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#8 in the LBB end of the season team rankings...
You could convince me that I’m coming in too hot, too early on the Magic (and feel free to do so in the comments), but it’s hard not to be bullish on Orlando over the next couple of seasons. Few teams have a better collection of young talent at the top and complementary depth down the roster. I still have concerns about the offense, but for a team to be this good, this young, they have to overcome obstacles to reach their next level. Whether that happens this year or next, Orlando is primed to be a contender in the Eastern Conference for a good stretch over the next several years.
#8 Orlando Magic
Record: 47-35 (Tied-12th); 5th in the East; 97.37 Pace (27th); 112.9 Offensive Rating (22nd); 110.8 Defensive Rating (3rd); 2.2 Net rating (14th)
Total Salary Cap Allocations: $150,359,238 (27th)
Cap Space: $-9,771,238 (4th)
Current Roster: Cole Anthony, Paolo Banchero, Goga Bitadze, Anthony Black, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Wendell Carter Jr., Jarrett Culver, Tristan De Silva, Myron Gardner, Gary Harris, Calbe Houston, Jett Howard, Jonathan Isaac, Cory Joseph, Tre Scott, Jalen Suggs, Franz Wagner, Moe Wagner
Single Word Description: Rugged
Biggest Positive: Defense
A team this young—the roster features only three players who will be 30 or older during the season: Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (31), Cory Joseph (33), and Gary Harris (30)—having an identity founded on defense is exciting. It’s rare to see the type of buy-in necessary to make defense your calling card from a collection of players this closely removed from being the best offensive option on their college squads. But Orlando and Coach Jamahl Mosley have established a culture based on competing defensively, and their young players have bought in immediately.
Jalen Suggs sets the tone with a style of defense from the guard position that harkens back to the late ’80s and early ’90s. Whether he’s getting under a ball handler positionally at the point of attack or getting under their skin by crowding them while fighting over screens, Suggs utilizes every part of physicality from his football background to make creating space an absolute nightmare for whoever he’s hounding. He’s the perfect tip of the spear for an Orlando team that looks to rough players up with tenacious perimeter defense and rugged interior play. The Magic rode this mix to the third-best defensive rating in the league last season (110.8). Orlando was tied for fourth in the league in steals per game (8.2), and while the shot-blocking was just a bit above average, tied for 12th in the league last season (5.2), the Magic rebounded the hell out of the ball on the defensive end with the second-best defensive rebound percentage in the league (73.7%). This led to them also giving up just the second-fewest points off second chances (12.1). For a defense that works as hard as they do on the wings, limiting the amount of extra workload by not allowing offenses to extend possessions becomes a pivotal part of what makes this Magic defense so stifling. Of course, it also doesn’t hurt when you have a collection of elite perimeter defenders in Suggs, Gary Harris, Jonathan Isaac, and the newly acquired Kentavious Caldwell-Pope that you can throw at teams in waves.
Biggest Negative: Perimeter Shooting
There feels something Thanos-balanced about a young team being this good defensively and this bad as a group of shooters. It’s like the basketball gods didn’t want to give them too much, too quickly. Perhaps that’s why they sapped Franz Wagner of his shooting powers before last season, you know, just to emphasize the point. (Wagner shot a woeful 28.1% from distance last year after shooting 35.8% from range his first two years in the league.) But whatever the cause, Orlando will have to find the answers to their shooting woes before they can take their next jump as a team. Last year, the Magic attempted the second-fewest threes in the league (31.3), shot the 24th-worst percentage (35.2%), and averaged the 7th-fewest points per game (110.5) in the NBA as a result. The overpay to add Kentavious Caldwell-Pope this summer (3 years, $66 million) was in part because of his reputation as a shooter, but his 4.1 attempted threes per game last year were just 136th in the league. And while he is an efficient shooter that teams have to get out on, he’s not the type of movement shooter that would allow for better spacing on the Magic’s forward-heavy drives.
Now, if you’re Orlando, the significant improvement in Jalen Suggs’ three-point shooting—he shot 39.7% last year on a team-high 5.1 attempts, after shooting just 27.1% on 3.9 attempts over his first two seasons—and the assumption that Wagner will shoot more like the player he was in his first two years and Banchero will continue to improve—he went from 29.8% his first year to 33.9% last year—may be cause enough to feel confident that they can become an average or better three-point shooting group. But in this current iteration of the NBA, Orlando will have to become a consistently viable perimeter threat to compete at the highest levels.
