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Orlando Magic: 5 questions for the second quarter of the season

By Philip Rossman-Reich

Jonathan Isaac's emergence as a Defensive Player of the Year candidate has boosted the Orlando magic early this season. (Photo by Glenn James/NBAE via Getty Images)
Jonathan Isaac's emergence as a Defensive Player of the Year candidate has boosted the Orlando magic early this season. (Photo by Glenn James/NBAE via Getty Images) /
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Jonathan Isaac, Orlando Magic
Jonathan Isaac’s start defensively and offensively has renewed promise in the Orlando Magic’s young players. (Photo by Fernando Medina/NBAE via Getty Images) /

Will Jonathan Isaac continue his defensive dominance?

The most promising development of the first quarter of the season undoubtedly came from Jonathan Isaac.

The Orlando Magic have been waiting for one of their draft picks to hit and develop into a potentially elite player. So many players during this rebuild have cycled through and fallen short — or in Victor Oladipo‘s case, the Magic did not build an environment to make the most of him and they ended up giving up on him too soon.

This year was supposed to be the year for Aaron Gordon to emerge offensively. Various injuries and perhaps the vagaries of Gordon’s offensive ambitions have slowed that development down. Gordon may not be the featured player the Magic ultimately want or need.

Jonathan Isaac though began to emerge as that guy in the early part of the season. His offensive game started to emerge as he hit from the outside more often and found gaps in the defense to get his points.

But his real value came in how much he grew defensively. Isaac has become one of the best defensive players in the league and looks well on his way to making the All-Defensive team. He is second in the league in blocks with 2.7 per game. More impressively that has come as a wing.

He has posted a 5.1 defensive box plus-minus, according to Basketball-Reference, placing him second in the league for that metric (as imperfect as it might be).

Isaac is averaging a career-best 12.6 points per game and 7.3 rebounds per game. His counting stats are starting to catch up to his defensive numbers.

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    • His scoring is still inconsistent. And he still shows youthful over-exuberance on defense.

    Since the Nikola Vucevic injury especially, his defense has fallen off some. He has taken on more individual responsibility and there his youth is on display more. Getting through an entire 82-game season with the intensity and focus of an elite player remains the big challenge for many young players.

    But Isaac makes an undeniable impact defensively still. And how he continues to grow and improve throughout the course of the season is going to be one of the biggest developments to happen the rest of the 2020 season.

    If he is as dominant defensively as he was early in the season, the Magic could be a top-10 defense on that alone. And that will make them competitive with everyone.

    The Magic have a lot of solid players. They need guys who can make plays. Isaac can be that player.