3 Orlando Magic preseason stats to believe, 2 to disregard
Disregard: Magic's offense still struggling
No one should completely disregard the Orlando Magic's offensive struggles. It is still the biggest weak link in the chain for this team. And the Magic will have to do a lot of work to build back their offense. There is a lot for the team to work on.
But the Magic were not nearly as bad as they showed in the preseason—from their overall efficiency to their shooting to everything else. The team is aiming to climb out of the bottom 10 in offensive rating for the first time since Dwight Howard's final season in 2012.
There is a lot of history the Magic have to overcome. It starts with a single step. Or shot.
Orlando finished the preseason with a 102.6 offensive rating (25th in the league, including non-NBA teams that played preseason games). In the first half, they had a 110.5 offensive rating which was good for 15th.
That is something to be optimistic about, at least for now.
The Magic were better offensively in the preseason last year and still had their struggles when the regular season began. So while there are encouraging signs, offense in the preseason is not super reliable.
Just look at Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.
In two games, he made only 1 of 6 3-pointers and scored five total points. Caldwell-Pope is not going to be a high-volume scorer or shooter, he never has been. But this is a player who has shot better than 40 percent from three in three of the last four years—and the one year he did not, he shot 39 percent.
And his impact goes well beyond just his numbers and shooting. The team already feels it.
Jalen Suggs has had his struggles from three. But there is no way he will shoot 34.6 percent from the field (9 for 26) and 22.2 percent (4 for 18) for a whole season, right?
That is why preseason stats and these incredibly small sample sizes are hard to get a read on and hard to believe fully.
This is not to say the Magic's offense will be fine. There is still a lot to improve on.
But the Magic's offense probably did not struggle as much as it seemed. And even that might not mean very much for when the season begins.