Orlando Magic made their bet on defense at the wrong time, in wrong way
The Orlando Magic pushed for the Playoffs and made a bet defense would carry them. Not only did their defense collapse, but it appears to be the wrong bet.
The Orlando Magic were facing their longest Playoff drought in franchise history. The team’s long rebuilding plan had seemingly hit a rut. The team had no discernible identity, a revolving door of coaches and few potential stars on the roster.
The team either faced asking its fans for more patience or the daunting task of putting everything into one basket, being aggressive in free agency and in the offseason to force-form a Playoff team.
The Magic obviously went the latter route, starting with that fateful trade of Tobias Harris to clear up cap space and get aggressive.
The team had to force an identity on a team that had never coalesced and seemed to be lacking direction. All with getting a new coach.
Hiring Frank Vogel was the first clue, but the team quickly got behind what seemed like a relatively safe bet. Build a team that could be a top-10 defense and it would have a shortcut to the Playoffs almost. Defense wins championships after all.
The bet had some evidence to support it. Increasingly, though, that bet is not paying off. The Magic made this defense bet at the wrong time in NBA history and, of course, the defense collapsed anyway.
In 2016, nine of the top 10 teams in defensive rating according to Basketball-Reference made the Playoffs and 12 of the top 13. The worst defense to make the Playoffs last year was the Houston Rockets as the eighth seed. Four teams in the bottom half of the league in defensive rating made the Playoffs compared to just three teams in the bottom half of the league in offensive rating.
This year, only seven of the top 12 defenses in the league by defensive rating are in line to make the Payoffs this year. This year, nine of the top 10 offenses by offensive rating are in line to make the Playoffs.
This is a trend that has only been growing. In 2015, 10 of the top 12 defenses in the league made the Playoffs compared to 12 of the top 13 offenses.
It was not always this way, of course. There are plenty of examples of teams with poor offenses and elite defenses making the Playoffs (think Frank Vogel’s Indiana Pacers and Steve Clifford’s Charlotte Hornets from a few years ago). As late as 2014, all 11 of the top defenses made the Playoffs and 13 of the top 14 compared to 12 of the top 16 offenses.
For sure, there is overlap. Having a top-10 offense and a top-10 defense is a key to being a title contending team — a warning sign perhaps for the defending champion Cleveland Cavaliers.
If a team is not going to have a top offense, it pays to have an elite defense. The teams that were not in the top offenses had elite-level defenses to make the Playoffs. But they could not get much of anywhere without an offense.
That seemed to be the bet the Magic made. And, as Chris Barnewall of The Step Back wrote last week, that bet no longer seems to work:
"It used to be that as long as someone had a good defense it would be enough to carry them to a playoff spot. While that still holds some truth for the defenses at the very top, the rest of the NBA world is proving otherwise. The Heat were one of the worst teams in the league before a huge run in January pulled them to within shouting distance of the playoffs. The Hornets have currently lost 12 of 13 and are spinning out of control. The Pelicans just traded for DeMarcus Cousins and are hoping he’ll give them the push needed to grab the final playoff spot out west."
Defense is not what it used to be. Offenses have some clear advantages and that has become more pronounced this year. The league is set to see its highest top defensive rating since 1995 — the Spurs lead the league with a 103.6 defensive rating, according to Basketball-Reference.
This season has seen some unprecedented offense. Defenses have been slow to adjust.
Judging by the Magic’s personnel entering the season, getting a powerful offense was going to be tough — even if the team kept Tobias Harris and Victor Oladipo. The Magic were always better defensively than offensively. But they were still the middle of the pack.
Orlando knew to make the Playoffs quicker they needed to become elite at something. They made their bet on defense.
This season became an indictment of sorts on how the Magic built then. The team focused too much on collecting athletic defensive-minded players and not enough on shooters and scorers. The Magic’s defense collapsed this year after a strong start to the season. But the offense has always been among the worst in the league.
It seems there is no way for the Magic to recover without rethinking the players they want to pursue or adding new talent through the Draft.
Orlando’s bet on defense this year failed to come to fruition. And in a league that is increasingly more and more about space on offense, the Magic did not have anything else to fall back on.
That might describe the total failure of this season more than anything. Not only did the Magic make a bet on defense and fail to deliver, they also did not have the offense to support. That is how a team sinks to the bottom of the standings.
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How the Magic move forward with this team — still building a defensive identity but trying to fix the mistakes of this past year — will consume the summer. And the team will have to make another bet for success.