Right now everyone is a leader for Orlando Magic
The Orlando Magic are still a young team in need of some guidance and push. On the team, everyone is sharing that leadership responsibility.
Scott Skiles has often said the Orlando Magic plan to use their youth to their advantage. He wants the energy and stamina that comes with a young team to bolster the team defensively and allow them to get out in transition.
Youth, everyone on the team says, will no longer be an excuse.
Youth though does come with some drawbacks. The team lacks experience to draw from to help guide them through hiccups and bumps on the road. Skiles has said he expects a few youthful mistakes through the process. As long as those do not linger and the team moves forward from them, they will be fine.
It also comes with an issue of leadership.
This particular Magic team lacks a lot of veterans, particularly veterans in the main rotation. The leadership burden is falling on several young players expected to take the step up and lead both by example and vocally on the court. That in itself could provide a challenge to the Magic team as they try to achieve their goals.
Leadership and who steps up and when is something that is going to be developed throughout training camp and even into the season. It is not something Skiles said he would force. And, as Skiles has noted, the players have been plenty vocal on their own to pick each other up and push each other throughout camp.
That would suggest leadership, at least for now and maybe moving on into the season, is going to be a very shared responsibility.
“I think everyone has to be a captain in their own way,” Victor Oladipo said. “We have a lot of guys here with experience who have been on winning teams who have won in this league. A lot of guys who have been here in general just playing in this league. A lot of guys who have been through fires with good teams and bad teams. We just have to make it happen.”
The Magic have faced some of their first bumps in the road. In addition to the injuries to Evan Fournier and Aaron Gordon, the Magic were without Nikola Vucevic for practice Thursday with a strained shoulder. Skiles said Vucevic is day to day.
The question then when injuries like this happen is who steps up? Who keeps heads up and who pushes others to keep fighting through?
That is where the Magic might look to their best players for leadership. The issue is their best players are still 23 or 24 years old, very young even by NBA standards. They have been through some battles, but nothing that real yet — everyone on the team is hungry for their first experience on a winning team it seems.
That might mean everyone has to take turns watching out for each other and leading when the time calls for it.
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“We have to buy into whatever it is coach Skiles has to say and be a leader in our own way whether it be me being a leader by leading by example or Elfrid [Payton] doing something or saying something or Tobias [Harris] having his two cents or just us coming together and listening to what one person has to say,” Oladipo added.
The coaching staff will be providing a lot of the direction and development for this team still with so many young players in key roles. But there are certainly lots of potential voices to guide the team — whether it could be C.J. Watson adding his experience to the mix or Channing Frye or Jason Smith as examples of veterans who could share their experience.
The Magic have a lot of guys who want to lead by example though. Watson said he believes he can share his experience by showing the young players how he works and approaches the game, leading by example.
Even Tobias Harris, one of the young players expected to lead this particular Magic team, believes he can show the way by leading by example.
“That’s always been me to push myself even when we’re tired at the end of practice,” Harris said. “That’s just been me.”
Saturday will be the first test for the Magic. It will be the first time the Magic put all the concepts they have learned in training camp against an unknown opponent.
Tobias Harris said the goal for that initial game was to stick to the team’s principles and incorporate what they have been doing in training camp to the game. It will be just exciting to apply the things they have learned and getting out to play again.
“They’ve been great,” Skiles said. “They’re playing extremely hard. They are trying to pick up everything we have been putting in. We have enough offense in to carry us a little while. They’ve been really good.”