5 adjustments the Orlando Magic must make to get their first win
Settle on a Rotation
The Orlando Magic are a team still figuring out who it is and what the team ultimately wants to be.
Some experimentation is warranted and probably correct for this group. The team wants to see how Franz Wagner and Paolo Banchero play off each other (120 total minutes, the second most common pair for the team so far this season) most of all. Thus the team has been hesitant to stagger their minutes, even if that would benefit the team in the short term.
Orlando should be willing to try some new and funky things and to stick with them even when they do not work for a little while at least. A lot of these plans and thoughts are not about whether they will work in this individual game, but whether it is something the team can turn to later on in the season or even build upon as they continue to build the roster.
None of this should be surprising.
But with the team struggling to get wins, the extent to which the Magic are experimenting is certainly part of the problem. Orlando should be willing to experiment, but perhaps should limit it in the name of building a sound foundation and stability.
So far this season, it has felt like coach Jamahl Mosley has had a different rotation for every game the team has played. Some nights Caleb Houstan is the first guy off the bench, sometimes he does not play. Sometimes R.J. Hampton cannot get some run, other times the team relies on him for that backup ball-handler help.
Sometimes the Magic stagger lineups so that Wendell Carter is not playing with Mo Bamba. Sometimes the duo plays together so that they can get some minutes with Bol Bol or Paolo Banchero at center.
All of these experiments are fine if it did not feel like they were all coming at once. And that the team was able to sustain testing things out without falling behind or compromising games.
It still feels like Mosley is testing things out and treating the first half of these games like preseason testing grounds rather than regular season games — to his credit, he abandons what is not working and looks to play the hot hand or make adjustments to fill in gaps in most of these second halves just see how Mo Bamba did not play much in the second half Monday in favor of the scorching Bol Bol.
One of Mosley’s strengths is his ability to adjust and not be so stuck to set rotations. That was a common complaint under Steve Clifford with how he had a plan and rarely deviated from it.
The Magic could probably use a little bit of that so that players can get used to playing with set groups at set times and have some stability to grow from.
At this point, that would probably help the team find a rhythm and solve problems together to just churn out a win or two.