Orlando trying to do some Magic
A team that didn’t have many expectations coming into this season, given the fact that they ended their last one with a 25-57 record, their main goal was to have some signs of improvement while they develop their young prospects. Anyhow, they tried to make some adjustments in the offseason and they made a few upgrades to the roster, picking Mo Bamba, a big man, with their 6th overall pick while adding Jerian Grant and Steve Clifford.
The start of the season was pretty good compared to the last one, and the main reason for that was Nikola Vucevic who started the season strong, averaging 20,4 points, 10,8 rebounds per game with 45% shooting from three; that is some efficiency shooting the ball like that as a center. However, they slowed down as a team a little after that start and currently Orlando is on the 10th place coming into the All Star break, but only 2 losses away from a play off seed.
If they keep playing like they did in the last games, when they beat the Hornets 127-89, New Orleans by 30, Atlanta Hawks by almost 20 points and even beat the Milwaukee Bucks by 20 points on their home court, all in one week of action, it can happen by the end of the season, even if it will definitely not be an easy task for them to accomplish. Looking further on their upcoming schedule, they have four matches left to play in the month of February, and they will maybe end it with a split, two wins and two losses in the matches against Chicago Bulls, Toronto Raptors, New-York Knicks and Golden State Warriors. As for the month of March, they will have a kind of more easier schedule than the teams which are in front of them. The single disadvantage that they have if we look into it, is that from 14 matches total, they will play eight of them on the road, against Indiana, Cleveland, Philadephia, Memphis, Washington, Miami, Detroit and once again in Indiana, while hosting Dallas, Cleveland, Atlanta, New Orleans, Memphis and Philadelphia at home. From those fourteen matches, eight of their opponents are on a lower seed compared to theirs and if the group of their young guys will continue to play the way that they played the past few matches, they can even upset some of the better teams, because they have the potential, only thing that they lack at this moment is experience from some of them. Nikola Vucevic was selected as an All-Star for the first time in this career this year and the organization took a great decision by not trading him, even if there were some rumors before the deadline that they may want to trade him as a part of the team’s rebuilding process. Jonathan Isaac, another young gun currently in his sophomore year, is on a roll in the Magic’s last games, having 16 points, 6 rebounds and shooting 66,7% from the field against Charlotte, 20 points, 7 rebounds and 3 blocks against New Orleans, 17 points, 3 rebounds, 2 steals and 5 blocks against the Hawks and 17 points, 6 rebounds and 2 blocks against the number 1 seed in the East, Milwaukee Bucks. Other players that have built on their recent success are Aaron Gordon, Terrence Ross and Evan Fournier, all of them playing quite impressive recently. Unfortunately for them, their rookie, Mo Bamba, is out indefinitely with a left tibia fracture, but they can be happy on the addition of this year’s number 1 pick, Markelle Fultz in a trade that involved both him and Jonathon Simmons. Given the fact that they didn’t have to deal too many assets for a number 1 pick, if they try their hardest to adapt Fultz to their system and fully trust his skill set as a point guard, they will fill an important gap that is currently a big problem for them, the point guard position. Furthermore, we don’t think that the pressure is very high on them if we take a look at how things were at the beginning of the season for them and what their objective was, so that is another advantage for them in their playoff chase.
Andrei Dilean, info@brainbasketball.net
