Frank Vogel: Orlando Magic have no regrets about Serge Ibaka experiment

The Orlando Magic tried to go in a new direction this season. Their decision to go big with Serge Ibaka backfired. But the team expresses no regrets.

This offseason, the Orlando Magic knew they had to make a serious bet to take their team to the next level.

After a 35-win season and four years struggling to gain much traction, the Magic were willing to take a risk to improve their roster and make good on Playoff promises. They wanted to shape and force-fit an identity. And do it in a way that seemed familiar and successful.

The Magic throughout this rebuild have tried to focus on bringing in rangy, athletic defenders first. That explains building an important draft around the selections of Aaron Gordon and Elfrid Payton. Victor Oladipo fit that bill too.

But nothing seemed to coalesce. Oladipo never took a star leap. Aaron Gordon was still raw, hampered by injuries that slowed his development. And Elfrid Payton seemed to struggle to keep up to the speed in the NBA, struggling with a less open offense.

All this was to say, the Magic felt they needed to make a splash and shore up some weaknesses to build the identity they ultimately wanted.

On Draft night, they did that in acquiring Serge Ibaka from the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Magic believed Ibaka would shore up Nikola Vucevic‘s defensive deficiencies while building the same kind of pack-the-paint defensive-minded team Frank Vogel coached with the Indiana Pacers.

It was a bet many teams had made before.

It was a bet that did not work out this time. The Magic came up craps.

But even with the results of this season turning out the way they have — the team is now one loss or Miami Heat/Chicago Bulls win away from Playoff elimination and a loss away from officially failing to match last year’s record — the team has few regrets for now on the path they carved.

There is just now a realization the Magic required too much shifting to try to make things work.

"“I think you have to try your first plan and hope that it works out,” Vogel said before the team left for Toronto on Sunday. “Try to do everything you can to make the plan you put in place int eh summer time and make it work out. No regrets.”"

The Magic’s initial plan was to go big. It is one they put all their eggs into for sure. They acquired Ibaka, kept Nikola Vucevic and then spent their free agency money on Bismack Biyombo.

Vogel said the idea was to play similar to how he played with the Pacers, using two post players to wall off the paint and athletic versatility to switch the perimeter, causing chaos.

The Magic seemingly had the personnel to do it with Gordon moving to the 3 and able to defend about anyone and Serge Ibaka and Bismack Biyombo as two of the best rim protectors in the league. Vogel’s defensive coaching has even found a way to get more out of Vucevic defensively.

But the pieces did not come together and fit together. There are no regrets in seeing if the original plan could work and seeing it to its end. But the original plan did not work.

As has been proven and stated since the All-Star Break, Vogel and the Magic have learned the league has changed dramatically. Speed beats size, as Vogel said. And a lot of NBA truths are being turned on its head. Trading small for big is not a taboo anymore.

It has become clear now the Magic were just behind the times.

"“It’s not that it didn’t work out,” Evan Fournier told Orlando Magic Daily of the Magic’s partnership with Serge Ibaka. “Serge is a good player, you can’t deny that. He does good things. The number one thing, it’s obvious Aaron is better at the 4 than the 3. Of course, he has gotten better as far as shooting and ball handling. In the new NBA, Aaron is a 4. I think having Serge at the power forward position was not the best thing for his development. Having two bigs, having Vuc and Serge together, gave us a lot of problems guarding opposite teams and fast power forwards.”"

Specifically, when it comes to Gordon, there seems to be recognition now that he is truly a power forward. The statistics back that up — he is averaging 14.7 points per game and his field goal shooting has bounced back to 50.7 percent. The team itself has played better and the Magic’s starting lineup without Ibaka and with Terrence Ross has thrived.

More from Orlando Magic Daily

The way the Magic have played in the last month stands in stark contrast to the way the team played with Ibaka. It does feel like the team has been freed in some way.

Players seem to fit. And it is not just Gordon. Evan Fournier has bounced back — partially recovering from that early season injury. He is averaging 17.4 points per game and seeing modest improvements on his shooting percentages since the All-Star Break.

There were a lot of different reasons Ibaka did not work. And this seems to be the big one.

"“We were playing a lot of guys out of position,” Vogel told Orlando Magic Daily. “We were trying to squeeze Aaron to the 3 and Evan to the 2 and it hurt us on the perimeter. We were in a situation where we had a lot of new players, a new style of play, new coaching staff and all that stuff. We just were never able to gain any traction.”"

The Magic learned a big lesson in a season with a lot of stakes. Size is not the way to go. Not without some athleticism to back it up. Or shooting to buoy the offense.

Orlando will have a lot of questions this season. But they are for now standing by the process that brought Ibaka in and the decision to go with it. It was something they had evidence and believed would work. And it just did not.

Next: Revisiting Serge Ibaka, Orlando Magic ponder what if

Orlando moved on. They have found success in the last month with a new style. The question is whether it will carry over to next year. And then how they build the team back up from there.