Orlando Magic Mid-Season Player Grades
B-. <p><strong>Offensive Rating:</strong> 69.6<br /> <strong>Defensive Rating:</strong> 89.2</p>. G. Orlando Magic. VICTOR OLADIPO
Victor Oladipo has become Orlando’s biggest enigma this season. He is pressing to make a run at the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year award.
But in his transformation, he has seemingly been getting better at all of his strengths while falling further behind still at his weak points.
It makes grading him a conundrum, and the split on his offensive and defensive rating here is illuminating. Oladipo has been an overwhelming force defensively, but his shooting stroke is as mediocre as ever.
It has essentially resulted in Skiles moving him to the bench, because Oladipo cannot coexist with Elfrid Payton. Sure, the tandem is dominant at times and defensively leaves nothing more to be asked for (at least again on that “potential” basis).
But Oladipo still is not a shooting guard, because he is a guard whose primary strengths are not shooting the ball. It is forcing turnovers. It is getting out in transition. And it is even in creating offensive rebounds.
Oladipo’s biggest impacts often come in doing things other than pulling up from the perimeter.
He still also has not gotten much better at drawing contact. He is still shooting 25 percent from 3 to 10 feet and 35 percent from 10 to 16 feet. That does comprise an area from which just one-fifth of his shots come from, but Oladipo has been just 50 percent from 0 to 3 feet. Both of the last two seasons, he had been better than 55 percent.
Oladipo just is not making strides offensively, though his 3-point shot is now at a career high 34.5 percent. The thing is, the team needs that mark to approach 38 percent and it is really is not close.
The Magic have been forced to slot Evan Fournier at the starting 2-spot, and it has been with mixed results.
Figuring out how to best use Oladipo is now Skiles’ greatest challenge. He has made the right move initially in experimenting with Oladipo off the bench, but the Magic have faltered with him starting in place of the injured Elfrid Payton.
The Magic need court spacing Oladipo just cannot provide, which makes it a tricky proposition since Orlando needs every other input he has in the game.
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