The call for structure with the Orlando Magic
The reception for the Orlando Magic hiring Scott Skiles has been lukewarm at best.
We covered both sides of the nostalgia debate. And we took a look at what the Skiles hiring means in terms of the long-term rebuild.
The plain fact is that it is done. And while it seems like everyone knows this coaching hire will have a timeline until the Magic have to move on, it is what happens in that time that intrigues and will determine whether this hire was a good one or not.
The growing consensus is that Skiles’ tenure in Orlando will likely follow his other ones. And for our purposes we will focus on those early years of that path — the part where Skiles’ teams become strong defensively and bring in wins based on that fact alone.
In the woeful Eastern Conference, a top-10 defense should be enough to make the Playoffs. In fact in 2015, eight of the top 10 teams in the league by defensive rating made the Playoffs. It correlates well at least to making the postseason.
For the Magic, that seems to be where everyone agrees Skiles will succeed. And for where the Magic are, it seems the structure and accountability Skiles would seemingly provide are exactly what the Magic need. This is why the Magic targeted an experienced coach, seemingly above all else.
Skiles has his definite shortcomings. Those are unavoidable. Namely, he is viewed as a defense-only coach. That was the exact debate taken up by ESPN analysts for their #NBAFrontOffice series.
They too believe Skiles has a shelf life in Orlando and that ultimately he is not the coach to win a championship. But, unlike some other coaches who skewed too far to one end of the floor more than the other, Skiles is the perfect coach for where the Magic are at and what they need to do in the short term.
"Tom Penn: Yeah, but if you’re going to be “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” you better have really good actors. What I mean is when you talk about the evolution of a team, if the actors are young like in Orlando, they don’t have the skill set; there isn’t the trust level. But when you get mature and right the way Golden State did, then it doesn’t matter what they’re running, they’re going to score. And Golden State’s also the No. 1 defensive team in the league."
"Amin Elhassan: You’re absolutely right, Tom. I’ve always felt when a team’s just building up, you need a certain kind of guy, just as you mentioned earlier. But after a while, and as the team evolves, that guy becomes obsolete, right? You need something new to get you to the next level.Take Skiles, for example. I feel like people were bristling at the idea of Skiles getting another shot in Orlando. ‘Why would they go to this also-ran?’ Because Skiles can get you going. He can start building something. He gets those young guys and teaches them how to win and puts them in the structure that they need. I know we’ve bad-mouthed the overly structured environment — the sitcom, if you will — but for young players, they need that because they don’t know any better. Like Tom said, they don’t have the skill or experience to know when to go off script and do their own thing. And so with a guy like Skiles, I think he’s perfect for a young team. But there’s going to come a point when you have to recognize he’s taken you as far as you can go, and you need a new voice in there."
That brings up the big debate for the Magic.
The Magic need to learn a lot to take the next step as a team and a franchise. Jacque Vaughn was a very hands-off coach, focusing on individual improvement and keeping guy’s confident even through mistakes.
Skiles has a very different charge. He is going to put a framework in for them to start winning and succeed. There will be a lot more structure and nuance to the offense.
With Vaughn, the offense was largely designed to create isolations. It was a very basic offense that lacked nuance. It gave players the freedom to experiment and figure themselves out. It did not equal wins.
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Skiles, as the ESPN crew noted, has a very nuanced and regimented offense. He is going to have players run specific plays and give little room for freelancing. It may create some ugly shots and ugly moments on offense.
The defense will be the same. He will demand players be in a certain position when the ball rotates and react a certain way on pick and rolls.
This kind of structure might create some stilted moments, but it might also create predictability for the team and then, hopefully breed confidence. It will teach the young players how to think within a system, giving them the freedom once they have it down to improvise within that system.
As the ESPN group notes, it is once teams get down the basic structures of a system that a coach can come in and give them a framework to freestyle from.
The Magic need a foundation. Skiles may not be the guy to lead a team to a championship, but he can lay a clear foundation for a team looking ot turn the corner.