Creating consistency
So how to do the Magic fix these symptoms and gain consistency?
First, establishing a system and an offense that the team can have confidence in helps. This has two parts to it. The coaching staff has to put the players in positions where they are likely to succeed and players have to trust that when they run the team’s offense and defense properly, they will find quality shots.
You can certainly argue whether or not the Magic’s coaching staff used their players effectively. A veteran like Channing Frye did not every seem to mesh well and Nikola Vucevic was never put in a position to succeed defensively until James Borrego inserted Dewayne Dedmon into the lineup.
Second, the team struggled to fight against runs when they came. When things went bad, they started to snowball. That is how things went so far south when the team was pressed and prodded.
Third, the team was young. Younger than it had been in the supposed tanking years the previous two seasons. Rob Hennigan entrusted his team to young players, perhaps not yet prepared to take on those rigors fully. The players on the team were put into roles where they were expected to produce at a high level for 30-plus minutes per night. The responsibility would be solely on them. They were not able to rely on Arron Afflalo or Jameer Nelson.
“I think overall you have to handle the responsibility on an everyday basis,” Jacque Vaughn said near the beginning of 2015. “That’s what it boils down to. Our group, we need on an every nigth basis to get productivity. Guys have not been in those positions before. I think they are learning how to play 39 minutes, 38 minutes, 37 minutes and come back two days from now and produce on both ends of the floor.”
This was the lesson every night for the Magic. Consistency eluded them every time.
The darkest days for the Magic came in late December and early January. That is when the Magic lost six of seven home games after that successful road trip. The Magic went out West again in January and the season was all but lost.
When the team lost, they lost in bunches. And that was the only consistent thing all season.
“People got to look inside themselves as individuals and ask how can I come to work and be better for the team,” Frye said in January. “I think we have a lot of guys that are really good on this team and really good individual players. We just need to buy into each other. Unless we do that, you are going to see that on the floor. We have to trust that everybody is doing the best they can to get better. It’s easy basketball, play unselfish and play hard and just let it be, whatever it is.”
And this realization throughout the year was the frustrating thing all year. All of the Magic’s key players either kept their scoring average or improved on it. They, for the most part, became more efficient and improved individually. They just never came together as a team.
That was the story of the 2015 season.
Next: Putting the pieces together