What’s Next: Another Jump Forward, But It May Be Hard To Tell
Orlando has positioned itself perfectly to emulate what’s been happening in Oklahoma City in terms of a thoughtful process of youthful development, albeit without quite the treasure trove of assets to deal. Still, in Banchero, Wagner, and Suggs, the Magic have a young trio with superstar, all-star, and Defensive Player of the Year potential, and that may be on the low end of their developmental curves. That’s a great foundation to build from for an Orlando organization that has done a very sound job of surrounding their developing studs with veterans who complement their style of play.
I have concerns with the lack of a true point guard, but with the exit of the oft-injured Markelle Fultz, perhaps Anthony Black can step into those minutes and provide some needed playmaking from the guard position. Still, it feels like they should have made a push for someone like Monte Morris to offer a steadying hand at playmaker, as Suggs is really more of a 1.5 than a true lead guard—his 2.7 assists per game last year ranked 105th in the league amongst all guards. As it stands, they use Paolo’s immense talents as a ball handler and Franz as a secondary option off drives to create many of the shot opportunities for their teammates. Again, this is why it’s fundamental that they become a better shooting group from the perimeter, as teams will look to pack the paint and force them to make shots to beat them. This tactic proved to be their Achilles’ heel in a first-round playoff loss to Cleveland, as the Magic shot just 30.9% from the three-point line in the series. Only fellow first-round exits, the Lakers (29.9%) and Pelicans (26.7%), shot worse from distance in the playoffs.
That being said, Orlando is a young and developing team that got ahead of expectations last season. In what is shaping up to be a fairly top-heavy Eastern Conference, it may be difficult for Orlando to show much growth in terms of wins or playoff results this coming season. However, the real markers of improvement will come in solidifying their offensive deficiencies and seeing their young stars continue to add elements to their games. I think this coming season may prove to be the year before the year they really make their impact felt, but whether sooner or later, this Magic team is coming.
What They Shouldn’t Do: Get Impatient
Orlando seems to have a sound idea of how they want to progress. Investing early in re-signing players like Franz Wagner, who they inked to a five-year extension worth as much as $270 million this summer—a year before they needed to—sends a clear message to the other young players in the organization about their commitment to this core. With that in mind, Orlando has to maintain their focus through the ups and downs and remember that growth for groups this young takes time and often comes with tough lessons.
This situation may actually be more similar to Boston’s, where the Magic being as good as they already are with such a young group could foster feelings of disappointment when results aren’t as immediate as some may expect. This is a unit that may need three or four more years to fully develop and coalesce into its fullest form, so there’s no reason to get too ahead of themselves. Of course, all of this requisite prudence becomes much more palatable when the team’s best player won’t even turn 22 until November. But in a landscape where immediacy quickly gives way to premature cries of folly, there will come a time when the word "failure" is too eagerly thrown around and it will be the responsibility of the Magic brass to ignore that outcry from the wrongfully impatient. (Thanks for being patient with that sentence.)
Is There Hope?: Without a Doubt
As far as I’m concerned, Orlando trails only Oklahoma City in terms of a five-year prognosis. Now, I’ll freely admit that I’m partial to a team that sets its foundation on defense, and as Boston just proved, that formula still works. Ultimately though, scheme be damned, Paolo remains the most clear and present cause for optimism where the organization is concerned long-term. Last season, he became just the 16th player ever to average 22.5 points, 6.5 rebounds, and 5.0 assists in his age-21-or-younger season. Of those 15 other players, only Terry Cummings isn’t already a Hall of Famer or headed directly to Springfield after he retires. (Royce White may be currently headed to Springfield as well, but that’s for a whole different reason.)
That type of company is just too rarefied of air to expect anything less than a full superstar turn for the former number-one overall pick out of Duke in the ’22 draft. The hardest thing to hit on in the league is a superstar, and to seemingly have done so with such a young player sets this Magic organization up for a great run over the course of the next several years.
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