5 reasons for Orlando Magic fans to be thankful this Thanksgiving
By Luke Duffy
4. They are quietly becoming better offensively
One thing the Orlando Magic have not been in recent years is a slick offensive unit.
You could go as far as to say that offensively they could be downright ugly. There is still work to be done, but the group has quietly turned a corner in this area.
Even without looking at the numbers, the kinds of players on the roster now make diversifying the offensive game plan much easier to achieve.
Whereas before everything went through former All-Star big man Nikola Vucevic, and once he left there was a vacuum, these days the team has a steady mix of guard and big-man play to break opponents down.
Wendell Carter is a nice option to have in the pick and roll, and the aforementioned shooting of Bol Bol, as well as Mo Bamba (36 percent from deep), pose difficult questions for opponents to attempt to answer.
Even if injuries have taken Markelle Fultz and Cole Anthony off the court, Jalen Suggs is having a much better season than a year ago. His 13.3 points per game coming on an effective field goal percentage of 49 percent, all while chipping in with a defensive game that is improving at a level the organization will be happy to see.
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Despite being a below-average 3-point shooting team (20th, 34.3 percent), the Magic are finding joy in simplifying their offensive sets.
Cole Anthony (43.9 percent) and Franz Wagner (40.8 percent) both rank in the top 20 in the entire league in handling in pick-and-roll situations. With Bamba the third most frequent roller in the league in those situations (27.9 percent), this has opened up the court for other players on the team to attack, while utilizing Bamba in the correct way.
All of this has led to the Magic having the 10th-best offensive rating at 113.1 points per 100 possessions in the last 10 games.
Some of this has been done without Banchero and his already accomplished scoring skills, which is a real plus. Even though they rank 21st for the season (110.1), there is still enough going on here to be confident that offensively better days are yet to come.