The Orlando Magic are anemic in the paint, and addressing that will determine large in part how the team goes into its offseason.
The Orlando Magic displayed in full effect the team’s most glaring deficiency in its loss to the Miami Heat on Monday, and keeping opposing teams out of the paint has been difficult with a roster nearly entirely bereft of shot changers and shot blockers.
In the most real way, the Magic need to land a power forward or center who is capable of keeping teams from having feeding frenzies at the rim in order to take the next step.
All throughout the 2015 season, the frontcourt has fallen short. The Magic have lacked toughness on the interior and forwards abused the frontcourt with regularity, as we noted on OMD at several occasions. The Magic are 10-19 under James Borrego now, with some improvements but mostly the same blackheads rearing themselves as this season sputters to its end.
The Magic get little to no rim protection from Nikola Vucevic. Dewayne Dedmon is good for a swat or two at times, but teams are not shying away from challenging him to get him into foul trouble. He is still too raw to provide that fear for opponents driving the lane.
The need for a frontcourt defender is getting to be a redundant theme too.
Channing Frye barely plays his size as a stretch-4 and he is too slow to cover for Vucevic and his lack of lateral quickness. Andrew Nicholson is woefully outmatched due to being both undersized and a marginal athlete. Aaron Gordon is a rookie who mostly plays like one except in inspired stretches, which just are not frequent enough quite yet. It is still unclear what position his future is at.
Kyle O’Quinn has faded from temporary success to complete obscurity.
And when the entire picture is taken fully into account, it is hard to imagine anyone other than Vucevic has a promised starting role. Even he could be replaced in a short spell if the Magic are in the luxury of selecting in the top-two this June.
Tobias Harris is a free agent, and if he vacates the Magic could restock the cupboard of forwards with entirely different options. Frye is hard to move on a large contract coming off a poor season, but the Magic will look to acquire at least one big man in the draft or free agency.
It depends greatly on where the Magic land in the draft, because still at this point in the rebuild the plan is usually to take the best player available. There is no need for a point guard (like Emmanuel Mudiay or D’Angelo Russell) or even necessarily a shooting guard, but any forward or center should be in play in light of what has been seen this season.
While Harris has looked great on the offensive end and been a consistent source of scoring all season, he is marginal as a defender and really does not hold his own against the better players at either small or power forward.
It is hard to argue he is worth any more than $10 million given the defensive shortcomings, but the market will dictate what it does, and some team may reach on Harris in the hopes of landing a strong No. 2 scorer.
Can it be assumed Harris improves to a 20-22-plus point per game scorer with seasoning? Not necessarily. He may not dramatically curve upwards from this point.
Where it all leaves the Magic is with a few pieces that are guaranteed to be intact.
Vucevic holds a no-trade clause for one full season still, but if the Magic land a top-two pick, it has to be assumed it will be used for Jahlil Okafor or Karl-Anthony Towns. Both are too good to pass on and fulfill the roles defensively that Vucevic just has been unable to, nor likely ever will.
It has been too vital to teams’ successes to have major defenders in the paint, and the Magic got to its lone two Finals appearances on the shoulders of premier centers Shaquille O’Neal and Dwight Howard. Without landing at least two premier talents on the wing, it is nearly imperative that there is a dominant center.
Vucevic has repeatedly in recent games shown little desire to establish back to the basket position.
He has made only four low post catches against the Bulls and shot just once. Against Miami he took all seven of his field goal attempts from outside the paint, and five of which were 16 feet or further away. Vucevic can be rendered a jump shooter, and the Magic do not really need to deal with the handicap of having to center the offense around high pick and rolls, particularly when the ballhandlers are not jump shooters and the center has no intent on rolling through the paint.
The picks are coming further and further out on the court, which has left Victor Oladipo and Elfrid Payton to have to do more acrobatics to get good shots.
In all, Vucevic just is not playing his size quite often, and that is what is problematic about him in general. On one hand, there is the guy who is third in the NBA in double-doubles this season, but at what cost has the defense suffered for Vucevic merely to put up big numbers? Can his offensive output outweigh his defensive shortcomings?
To be clear, this is not a down-with-Vucevic type of post, because he clearly has his merits as a player. He is uniquely gifted and has great shooting touch. But his limitations defensively render him an awkward stretch-5 that does not necessarily blend with a successful offense.
The Magic have not been a success story on either end of the court this year, and when Vucevic has been out, Oladipo has been able to carry the load.
The Magic clearly are most reliant on Tobias Harris and Oladipo, and only when Vucevic is spotting up and teeing down mass jumpers does his impact matter. He is deceptively putting up great numbers this season and is on the verge of just missing a 20/10 season.
But those tallies belie an undercurrent of weakness, one that reveals a center who has been bullied on the blocks and kept out of the area centers are most effective in. He is a good player putting up numbers on a bad team.
The problem started early this season, but more teams are just simply living with Vucevic’s desire to launch long twos. The shot is the least effective in basketball, and the Magic are a 25-win team for a reason. Being the best big man on a 25-win team is a title that is far less aggrandizing than any statistical measure.
The entire frontcourt could eventually be in flux, bit by bit. There is no reason to assume just because anyone is under contract that they are locked into the roster indefinitely.