Nikola Vucevic was nearly an All Star last year for the Orlando Magic. No one nationally hardly noticed. To get to that next level, his team needs to win.
At this point, Nikola Vucevic is a statistical wonder.
He averaged 19.3 points per game and 10.9 rebounds per game. He continued to pour in impressive numbers almost every night, rebounding well and displaying a varied offensive game. Vucevic was legitimately close to becoming an All Star last year and needed that one little push.
The one little push, of course, is his team winning games.
The only reason Vucevic may not be noticed or recognized as one of the best centers in the game is simply because his team is relatively irrelevant when games matter most.
As Tom West of Fansided writes, Vucevic might be one of the under-the-radar stars in the league ready to break out nationally:
"Vucevic continued to demonstrate his skill, too. Rather than relying on offensive put-backs to get easy points, he’s highly effective at spacing the floor and abusing centers who are poor at defending away from the basket. He attempted 25.7 precent of his shots from beyond 16 feet, and made them at a highly effective rate of 46.8 percent. Add on his 47.1 percent shooting from 10-t0-16 feet and his 66.8 percent finishing rate at the rim, and it’s hard to argue with how talented Vucevic is on offense.However, the inescapable problem with his game is his defense. The Magic allowed 3.2 more points per 100 possessions with Vucevic in the game, and he failed to protect the paint consistently after allowing opponents to shoot 53.7 percent at the rim."
NBA fans who know the league backward and forward have watched Vucevic blossom and put up solid numbers. They know who he is. So do several coaches who have to gameplan for him. They more or less were praising Vucevic ahead of All-Star game selections (although they did not vote him in).
The Magic’s desire to win games immediately is either going to work or blow up in their face and lead to some interesting questions for the franchise moving forward.
If it is successful though, the Magic will see lots of their players suddenly thrust into the national spotlight.
So how can Vucevic improve?
Our Brett Roberts took his hand at projecting Vucevic’s numbers this year — putting him down for improvements to 21 points per game and about the same with his rebounds at 11 rebounds per game.
That sounds like a fine place to start. Vucevic could very well match his numbers from last year and improve some on defense — his 52 percent field goal percentage allowed at the rim was not a great number, but was an improvement over the year before. He still has a lot of room to improve on that end.
For Vucevic to get to the next level, it seems he has to put up his stellar numbers on a winning team. That becomes more reliant on how he integrates into the team as a leader and how he integrates into Scott Skiles‘ offense and defense.