Orlando Magic must learn lessons from the past to build a modern team
Breaking big
The Magic absolutely have to scrap their plans to counter versatility and speed with size. That was a big decision that backfired significantly and possibly stunted the development of their most valuable asset, Aaron Gordon.
The Magic struggled mightily on defense last season, the team’s poor perimeter defense hurt. But the bigs the Magic acquired failed to provide an adequate backstop too. There were breakdowns everywhere that led to the highly efficient shots modern offenses crave.
They were 24th in defensive rating. That can likely be attributed to their struggles defending shooters (25th in opponent field goal percentage and 24th in opponent 3-point percentage) and disrupting opposing perimeter players leading to turnovers (24th in opponent turnovers).
The Magic were slow on defense and consistently got beat on the perimeter. They would too often have bigger players guarding ball handlers, and they could not handle the speed on the outside.
Teams have learned to expose big men on defense by drawing them out to the 3-point line to defend a spread pick and roll. And the Magic had no answer for that. Serge Ibaka was supposed to be the big man at this, and he struggled at this.
The rotations would then be slow and spread out after the initial line of defense was beaten, and the Magic would proceed to let up easy baskets.
In order to succeed on defense, the Magic need a strong rim protector on the court.
Orlando Magic
But the other four players need to be quick on their feet on the perimeter and keep their man in front of them. That is harder to do with bigger and slower players.
Offensively, they had no space to work with, and built an offense around an old-school style the league has learned is not efficient enough to succeed now.
The Magic were ninth in field goal attempts between 10-14 feet and 11th in attempts from 15-19 feet. On the other hand, they were 24th in attempts inside five feet and 15th in 3-point attempts, many of which were forced against tight coverage or taken by very poor shooters who were left open for a reason.
The lack of spacing led to the Magic having the second worst offensive rating in the league.
These numbers show most of the shots the Magic took were shots the defense was perfectly content allowing. These shots are not efficient enough to build a strong offense in the long term.
If the Magic go smaller and quicker, they will draw the defense out more which will lead to more ball movement and more lanes for layups.
The Magic need to look more like a modern NBA team in order to improve offensively and defensively. They may need to move on from Nikola Vucevic and hand the starting center role to Bismack Biyombo, the rim protector and rim-runner type that works on successful teams.
This will be a big priority for the new regime to build around.