The Orlando Magic’s usage rate mystery

The Orlando Magic are not going to be a team of high-usage players this season. They will have to find balance as players step up and compete for shots.

The assumption around the Orlando Magic is the team’s defense will be its centerpiece. That is the way things have gone in Frank Vogel’s coaching career. Almost to the point that it is a given.

The Magic are banking on their defense to drive the team this year in just about every way.

What will probably keep Frank Vogel up at night is his greatest weakness throughout his career — his team’s offense.

According to Basketball-Reference, Frank Vogel’s Indiana Pacers were 20th or worst in the league in offensive rating for five of the six seasons he coached. Indiana’s offense was pretty abysmal. That is a credit to Vogel’s defensive teaching and coaching that the team remained so competitive.

Coming up with a semi-competent offense for the Magic is going to be the big task for Vogel. Especially considering he does not have Paul George (and his 30.4 percent usage rate) as a safety valve to bail the team out.

It is hard to figure what kind of offense the Magic will have next year. It will be different from what Vogel ran last year or at any time in Indiana.

The good money is on running an offense similar to what they ran last year — a lot of passing around the perimeter, cutting and attacking the defense in mid rotation to get into the paint and cause it to collapse. Orlando will have to have a decently high number of assists without a true one-on-one option to succeed.

That is unless someone has taken that step up. That seems unlikely considering where many of the players are starting this season.

But someone will.

Just like with bad teams, someone has to score. These are NBA players and they will step into roles and step up. No NBA team is going to average 80 points per game. This team represents opportunity for several players to take a step up.

The best place to see a team or a player step up is in usage rate. Usage rate is a measure of the percentage of possessions that end with a player having the ball — i.e. shooting, turnover, free throws, etc. The best players in the league have the highest usage rates — Russell Westbrook was at 31.6 percent, James Harden was at 32.5 percent, etc.

Last year, the Magic were fairly balanced. Nikola Vucevic led the team with a 26.8 percent usage rate with Victor Oladipo getting 22.9 percent. Orlando had a lot of balance in last year’s lineup. That is what their lineup called for.

Essentially in a perfectly balanced lineup, everyone would use 20 percent of possessions. That is obviously not how everything goes.

It would appear the Magic will have to do that again this year. There are not a lot of high-usage players. That will make passing more important and the same player may not dominate each game.

The Magic though acquired players that have relatively low usage rates. It is unclear who steps to the forefront. Take a look at the usage rate for the Magic’s projected starting lineup:

From a pure numbers perspective, a balanced lineup like this could work. In fact, those numbers add up to more than 100 and so someone is going to have to use fewer possessions from a pure numbers perspective. Obviously they would not play the entire game together so perhaps these players will stay at their current usage.

There will be some shifting in roles. The Magic surely want to feature Serge Ibaka more and so his usage should increase. Evan Fournier or Aaron Gordon may become more involved in the offense. Nikola Vucevic’s minutes may end up decreasing in some way.

Fournier certainly is a player who could see his shooting increase on the perimeter more than anyone. He thrived in that role following the Tobias Harris trade.

The question the Magic have to ask is what is the best way to find the balance they need to win.

There is no player on this team who is going to dominate the ball. There is not a 30-percent usage player. No one is good enough at it. Vucevic is probably the closest and his 26-percent usage rate seemed about right considering the team he was on last year — perhaps Oladipo could have used more possessions, and maybe that was his ultimate problem in the end as a potential star.

Orlando is going to have to spread the ball evenly. Whoever has the hot hand or the best matchup will be the focal point one game and may not be the next. The team is going to have to be extremely balanced to succeed it would seem.

The question is whether the team can use those possessions efficiently. At the end of the day, the magic have to score. That was something the team struggled with some last year, finishing in the bottom half of the league.

Next: Orlando Magic; Defensive communication will be key

The Magic’s offense this year should feature extreme balance once again. Whether that will be sustainable enough to win might come down to how that balance shakes out in the end.