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The solution to the Orlando Magic’s offensive woes is simple

By Seth Arora

The Magic must right the ship on offense if they want to get back to the postseason.Copyright 2019 NBAE (Photo by Fernando Medina/NBAE via Getty Images)
The Magic must right the ship on offense if they want to get back to the postseason.Copyright 2019 NBAE (Photo by Fernando Medina/NBAE via Getty Images) /
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Aaron Gordon, Orlando Magic, Detroit Pistons
Aaron Gordon has found some offensive freedom, but his wild drives are part of the team’s offensive stagnation. (Photo by Chris Schwegler/NBAE via Getty Images) /

The Players

The bulk of the Orlando Magic’s shooting offense comes from Nikola Vucevic, Evan Fournier, Aaron Gordon, Terrence Ross, D.J. Augustin, Jonathan Isaac and Markelle Fultz. The issue the team faces this season is that so many of those players are simultaneously having the worst offensive starts to their careers in one way or the other.

Nikola Vucevic, Terrence Ross and D.J. Augustin are all off to the worst starts of their careers, both in terms of field goal percentage overall and 3-point percentage.

Vucevic’s 43.6 percent field goal percentage is the worst opening to a campaign, though his numbers in November are at least possibly beginning to resemble the Vucevic of old — 48.4 percent from the floor in November so far.

Augustin actually had a similarly atrocious start to the 2014 season, but that’s little consolation for Magic fans when he has hit only 25 percent of his threes this season. The Magic have already opted to move him out of the starting lineup, hoping that can get him more attacking and shooting opportunities.

No one is having a rougher go of it than Ross, though.

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EuroLeague transfer rumors: Frank Kaminsky, Terrence Ross, and more
EuroLeague transfer rumors: Frank Kaminsky, Terrence Ross, and more /

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    • His start on offense — 32.5 percent from the field and 22.2 percent from three on 5.6 attempts per game — is easily his worst start and arguably the worst eight-game start in NBA history by someone shooting the three that much.

    He has dealt with right knee soreness already, so perhaps that solves at least part of the riddle. Ross hit on five of his six shots in Sunday’s return to the lineup, showing a lot more spring in his jump. The rest did him good.

    Nevertheless, “yikes” might be the most appropriate response here.

    And to compound matters, even if several other major players on the team are not shooting so badly from the field, they are killing the offense with inefficient three-point shooting.

    Aaron Gordon (27.8 percent), Al-Farouq Aminu (31.6 percent) and Mo Bamba (29.4 percent) are players the team counts on to at least put up respectable percentages that require the defense to stay honest and guard out to the perimeter.

    Unfortunately, that simply has not been the case so far this year.

    Vucevic, Augustin and Ross certainly do not deserve all of the blame for the offensive letdowns. Other players besides Jonathan Isaac and Evan Fournier have to start hitting open threes when they are available. But players like Vucevic, Ross and Augustin have the ball in their hands more often than not.

    Their simultaneous struggles make it difficult to overcome for any team, leave aside one with as low of an offensive ceiling as the current Magic squad.

    Figuring out how to put Humpty Dumpty back together is a task for coach Steve Clifford, and there may be a reason for cautious optimism and/or blind hope, depending on one’s perspective.