NBA JAM is still one of the most popular and important basketball video games of all time. So who from the 2018 Orlando Magic would represent on NBA JAM?
The Orlando Magic roster is pretty much set for the 2018 season. And there is some measured excitement for the upcoming season. At the very worst, fans believe the team is heading in the right direction.
No one will know for sure where the Magic are headed until the season begins and training camp opens in late September. That gives us a lot of time to kill.
This week — and the last few weeks — have had players focused on video games. NBA2K has started unveiling footage from its latest edition and some of the many new features — including all-time teams.
But the gold standard in NBA video games remains the arcade adrenaline rush that is NBA JAM.
Even though the game originally came out in 1993, it still carries a lot of weight in NBA culture. Phrases like “He’s heating up,” “He’s on fire,” and “Boom-shaka-laka,” are all part of the common NBA lexicon. The two-on-two arcade game has influenced conversations and countless offspring — the sequel NBA JAM Tournament Edition, NBA Hangtime. NBA Showtime, NBA Street and a reboot to NBA JAM a few years ago.
The original — which for the Magic featured Scott Skiles and Nick Anderson, eventually adding Shaquille O’Neal for Nick Anderson — still holds up. And longtime NBA gamers will see the arcade console and play it nonstop.
Sports Illustrated for its “Where are they now?” issue this summer did a great oral history of how the game developed and how it became an institution in NBA culture. It is well worth the read. And it sprouted an offshoot about who are the best NBA JAM units for each team, including the Magic.
To show just how ingrained NBA JAM is into the culture, we are once again trying to figure out who makes the best NBA JAM duo out of the current Magic. We have done that each of the last two years — here is our 2017 version and our 2016 version.
So what do we know about this Magic roster?
Orlando lacks a lot of the players you would want in a NBA JAM team. In fact, I would argue intuitively NBA JAM previewed the analytics revolution we are seeing in the league today. In those two-on-two games, players often go either for dunks or 3-pointers. The two most efficient shots in the game.
The Magic have some strong dunkers in Aaron Gordon, Jonathon Simmons and Terrence Ross, but not a lot of 3-point shooters. Really just Terrence Ross and Evan Fournier are the only shooters.
It would seem then the Magic have limited options to build a good NBA JAM team. They would be one of the first teams you face when you register your initials in the game.
There are definitely some intriguing players to play with and some good combinations we would like to see in the game.
Reminder, this is not a ranking of the best two players on the Magic. This is a ranking of the five best duos from the Magic for a 2018 version of NBA JAM. Without further adieu . . .
5. Nikola Vucevic & Evan Fournier
At its most basic level, NBA JAM is about scoring. Defense is a secondary thought in the video game. And so for an offensively challenged team like the Magic, it makes sense to put the two best scorers on the team together and just hope for the best.
Evan Fournier is probably the best shooter on the Magic this year. He is the top returning 3-point shooter. And he can get into the lane and finish at the basket.
Fournier averaged 17.2 points per game and shot 35.6 percent from beyond the arc. Those were solid numbers, but his efficiency suffered last year as he had to take on a larger offensive role.
Orlando Magic
Nikola Vucevic is a good option at center too because he can step out and hit some jumpers. It would be nicer if he were a better 3-point shooter, something he tried to incorporate into his game last year. Vucevic averaged 14.6 points and 10.4 rebounds per game.
So at least he would be solid collecting the few misses that occur in NBA JAM. And he took a career-high 75 3-point attempts last year. Assumedly he is working to add more to his game.
But this is not 2K’s Blacktop. You are not going to be able to pick and roll teams to death. In fact, I am not sure you can even pick and roll defenses in NBA JAM unless you are playing on the same team and you just mash the foul buttons to shove players out of the way.
Vucevic becomes a poor option for NBA JAM because he is not a great rim protector, so he will not get those crucial blocks that are essentially all you can do to get stops in the offensive-minded video game. And he is not a strong dunker. Neither is Fournier.
This is an eligible and strong team for the Magic because they are the best offensive options the team has. But this is not the team to go with. Fournier probably makes the cut if we are doing a three- or four-man roster. Unfortunately, Vucevic is just not the ideal center for a game like NBA JAM.
4. Terrence Ross & Jonathon Simmons
NBA JAM is about dunking at its heart. And so the three players that will be the focus of a lot of these pairings are going to be on the Magic’s best dunkers. And the Magic have a few of them.
So let’s pair two of them here.
Terrence Ross is a slam dunk champion — although he admits he is not the best dunker on the team. But he can do a little bit more than that.
With the Magic last year, he averaged 12.5 points per game and shot 34.1 percent from beyond the arc. Not terrible percentages. But he definitely seemed to get his footing under him as he got more comfortable in Orlando’s offense.
Even though no one seems to be talking about Ross, there is the potential he will get better and more comfortable after his short run with the team last year. He has been searching for consistency for a long time. Handing him a bigger role outside of Toronto might be what does it.
Ultimately, what he does well is finish at the rim and make some open threes. That is enough to get a solid NBA JAM nod.
The bigger mystery on this Magic team is Jonathon Simmons.
