Orlando Magic Player Evaluations: Nikola Vucevic

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Apr 8, 2015; Orlando, FL, USA; Orlando Magic center Nikola Vucevic (9) boxes out Chicago Bulls forward Pau Gasol (16) during the second half at Amway Center. The Magic won 105-103. Mandatory Credit: Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports /

The Good and The Bad

Season	G	MP	FG%	eFG%	FT%	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS
2014-15	74	34.2	.523	.524	.752	3.2	7.7	10.9	2.0	0.7	2.0	3.0	19.3
Career	259	29.8	.511	.512	.724	3.0	7.0	10.0	1.6	0.8	1.7	2.8	13.6

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 6/4/2015.

It would have been pretty easy for Nikola Vucevic to sign his extension and relax. Instead, Vucevic turned in a fine season. A career season really.

He upped his scoring to 19.3 points per game while maintaining a strong rebounding presence. He was solid in the post throughout the season — although his number dipped to 0.87 points per possession on post ups this year.

He was seemingly even better stepping away from the basket. He took 608 jump shots according to Basketball-Reference in 2015, making 44.4 percent of his longer jumpers. That accounts for about half of all his field goal attempts. In 2014, Vucevic took only 314 jump shots (about 45 percent of his total shots) and made 43.3 percent.

Vucevic showed improvement at just about every offensive station you could imagine. Much of the Magic’s experiment putting Dewayne Dedmon in the lineup worked because Vucevic was able to get out of the paint and make jumpers. Dedmon could not leave the paint and so Vucevic did.

Offense is where Vucevic continues to thrive. While he went away from the post more and more as games and the season went on, there was no doubt Vucevic was going to give you a strong game consistently.

Defense was where Vucevic had his biggest issues.

Already the Magic knew Vucevic was not going to be a shot blocker. He has never averaged more than 1.0 blocks per game in his career. In 2014, Vucevic gave up 56.3 percent shooting at the rim in 7.2 field goal attempts at the rim. In 2015, he did lower it to 53.7 percent shooting at the rim in 7.8 field goal attempts at the rim.

But in no way are any of those numbers good. And Vucevic’s time on the floor, the Magic struggled defensively. It is the biggest hole remaining in his game and it came into sharper focus with a new contract in tow.

Next: Best Game of 2015