Nikola Vucevic 2015-16 Statistical Projections

Scoring and Shooting

Vucevic is a pretty efficient scorer and good shooter. Shooting is one of the best talents to exploit, and to get the most out of Vucevic, he needs more shots. Vucevic displayed his talents in the mid-range well last season.

From 3-10 feet, Vucevic knocked down 44.8 percent, and he was 47.1 percent from 10-16 feet.

These figures are the best on Orlando’s roster, so it really become a matter of how to get Vucevic the ball in positions to score. The ultimate manner of doing that thus far has been the pick and roll, but he cannot be that reliant on two-player sets.

Vucevic needs to get in the post, and the Magic’s perimeter players need to feed it to him. Often last season when Vucevic was not getting the ball dumped into him, he became disinterested and his entire level of play fell off.

Part of this falls on coaching: Scott Skiles will need to make sure the guards understand Vucevic is a key to Orlando’s attack. He is great with the ball in his hands, but the next step for Vucevic is to learn to more effectively without it and then to flat out demand the ball when he’s open.

It is not that Elfrid Payton and Victor Oladipo are greedy with the rock, it is just Vucevic has not pressed the issue. Maybe Skiles does it for him. But at some point Vucevic is going to have to be assertive with his teammates and demand the basketball. Simple.

Oladipo and Vucevic work in tandem as well as any two players on the Magic, and Oladipo’s playmaking abilities have everything to do with it. When Vucevic runs the pick and roll with Oladipo, his hands stay ready because he expects the ball back.

That is actually a missed facet for some NBA bigs who roll to the bucket but are not even ready to catch the passes that inevitably do come back.

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In this clip, you can see Vucevic’s attention remains on Oladipo as soon as he spins his shoulder, and the result is that he is ready for the crafty little flip pass that finds him as he comes down the paint for an easy dunk.

Teams respect Oladipo’s ability to score enough that it is going to give Vucevic consistent opportunities for easy buckets in these situations.

Oladipo enhanced Vucevic. Vucevic hit 54.4 percent of his looks off Oladipo feeds, a figure not even close to matched by any of Orlando’s other rotation players.

Comparatively, Vucevic was just 43 percent with Payton feeding him the basketball. Part of that can be attributed to how erratic Orlando’s offense was last year (which left Payton even more stranded at times), but it was often a thing of beauty to watch Vucevic and Oladipo in the half-court game.

Another clip shows Vucevic can still get right to the basket when he sets the often very high pick and roll. Teams were able to keep the Magic from getting deep into offensive sets, but Vucevic’s shooting ability had to be respected by opposing teams.

The result was often counter-intuitive: when the Magic were forced away from the basket the court opened up and often created better shots.

It is worth taking survey of, as seen in these pick and roll sets (videos c/o Evan Dunlap of Orlando Pinstriped Post):

The first of the plays, Vucevic floods down the center of the paint to take advantage of the attention being paid to Oladipo. He finds himself with plenty of space — and an easy layup. This was after setting the pick and roll from the 3-point line extended. The extra space gave Robin Lopez the bright idea of trying to guard the rim rather than Vucevic. It did not work out well for him.

In the second, the defense reacts by sticking to Vucevic (reactionary) and consequently Oladipo is able to dance in for an acrobatic finish.

No matter how the defense reacts to a pick and roll, there is that split second of disadvantage as players switch men or attempt to fight over/under the pick to stick to their man.

There is a reason why NBA clubs make it the most featured play: it is simple and it is effective.

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Teams covet pick and roll defenders. It is the bread and butter of NBA basketball and Oladipo/Vucevic are developing great chemistry using it. Accordingly, when the Magic need buckets, expect Skiles to turn to this tandem in pick and rolls.

It is either that or live with Tobias Harris isolation, and it is usually preferable to involve more than one key player in a play. Problem solved.

As to how this all relates to Vucevic’s stats, Vucevic is reliant on Skiles recognizing he is a pick and roll center. He can improve his post ups, and his mid-range shooting is already very good. But when Vucevic is most devastating is those times when he is working well with the Orlando guards, particularly Oladipo.

If Oladipo and Vucevic get in just a few more pick and rolls per game, his scoring figures rise to that coveted 20-plus mark. He barely missed it last season.

Opposing coaches, fans, and analysts have all taken note Vucevic is an All-Star-caliber talent, now he just needs to start demanding the ball like one.

And so we are right back to where we started: Vucevic’s remaining improvements are mental, a matter of assertiveness.

We will assume he steps up looking for the ball this year more, and that a continued progression occurs. He is now increased his scoring average from 13.1 points per game his first full season in Orlando to 19.3. Let’s call this 21 points per game for Vucevic in 2015-16 as he makes his first career All-Star appearance.

It is a feel-good notion based on what we hope is more touches for the 7-footer this season. His percentages likely stay about the same, because Vucevic is not one to force looks. Sometimes it renders other players taking bad shots because time has been wasted, but Vucevic’s efficiency measures will remain good: 52-54 percent shooting and a 75 percent clip from the line.

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