The Orlando Magic have hit a break in the schedule and a moment of reflection. Even with a bit of a slump, it is clear the team has improved dramatically.
The players around the locker room are the same. At least the names are.
It was a common refrain (at least that I used in predicting this team) that this team was ostensibly the same as last year. How much of a leap could this young roster without any surefire — maybe a few potential and developing — stars take with just a coaching change and some cosmetic role player changes?
Could Nikola Vucevic, Tobias Harris or Victor Oladipo turn into superstar players? How much better than 25 wins was this team? How much of a step forward could this team take?
Those questions may still need answers further down the road. They will not get any definitive answers after this season. This season would answer some of the questions about the future of this team and what path the team should take.
These were the same guys right? This is ostensibly the same team? Right?
“This is not the same team,” Channing Frye said after the blowout win over the Hornets nearly a month ago. “This is not the same guys. Let me tell you that right now. This is a completely different group of guys in understanding the game of basketball. I think give a lot of credit to the guys buying in to what Skiles want, but we’re a team. We weren’t this [last year]. You look at it, we weren’t this.”
All the talk of a team tired of losing and wanting to turn it around has come to some limited fruition nearing the season’s midpoint. The Orlando Magic are 20-18.
They are beating teams with defense and have found some formula offensively (executing it consistently has been more of the storyline for the first quarter of the season doing so on the defensive end has been the story of the next quarter).
This is indeed not the same team as last year.
Even with the team’s recent slippage defensively, the defense overall is improved.
The Magic are currently 13th in the league in defensive rating, giving up 101.5 points per 100 possessions. That has been a slight decline from the first quarter of the season, but still a vast improvement over 2015. Last season, Orlando was 26th in the league in defensive rating, giving up 105.2 points per 100 possessions.
It goes without saying that is a seismic step up. There are not many teams who improve by nearly four points per 100 possessions. Again, a huge jump and improvement.
They are also 17th in the league in offensive rating with 101.5 points per 100 possessions. It does not rank well among the NBA, but that is also a steady climb from last year’s 99.6 offensive rating, good for 27th in the league.
The Magic are flat-out better than 2015, and the numbers show that.
“Regardless if we win or lose, guys are sticking together because we understand how we’re supposed to play,” Frye said. “Some games, you’re not going to win. But we’re going to play a certain way, a certain style and we believe in that and we believe in each other. We’re getting better every game. I think you’re starting to see that. We’re starting to evolve. Last year was last year, but this year, we are not the same team. Regardless of if I’m playing or not, I like to watch what we are doing.”
The difference is plain to see. Stats are not even that necessary.
Next: The fun is back
The fun is back
This team is fun to watch again. At least when they are playing well.
When the offense is clicking, players move with fluidity and the ball moves to the open man. Shots are easier to make even for a poor shooting team when they are open. The defense swarms drivers and rotates quickly back out with the athleticism and dexterity this young roster always should have conjured.
“Just winning makes everything much more fun,” Nikola Vucevic said. “Just enjoy it more — your time on and off the court, after practice. It’s just more fun because you know you’re winning.
“At the same time, you can’t be over happy about it. You enjoy the moments, but you stay humble. You keep working and keep doing what you do. You keep doing what got you there. You keep growing and doing what got you there. You want to keep growing and keep getting better. I think that’s what’s good about this team. We’re happy with where we are but at the same time we understand we still have a long way to go.”
“You enjoy the moments, but you stay humble. You keep working and keep doing what you do.” — Nikola Vucevic
There is a joy at coming to work, the music blasts after wins and the team seems much more in tune and together on the court. The determination to get more and there is an understanding now of how hard it is to string together wins.
It is amazing what success can bring.
Then again, the Magic have showed potential before in the last three years. They have looked promising and given fans hope that things could come together.
“It shows that we have made a lot of improvements and we are a much better team,” Vucevic said during the Magic’s win streak. “At the same time, we haven’t done anything yet. We obviously are happy with where we are at compared to last year at this time of year. But ther eis a lot of basketball to be played. It’s an important time for us with three or four home games before the end of the year.”
