Season Predictions 2016
Current seeding: 11th
Projected seeding: 13th
Orlando, even several years after the ugly exit of Dwight Howard, is still a hot mess of young talent still trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t. Apparently PF/SF Tobias Harris -- shipped to Detroit for PG Brandon Jennings and PF/SF Ersan Ilyasova -- was part of the “doesn’t”, but there is still much quality youth on this team that are part of the “does”. Double-double machine C/PF Nikola Vucevic (injured) is the first name that comes to mind, as is SG/PG Victor Oladipo, even if the speedy scorer has taken a step backwards this year and is now coming off the bench. PG Elfrid Payton, while offensively challenged, has shown modest improvements in year two, as has the highly-pressured PF Aaron Gordon. The list goes on.
But only two of these players -- Vucevic and Oladipo -- are offensively capable, and are the only ones putting up at least 15 ppg. This is reflected in the offensive efficiency metric, where the Magic rank 25th in the league, and 24th in true shooting percentage -- another advanced metric that measures shooting efficiency. You need to score to win, which is part of the reason why I’m still scratching my head over the Tobias Harris trade, and most of the reason why Orlando’s playoff drought will continue (the other part being that they are several games behind the 8th seed) until the youth has been properly sorted out.
Current seeding: 11th
Projected seeding: 13th
Orlando, even several years after the ugly exit of Dwight Howard, is still a hot mess of young talent still trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t. Apparently PF/SF Tobias Harris -- shipped to Detroit for PG Brandon Jennings and PF/SF Ersan Ilyasova -- was part of the “doesn’t”, but there is still much quality youth on this team that are part of the “does”. Double-double machine C/PF Nikola Vucevic (injured) is the first name that comes to mind, as is SG/PG Victor Oladipo, even if the speedy scorer has taken a step backwards this year and is now coming off the bench. PG Elfrid Payton, while offensively challenged, has shown modest improvements in year two, as has the highly-pressured PF Aaron Gordon. The list goes on.
But only two of these players -- Vucevic and Oladipo -- are offensively capable, and are the only ones putting up at least 15 ppg. This is reflected in the offensive efficiency metric, where the Magic rank 25th in the league, and 24th in true shooting percentage -- another advanced metric that measures shooting efficiency. You need to score to win, which is part of the reason why I’m still scratching my head over the Tobias Harris trade, and most of the reason why Orlando’s playoff drought will continue (the other part being that they are several games behind the 8th seed) until the youth has been properly sorted out.