The Orlando Magic went from 25 to 35 wins, but the year was still a disappointment. The Magic hoped to make the Playoffs and fell short after a hot start.
Entering the 2016 season, the Orlando Magic had high expectations. They set high expectations for themselves.
After three years at the bottom of the league, the team felt like it had the assets to begin moving forward and expecting results. The failure of the 2015 season, the false start to accomplish those goals, was case aside. The team brought in new coaching in Scott Skiles to help set a tone and create an atmosphere where the team could continue to grow but would also be held accountable to the only thing that matters in the end — winning.
Certainly the Magic wanted to eclipse the 30-win total and the stated goals was to do more than just make Playoffs but be a winning team (it turned out being a winning team would be a prerequisite to making the Playoffs this year). Orlando was expecting a big step up.
Skiles’ teams throughout his history had done this kind of leap before. They became a scrambling defensive juggernaut. Ignore the offensive end for the moment.
And it seemed like he had the tools for that in young sparkplugs like Victor Oladipo, Aaron Gordon and Elfrid Payton, who had made their names in their early careers on the defensive end. Evan Fournier and Nikola Vucevic were intriguing offensive players and Tobias Harris could be that go-to scorer and fill in the gaps.
The Magic won 10 games in December and raced out to a 19-13 start. Siles was the Eastern Conference Coach of the Month. There were holes to fill for sure, but the team was on the right track. Buckling down some more on defense and continuing to grow and gain confidence would put the Magic squarely in the Playoff conversation, just as they wanted to be.
How things fell apart in January is still something of a mystery. A mixture of a key injury to Elfrid Payton that slowed him down, the offense drying up, the mixture now working anymore and the doubt that can come with a young team that has never won before, all came together to derail the Magic’s season. They went 2-12 in January and were one of the worst teams in the league for 31 days.
Orlando was climbing uphill and could not seem to right the ship.
Tobias Harris was dealt for some veterans in Brandon Jennings and Ersan Ilyasova to try to keep the ship steady, but essentially for cap room. The team never regained its footing.
In the past week, we here at Orlando Magic Daily have recapped the season looking at What Went Right and What Went Wrong throughout the season. It was a frustrating one for sure, but the Magic still had good things to point to and plenty more to grow from and learn from.
Next: Scott Skiles
Scott Skiles
The first place to start in reviewing the season was with Orlando Magic head coach Scott Skiles.
He came in with a reputation of being a hard-nosed coach who demanded accountability and drove his teams to a higher level. He had become a master at getting young teams to begin realizing their potential and climbing the ranks into the Playoffs before he reached his ceiling and his grating style wore out his teams.
The first year under Skiles is usually a time of major growth. And the Magic had the beginnings of that growth. They also had the beginnings of their fall with Skiles.
Brett Roberts wrote in his review of what Skiles did right this year that he made a group of seemingly mismatched parts work and work together. When things worked well, the team was a well-oiled machine — balanced offensively and scrambling and working together defensively:
"The Magic are not the most talented roster in the league. When the team was at its best, it was definitely more than the sum of its parts. The 10-5 December that earned Skiles the Coach of the Month honors in the Eastern Conference more than spoke to how good the Magic really were when the team was clicking. But youth is a tough thing to manage, and in the course of an 82-game season the Magic blew more than enough games to miss the playoffs by a fairly substantial nine games."
There was no doubt there were shortcomings though. Skiles is a no-nonsense guy and seemingly did whatever he had to do to win the game in front of him. Letting a young player go through growing pains and mistakes was not on his agenda. If a player could not help him win in that moment, he sat on the bench.
Trust seemed to be a big issue for Skiles. Gaining it was difficult — especially as a rookie — and losing it seemed a bit inconsistent.
Zach Palmer wrote one of the things that went wrong with Skiles was his inconsistent doling of minutes and how he kept certain players on a short leash. His accountability seemed inconsistent:
"When Skiles was backing up his words with his actions, the results were positive. The Magic were winning games and looked poised to make huge strides on the defensive end. But things soon shifted. In December, Orlando’s defensive effort began to significantly fall off. Most noticeably after a heartbreaking loss to the Los Angeles Clippers where the Magic defense did not show up to play against one of the better teams and the Magic collapsed. Even weeks later, Skiles would point to this game as a turning point. But Skiles however did not pull the plug on his guys as he did before. This led to complacency on the court and the Magic really never rediscovered that defensive form."
There is no doubt Skiles helped the Magic become a better team, but there were also many confusing decisions that came from Skiles that seemed to hold them back.
He is firmly entrenched as the head coach. That is not going to change in the offseason. Undoubtedly there will have to continue being some growth for him as he learns to trust his young team. And maybe he needs his young team to mature themselves.
But ultimately the same issues that have arisen in Skiles’ career began to percolate earlier than expected. Even with a 10-win improvement, even Skiles would say he has to make some adjustments and improvements too.
