The Orlando Magic are an exceedingly difficult team to predict. Another statistical model prediction bears the same results — the Magic are hard to figure.
The Orlando Magic’s offseason was met with questions. Questions the team is only now beginning to answer in training camp. Questions the team may not truly answer until they start playing games in a week.
It is the preseason though and so everyone is trying to find answers to those questions as best they can. This is preseason prediction time.
No matter how the statistics and projections seem to slice it, the Magic are not going to be one of the league’s darlings. If the Magic are successful this year in making the Playoffs, they will truly be overachieving or proving doubters wrong.
That is only because the statistical projections seem to lead all to one conclusion — the Magic are going to win about 35-36 games.
The latest comes from Andrew Johnson of Nylon Calculus. Johnson has created a model that has been pretty successful among contests of sabremetricians and statistical projections for the season. His model won an APBRmetric Projection Contest last year, beating out FiveThirtyEight and several other notable Web sites.
Johnson’s projections have the Magic winning 36 games, finishing tied for 10th in the Eastern Conference and five games out of the Playoffs. His projections have the “get-in” number at 41. A .500 record makes you a Playoff team in the East.
As expected, much of the Eastern Conference is bunched up. The Magic finish tied with the Miami Heat with 36 wins. But it is unclear if these projections take Chris Bosh‘s injury into account.
That probably does not move the needle much for the Magic in any projection.
It seems though that just about every statistical model released publicly has the Magic falling in around 36 wins — just a single win better than last year’s team. ESPN.com’s Real Plus-Minus projected the Magic to fall there.
The reality may be these statistical models are only capturing the questions human predictors have for the Magic. This is not a team that is full of offensive players. It has a lot of questions about how players fit into roles as many players are going to have to step up for the team to succeed. And no one knows exactly how the team will work together defensively.
Like the Sports Illustrated Top 100 players, ESPN’s projected Real Plus Minus is not high on the Magic — Serge Ibaka is the highest rated player at No. 77, Aaron Gordon is at No. 105, Elfrid Payton falls all the way to No. 174, right behind Kyle O’Quinn. The Magic just do not rate favorably.
That would all suggest statistical models do not quite know what to do with the Magic yet. Just like everyone else trying to project and predict what this team will do.
It is telling though that there is not a lot of variance in these predictions. It is hard to find a statistical model saying the Magic will win 45 games. They all seem to come in at the same number. That part might be concerning in a vacuum.
The Magic though have not played a game together. No one is even sure exactly how the Magic will play.
This season remains a huge mystery for the Magic. It is hard for anyone to know what this team will look like and how it will function — even with nearly a week of training camp completed.
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The Magic are blocking out these predictions for now and trying to be the best team they can be. If they do that, they will be proving a lot of people wrong. Or, at least, answering those questions that have many doubting them right now.