Orlando Magic Player Evaluations: Channing Frye
The Good and The Bad
| Season | G | MP | FG | FGA | FG% | 3P | 3PA | 3P% | eFG% | FT% | ORB | DRB | TRB | BLK | TOV | PF | PTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014-15 | 75 | 24.9 | 2.5 | 6.5 | .392 | 1.8 | 4.6 | .393 | .532 | .886 | 0.4 | 3.5 | 3.9 | 0.5 | 1.0 | 2.5 | 7.3 |
| Career | 657 | 24.6 | 3.6 | 8.3 | .439 | 1.1 | 3.0 | .386 | .507 | .818 | 1.0 | 4.0 | 5.0 | 0.7 | 1.0 | 2.9 | 9.6 |
Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 5/28/2015.
Frye came to Orlando with such high expectations. There are so few players with his size and shooting ability. He literally changed the game for the Suns. He had 5.3 win shares for the Suns in 2014 and was a big part of what made that team unique.
Orlando seemed to feel it was copy and paste Frye into the team’s lineup and the floor would open up and give the team the ability to drive through the paint, kick out and succeed.
Things are never that easy.
The defensive problems were gigantic. Orlando’s defensive rating with Frye on the floor according to NBA.com was 107.4 points allowed per 100 possessions. The team was absolutely abysmal with Frye on the floor on that end and seemingly even moreso when Frye was paired with Vucevic.
Already, the Magic’s ideal starting lineup was rendered somewhat useless.
Frye did not even work that well with the offense itself. The Magic posted a 99.9 offensive rating with Frye on the floor, only slightly better than the 99.6 offensive rating the team posted overall. This was not the kind of impact the Magic expected from Channing Frye.
On his part, Frye shot the second best 3-point percentage of his career, making 39.3 percent of his 3-point field goals. However, Frye averaged only 1.8 3-point field goal makes per game and 4.6 attempts per game (thanks Rich for correcting the error!), the second fewest he has had in his career since he started taking 3-pointers as part of his game.
Worse yet, Frye took almost exclusively 3-pointers — 71.0 percent of his field goal attempts came from behind the arc compared to 53.0 percent in that vaunted year in Phoenix.
When fans felt the Magic misused Frye throughout the season or Frye was not letting it fly like he usually did, the numbers bear that out.
It was a pretty bad season overall and even anything positive you could say about Frye seem pretty hollow.
Next: Best Game of 2015