What is different this time? What should make Magic fans believe this team is turning some proverbial corner? Is that corner even the corner Magic fans want to be turning?
Winning changes things. It changes the dynamics on a team. And it builds and builds on itself.
It is a high no one ever wants to give up. And this team got its first taste of that in the first half of the season.
“I think for us as a unit, we’re not content with where we’re at right now,” Tobias Harris said. “Each and every day we can be better. Winning is contagious. Everybody in that locker room has that feeling right now. it’s like an itch we want to keep going for. It feels good coming into practice every day and playing in front of our fans and knowing we should be winning these games also. That’s one of the best feelings.”
Next: Crash to reality
Crash to reality
The reality is the Magic are slumping now, experiencing their first bit of adversity since the beginning of the season when they played so many difficult teams and the principles that would guide their season were just setting in. It is hard to tell exactly which part of the Magic from the beginning of the season was real, and which part was the exuberance of something new and catching teams by surprise.
There is a good team somewhere in this Orlando squad. The team showed it at the beginning of the season for sure.
“I think they’re doing good,” Frye said. “I think they are understanding success comes with work. Especially the way we play ball, it’s not going to look cool. You are not going to leave the game and not be tired. I think that trust and that type of attitude is what coach wants. He wants you to be so exhausted by the first six minutes that you got to come get someone else because you trust other guys to continue it.”
It was easy to build when the team was winning. The winning built on itself and seemed unending. Habits were built. And then relaxed it seemed.
Part of the growing process is learning to deal with the times when the shots do not go in. A team develops its identity and figures out what it can lean on.
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That is what the Magic are still learning to do. That is the next step in the team’s growth.
When things were good, it was easy for players to remind each other not to chase numbers — Frye said players would cuss each other out. When things go wrong, players try to force things to get them right again. They are not necessarily chasing numbers, just trying to do more.
That is different. Very different.
Players have had to sacrifice to help the team. Victor Oladipo had to go to the bench. Tobias Harris had to give up shots. Elfrid Payton had to miss games and get healthy.
As good as the Magic were in the first quarter of the season, they even recognized they had not done anything yet. They are still trying to hold each other accountable and navigate waters they have never been through before.
“The reality is too if we want to be a legitimate team, we can’t cough up some of the games we have coughed up,” Scott Skiles said during the win streak. “We have put ourselves in position where we should win a game and we coughed too many of them up. We have had other games that have hung in the balance that we have made enough plays to have won the game as well. That is one thing we have to improve on.”
The Magic have not improved on that. As good as Orlando has played, there is still growth to come. There is still a hunger to continue to get better.
This is just a small taste of success. Making it last is another trick entirely.
As the Magic prepare for this trip to London and prepare for the midpoint of the season, there is still a lot of work to do for this team to accomplish its goal and make the Playoffs.
One thing is clear and bears repeating. This team is better. Much better. They took the lessons from all those losses and put the work in this summer to earn this opportunity.
“It took a lot of work to get to here. It wasn’t always easy with all the losing. We always had faith.” — Nikola Vucevic
They have not achieved their goals, but they have cleared at least the first hurdle on their way back up.
“I take a lot of satisfaction becuase it was really only Andrew [Nicholson] and me who were here from the beginning,” Vucevic said. “It took a lot of work to get to here. It wasn’t always easy with all the losing. We always had faith. We always knew that we were close.
“I felt like we weren’t getting blown out by teams, we played a lot of games really close that we lost. If we had won half those game,s we wouldn’t have looked as bad record wise. But it was part of the process. All the guys understood that. We had to work really hard to improve. It wasn’t going to be given to us.”
Who is to say if the Magic make the Playoffs? It might still be too early to make any definitive statements on that front. There are still so many games to play.
Next: What should the Orlando Magic do with Victor Oladipo?
One thing seems certain though. Orlando has gotten its rebuild back on track. It has made winning matter again in 2016. And so now the real team building can begin.