Next: The turning months
The turning months
The Orlando Magic season seemed to turn in two months. One month built the expectations up way too high perhaps and the other effectively crashed everything down to earth.
December was truly the pinnacle of the Magic’s season. They won 10 games in the month and helped Scott Skiles win the Eastern Conference Coach of the Month. Not that he cared too much, he was worried about some bad habits breaking in.
But no Magic fan wanted to hear about that. After three years at the bottom of the Eastern Conference, Orlando’s name was now in the Playoffs. The talk became real.
And it was a cloud no one wanted to get knocked off of:
"In those fateful 31 days to end the 2015 calendar year, the Magic went an Eastern Conference-best 10-5, tallying their second straight winning month to start the season. They had a 104.9 offensive rating, seventh in the league, and 101.5 defensive rating, 11th in the league. Their 3.4 net rating was sixth best in the league. For one month, the Magic were playing like a top-10 team in the league. They were talking Playoffs and had home court advantage for some time. These were discussions fans were actually having. And if this play would have kept up, there is no doubt they would have continued to be legitimate."
But it was not to be.
January saw all those hidden frustrations and quite weaknesses come to the forefront. Injuries hit the roster hard and the Magic never recovered. Close loss after close loss followed and Orlando could never get itself out.
The Magic went 2-12 in January, falling out of the Playoff picture. One of the better stories of the season had become just another mediocre team outside the Playoffs.
As David Iwanowski put it, everything that could go wrong did:
"Many analysts predicted some sort of drop off in January for the Magic, as the schedule was set to become tougher — complete with a trip to London to play the Toronto Raptors. But no one saw the Magic falling off this fully and completely. The Magic lost in pretty much every way possible: poor execution late in the fourth quarter, as they did against the Indiana Pacers, overtime losses against the Charlotte Hornets and Toronto Raptors, and start to finish blowouts such as against Cleveland Cavaliers and Detroit Pistons."
There is still a bit of forensics going on to figure out exactly how this happened. Was it a string of bad luck? Injuries? The London road trip? The schedule getting tougher?
The only thing that mattered was the result and the Magic could not come up with any in January.
Next: Improvement and frustration
Improvement and Frustration
At the end of the day, when looking back at the 2016 season there is one frustration that continually popped up — and perhaps a positive the team is holding onto as a sign of better days.
This young team just could not close a game to save their lives.
The Magic had 23 games with a final scoring margin within five points, one of the tops in the league, and won just eight of those games. There was a stretch in January where the Magic lost three of five games in overtime. Orlando rarely got blown out, but the team also looked shaky and tight in many close games despite Nikola Vucevic’s occasional heroics.
As Sean Guest wrote, the Magic’s close losses, as they continued to pile up, were missed opportunities to add to their record and gain confidence to stay in the Playoff race:
"The Magic put themselves in these opportunities to win games more this year than they had in the past. Orlando can look back at the season and point to themselves and those squandered chances. Undoubtedly though, the close losses are seen with a tinge of regret. The tightness and frustration the team felt late in those games a feeling they do not want to repeat next year."
Looking past that though, the Magic still should look back at their season and believe they played well and accomplished something. It may not have been everything they wanted to accomplish but it was something.
Orlando went from 25 wins to 35 wins and saw improvements both in offensive rating and defensive rating — both the raw number and NBA rank. The team did something it has done very rarely in its franchise history. A 10-win improvement is a big step froward.
"If this is to remain a slow rebuild — ignoring any statements of Playoff goals or anything else — then 2016 represented the biggest step forward yet. This was no incremental improvement, this was a step forward in a meaningful way. The Magic went from 25 wins to 35 wins, defying the Vegas “experts” and preseason predictions. They had a 10-win season-over-season improvement for just the fifth time (I am counting the Magic’s improvement during the lockout-shortened 1999 season) in the their 27-year franchise history."
That improvement means something. Even if it is virtually meaningless or small.
Next: The power forward situation
The power forward situation
One of the key questions that the Magic had entering the season revolved around the power forward position.
Aaron Gordon was eventually going to take over the power forward position at some point it was a matter of when as he developed. Tobias Harris was in the power forward spot to begin the year and so the Magic would have to figure out what to do with him at some point. And this does not even get into the Andrew Nicholson question or Jason Smith or whoever else.
Both those came to a head this season and it found some resolution.
First, Gordon clearly pushed his way into the starting lineup. It had the Magic looking to make changes elsewhere in the lineup to fit everyone in. Victor Oladipo and Evan Fournier took turns coming off the bench.
By the end of the season, Gordon was the man for the Magic. Perhaps the most untouchable player on the roster. He set the world on fire at the Slam Dunk Contest, and he is legitimately good. His emergence was one of the biggest positives, as Brett Roberts wrote:
"He may be Orlando’s most untouchable player, given the disparity between his actual value and just how good he really can be. There was initially some question as to whether he would be a 3 or a 4, but that matter seems mostly settled. Gordon thrives as a power forward using his speed and activity to disrupt a defense. He was a threat on the offensive boards, and he creates second-chance looks for the Magic."
