year. But it still feels like Oladipo has not taken that step forward. Then again, this is still his preseason to some extent.
“I think overall he’s still trying to gain a rhythm with no training camp, no preseason, basically this is his training camp and preseason,” Oladipo said. “We’ll continue to have trust and faith in him. He’ll continue to do good things for us on the floor, he’ll take a look at it on film and continue to be better.”
Oladipo got some much-needed playing time during Monday’s blowout loss to the Cavaliers. He logged 36 minutes and led the team with 22 points on 8-for-15 shooting. Jacque Vaughn told Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel after the game he hoped Oladipo’s extended playing time would speed up the integration process for his young star.
Frye admitted that when he initially returned, there was a learning curve for him because he had to learn his new teammates and his new teammates had to learn him. They appear to have settled into a nice groove. Oladipo is going through the same process at the moment.
In some of his early games, Oladipo said he felt like he was missing shots he normally makes and was slow to react to plays. He said he cannot get discouraged and has to keep playing his game.
“It’s all about rhythm really,” Oladipo said. “One, you’ve got to have your legs under you. Two, it’s like everything has got to click. It’s almost like when you do something a whole bunch of times how fluid it gets, and when you take an extended period of time off , you’ve got to get re-evaluated. It has got become muscle memory again and that’s what I am doing right now.”
That time to rediscover his rhythm has to come sooner rather than later.
Orlando is about to embark on a five-games in eight-nights jaunt to the West beginning in Indianapolis on Friday. The road wins will not be easy to come by in that stretch. The team is undoubtedly better with a healthy and aggressive Oladipo.
By then, however, Oladipo will have had a full preseason’s worth of games. At some point, working your way back in no longer becomes an acceptable rationale.
It will no longer be about integrating Oladipo back into the team, but dealing with how Oladipo is playing for the season.
Oladipo is incredibly upbeat. He has been through the entire process. He is taking some lumps and continuing to find his way through.