Orlando’s big — and surprising — free agent acquisition, has a lot of promise about him and a lot of people who want to anoint him as the starter already. Ignore the fact he has not been a full-time starter and averaged only 6.2 points per game and shot 29.4 percent from beyond the arc.
His highlights though are impressive. A veritable NBA JAM-like array of dunks and posters he has laid across the league. The thing he lacks is consistent playing time.
Simmons got some of that in the Playoffs last year. He averaged 10.5 points per game and shot 35.1 percent from beyond the arc. There seems like there is another level to Simmons’ game if given consistent playing time and shot opportunities.
That is what would make this duo so interesting. Both Ross and Simmons are strong dunkers. Both have potential to continue growing as 3-point shooters. And so it would be a good NBA JAM team.
But those questions about their shooting would not necessarily make them the ideal team to play with.
3. Aaron Gordon & Elfrid Payton
Aaron Gordon and Elfrid Payton have been playing together since Gordon was a high school senior. They were players on the USA U18 team the summer before they were drafted together by the Orlando Magic.
That duo has remained fairly strong. Payton knows how to find Gordon and Gordon knows how to finish when he gets the ball from Payton.
According to NBA.com’s stats database, Gordon received 95 assists from Payton last season. That is more than 60 assists greater than the next player — Nikola Vucevic at 33. There is an undoubted connection between these two players. They work well together.
And to be sure, they would be a great alley-ooping duo. Plenty of those 95 assists from Payton ended with Gordon slamming it home — including that one Payton threw off the backboard against the Brooklyn Nets late in the season.
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This is definitely a duo you have to consider placing together in the NBA. But it is undoubtedly a flawed one.
While Payton would surely have a pretty solid ball handling rating and could get around the paint in NBA JAM fairly easily, his lack of shooting makes him extremely one dimensional.
Last year, Payton shot 47.1 percent from the floor, but just 27.4 percent from beyond the arc. He took a career-high in 3-point attempts and was supposedly more comfortable doing so, but did not produce.
By the end of the season, he was back to passing on open 3-pointers and trying to get into the paint more. He was surprisingly efficient when he did that — he still shot 49.3 percent effective field goal percentage.
Add in Aaron Gordon’s sub-30 percent 3-point shooting and this is looking like a simple alley oop show. That is something Payton can do. But, without any shooting, it will be a lot of dribbling around waiting for the alley oop animation to start.
That might actually work, I suppose.
2. Terrence Ross & Evan Fournier
Ultimately, the video game is about scoring. And so the Magic’s NBA JAM team needs shooters. And 3-point shooting is the most effective jump shooting available in the game. So why not pair perhaps the Magic’s two best shooters?
Evan Fournier is the Magic’s best returning 3-point shooter. He hit on 35.6 percent of his 3-pointers last year, the top returning 3-point shooter on the team.
Terrence Ross is a good shooter, but struggled some in his run with the Magic. He hit on only 34.1 percent of his 3-point shots last year. That was still third-best on the team. Ross can be a better 3-point shooter.
If the Magic are hoping to spread the floor and get a 3-point shooting team going, it will require both Ross and Fournier on the floor. D.J. Augustin was the only other returning player to shoot better than 33.3 percent from beyond the arc. That is not good for a team hoping to run a more spread-the-floor, up-tempo offense.
The Ross-Fournier combination is going to be important for the team in real life — for what it is worth, the Magic had a -3.5 net rating with the duo on the floor — but it could be a good option for players if they were to play NBA JAM.
One of the classic NBA JAM duo styles is to pair two shooters and just find a way to get them 3-point shots. Those teams are always dangerous because it is always easy to catch the defense ball watching and draw them in to kick out for threes.
That works in a video game. And this would be one of the first duos I would think about running — especially since Ross is such a strong dunker.
In real life? The Magic will need both Fournier and Ross to improve their 3-point shooting significantly.
1. Aaron Gordon & Evan Fournier
Ultimately, when it comes to NBA JAM duos, I still think the best way to go with a team is to have one guard who can shoot and one big who can defend the rim and dunk the ball. I think that provides the best balance of players to take advantage of the game’s emphases and strategy.
That Scott Skiles/Shaquille O’Neal pairing in the original game is just about perfect (Skiles could be a better 3-point shooter, I suppose).
With the NBA going to more versatility, the modern NBA seems like it would fit the NBA JAM style a whole lot more. Having a player like Giannis Antetokounmpo fill that big role make me want to faint. It would just be fun.
So the Magic’s best NBA JAM lineup to me fits that mold. Go with a shooter (Evan Fournier) along with the team’s most versatile do-it-all big (Aaron Gordon). It provides the balance of the team’s best 3-point shooter and its best dunker.
That is all anyone could ask for when it comes to a NBA JAM team.
Is this team perfect? No.
Just like the Magic’s roster, there are clear flaws. It would be nicer if Fournier were a better passer just as it would be better for Gordon to be a better shooter. It seems like every single one of these lineups has that kind of flaw. But that is reflective of the larger flaws on the Magic roster.
That is probably why the Magic would not make for a good NBA JAM team — or probably a great NBA2K team.
Next: Orlando Magic seeking a face to the franchise
This is their best crew — or certainly among their best crew — for this two on two game. It provides the balance of shooting and dunking needed to succeed in NBA JAM.