That, of course, meant Harris had to get pushed out. Eventually the Magic had to look to move him.
At the trade deadline, Orlando moved Harris to the Detroit Pistons for Brandon Jennings and Ersan Ilyasova. It was a deal advertised to give the Magic some depth and rotation stability, allowing Gordon and Fournier and Oladipo all to play out of the starting lineup. It also had major cap implications.
But it did not work out that way at all. The trade fell short and the Magic never took a step forward. Its only saving grace is that potential cap room.
As Dar-Wei Chen wrote, the deal fell flat in every aspect, failing even to bring in the long-term assets teams would like:
"If the Magic are trying to make major deals this summer for other teams’ disgruntled stars, it would be nice to have Harris as an asset to dangle for those teams that would presumably be trying to rebuild after dealing their star. And deals similar to the Jennings/Ilyasova one probably would have been available at that time too if the Magic needed to clear cap space then or a little ways down the road. Harris, although far from perfect, was a good asset for the Magic. He is young (23 years old), has many of the tools a team is looking for in a modern forward who can play both spots, has a manageable contract that declines in cash commitment for its last two years, and by all accounts is a great person to be around (hard-working, team co-captain, and a leader in giving back to the community). Even though his scoring was down this year, he was proving himself very capable of contributing in other ways within the Magic offense and defense. Perhaps that was not enough to get him a more featured role and had him cast to the wayside."
The power forward question got answered though. Gordon is firmly entrenched as the power forward and much is going to be expected of him holding down that position long term.
Next: Shooters
Shooters
The final stage of the recap looked at the team’s shooting.
This has been a bugaboo for the Magic throughout the season. This roster does not have a ton of 3-point shooting to say the least and not a great record as shooters.
That is what made Evan Fournier’s emergence so key to the season.
Fournier was seen as a key player throughout his first season in Orlando, but injuries kept him from really taking flight. In his second season, finally healthy and getting a featured role, Fournier flourished.
He was not good enough to be the primary star on the roster, but took the role when he needed to and when it was his turn. Fournier’s emergence was as good a thing that happened this year as any other.
As David Iwanowski wrote, the way the Magic used him allowed him to breakout:
"But Fournier improved his game and became a very important part of this Magic team. Fournier was one of the most consistent players on the Magic offensively this year, and he helped Skiles’ offense flow. He averaged 15.4 points per game and 2.7 assists per game, and he had a very strong 46.2 percent shooting from the floor, 40 percent from beyond the arc and 83.6 percent shooting from the line. Fournier became the one taking big shots and running the offense in key moments. The Magic relied heavily on him at times, and he largely produced."
Fournier was the Magic’s best 3-point shooter, and probably their only consistent 3-point shooter in the rotation.
Orlando had to find shooting somewhere and had to try to get to the basket somehow. Again, the Magic struggled to get to the foul line. And that means the Magic had to rely more on jump shooting than ever.
They ended up being one of the most mid-range-happy teams in the league. And that was fine because Nikola Vucevic could make those shots pretty effectively. And then Victor Oladipo started making those shots at a good clip.
But overall that is still an inefficient shot, even if the Magic were shooting it better than league average:
"Perhaps that was the issue, the team was not strong going to the basket. Only a little more than one-third — 33.8 percent — of the Magic’s shots came within five feet. The Magic hit that mark. A little more than a quarter — 25.5 percent — of their shots came from beyond the arc, the league average obviously varies there. It was not that the Magic were abnormal shooting mid-range jump shots. They were about league average both from a field goal percentage and a field goal distribution. Settling for mid-range jumpers though became more prevalent because of the team’s personnel and because of the team’s poor ability to get to the foul line."
The Magic still had offensive issues to get through with their shot selection and what shots they take. Fournier was a bright spot and several players had strong individual seasons, but there were still issues with the offense. And it was clear.
Next: The takeaway?
The takeaway?
At the end of the day, the Magic went from 25 wins to 35 wins, but that did not seem like much reason for celebration. The promise of expectations and the beginning of the season raised the bar for what the team can accomplish.
It colored the way the entire season is viewed. And it surely is affecting how the Magic view their offseason now.
The pieces that clearly did not fit together were beginning to show under pressure and so changes had to begin to be made if the Magic were going to take that necessary step forward in 2017 and beyond, building an actual team out of this collection of assets.
Orlando is ready to push some chips into the center of the table and try to make a splash to get back into the Playoffs for the first time in five years in 2017. A lot of pressure seems to be on the management to make meaningful and tangible steps forward this summer to get the team to that level.
Next: Nylon Calculus visualizes the Orlando Magic offense
If 2016 taught the organization anything it is that this group has talent and potential but it was not able to put it completely together. More work is needed.