The Orlando Magic knew there would be low moments. There always are in an 82-game season and with a young team the lows were going to be fairly low.
Orlando has suffered once again from bad injury luck — even when the team is seemingly coming out of it, there are more major and nagging injuries that send players back to the injury report. And the team is so young that experience is certainly standing in the way of any run of sustainable success.
Still, Orlando expected to do more.
In the second year under coach Jamahl Mosley with many of the same players on the roster, the team expected to take some more tangible steps forward. And the disappointing thing about this eight-game losing streak has been how few of those steps the team seems to be taking.
The Magic have earned every bit of this eight-game losing streak. Outside of the Orlando Magic’s one-point loss to the Indiana Pacers in the game that started this skid, the Magic have not been in many other games down to the wire. That was at least an early season marker of the team’s improvement.
The Orlando Magic are seemingly at rock bottom on an eight-game losing streak with few evident answers. No lineup seems to be working which suggests it is time for some change and to find a way to simplify things for the group.
More alarmingly, three of the Magic’s four losses by 15 points or more have happened during this stretch. That is the part that is frustrating most. Orlando has been seemingly noncompetitive in inexcusable ways. And it does not seem like there is much relief with the way the team is playing.
At this point, the Magic have to be exploring and thinking about anything to change things. Yes, the team is still adjusting to adding back point guards Markelle Fultz and Cole Anthony. And yes, the team is down a key defensive leader in Wendell Carter.
The team is limited in its changes. But the Magic have to consider some lineup changes to make things easier for the team and get them off on better footing.
Orlando has had a lot of lineups that are struggling to work together — partly because of the aforementioned injuries and lineup shifts. And many more that simply do not work anymore if they ever did at all.
As unique as the Magic’s lineup can be with its big arrangement, it also comes with plenty of weaknesses. And for now, the Magic should consider making some lineup changes to make things simpler for their key players and find some lineup balance.
Simplifying things seems like the best way to approach things for now. Orlando snapped out of its season-opening five-game losing streak with a lineup change that added Bol Bol to the mix. It feels like the team needs another fresh look to try to throw teams off or just put their best players in a better position.
The jumbo lineup with Bol Bol playing alongside Wendell Carter, Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner caught teams by surprise early. That group had enough skill offensively to balance the floor and enough versatility defensively to protect the paint and lock down the glass.
Since Carter’s injury, that group has struggled.
The trio of Wagner, Banchero and Bol has an even overall net rating in 273 minutes this season (112.9 offensive and defensive rating). But in the last 10 games, the trio has a net rating of -24.6 points per 100 possessions (101.7 offensive rating/126.3 defensive rating).
Whether that is simply because of Wendell Carter’s absence or the lack of a shooter at that lead guard spot (the trio played a lot with Terrence Ross early on before Jalen Suggs returned from injury) is for debate. But the group is not working out well right now.
The current starting group of Markelle Fultz, Franz Wagner, Paolo Banchero, Bol Bol and Moe Wagner has a net rating of -39.8 points per 100 possessions (91.5 offensive rating/131.3 defensive rating).
That is only in 25 minutes, so maybe it is not enough time to draw conclusions (and inserting Moe Wagner into the lineup is a stopgap as well with Mo Bamba out with back spasms). But the Magic are struggling to get themselves going.
To that point, Orlando’s most used lineup in the last 10 games has played together for only 32 minutes (Jalen Suggs, Franz Wagner, Chuma Okeke, Bol Bol and Mo Bamba). But that group too has struggled — a -34.9 net rating with a woeful 89.7 offensive rating.
It seemingly suggests Orlando’s jumbo lineup idea really only works with Carter in there as a backstop and that there is something missing chemistry-wise.
Playing from behind to start games with a team clearly depleted with injury — and still adjusting to life with its two guards, as Khobi Price of the Orlando Sentinel demonstrated — is a lot for this team to overcome.
So what is working? Is there anything working?
The Magic’s best lineup during the last 10 games (that has played any significant time) has featured Jalen Suggs, Franz Wagner, Chuma Okeke, Bol Bol and Wendell Carter. They played 17 minutes together in the win over the Chicago Bulls albeit at a -5.2 net rating (88.6 offensive rating/93.8 defensive rating). That should only continue to hammer home the point of how vital Carter is to making bigger lineup groups work.
The next best grouping featured Gary Harris with Moe Wagner, Bol Bol, Franz Wagner and Paolo Banchero. That group has played only 12 minutes together at a net rating of -0.6 points per 100 possessions (113.0/113.6).
The Magic’s best group was the one that closed Saturday’s game in Toronto — eight minutes of R.J. Hampton, Kevon Harris, Terrence Ross, Caleb Houstan and Admiral Schofield at a net rating of 52.9 points per 100 possessions. That is not likely one the Magic would try in a real game.
None of these groupings or lineups reveal much. It shows at this point that very little of what the Magic are doing is working at any level.
Perhaps that closing lineup Saturday showed a more traditional lineup orientation or a smaller lineup can work. But in reality, that was a team playing out the string of a 30-point loss that cut the final deficit to 13.
A lineup change is not likely to come. The team needs to play Franz Wagner and Paolo Banchero. And the team could probably ill afford to lose Bol Bol’s offensive efficiency and genuine shock factor at least offensively, even if there are still some concerns with how teams attack him on defense.
But waiting for Wendell Carter to return from his injury is not much of a plan either.
The goal for the Magic right now needs to be about making things easier, especially for Wagner and Banchero, the two most important players on the roster. Trying to figure out a way to put them in better spots on both sides of the floor should be a team priority.
That is not happening for either right now. Both have struggled to find their rhythm since Fultz and Anthony entered the lineup. Right now the priority for the team should be trying to make it easier for those groups to play together.
The unfortunate thing is that there are no simple answers. Not until players get healthy.
Carter and Harris especially unlock a lot of things within the Magic’s lineups that they are missing right now. Things may well get back on the right track when they return.
But Orlando has to consider everything to break this streak. There may not be a comfortable or certain answer with all the instability the Magic are facing. But returning to a more traditional lineup may help everyone get back in the right spots and keep the team from constantly having to shift and cover for the big lineup’s deficiencies without Carter on the floor.
Right now, simple needs to be the answer to get the team out of this funk.