National Basketball Association

Everyone is to blame for Orlando Magic's lethargic play

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 7:59 p.m. ET

Fansided, Philip Rossman-Reich/FanSided via Orlando Magic Daily

The Orlando Magic are still searching for their identity and consistency. The season is clearly drifting away and everyone has their blame to shoulder.

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It has been a busy week in Orlando Magic media.

General manager Rob Hennigan took to the printed page and airwaves to update and reassure fans about a disappointing first half of the season. The team was searching to regain that defensive spirit from the first quarter of the season, he said. They were working internally to improve while exploring external improvements.

Coach Frank Vogel spoke to the press after practice Thursday, following a disappointing, but not completely discouraging game against the Chicago Bulls on Tuesday, and said his team is trying to use the doubting media and NBA world to motivate them to make a Playoff push. They were not counting themselves out.

Neither was their general manager. It would be an uphill climb for sure. The Magic had to really step up their play to make that push. Even as it seemed to be growing dimmer and dimmer.

Ultimately, turning this season around is as much on the players as it is everyone else. They have to perform.

The gauntlet was thrown down to turn things around and . . .

There was the egg laid. All the talk of turning things around and statements of affirmation that the team still believed the Playoffs were a possibility seemed to be hollow. Extremely hollow.

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That is the only explanation for a 128-98 loss to the Boston Celtics at TD Garden on Friday. Yet another route ending in an embarrassing 30-point defeat. This is an occurrence that happens too often to be mere coincidence. It is an occurrence that only happens to bad teams.

And that is where the Magic are at — recognizing they are a bad team. Perhaps in denial at just how bad it is. Or dutifully trying to win games because that is what a team is supposed to do until they can no longer do so any more to any effect.

There is going to be requisite soul searching after a loss like this. They have to get back to work tomorrow as Vogel said.

The Magic have been through this path before. Teams have beaten this team down and the Magic have dutifully responded for a short while before returning to this neutered state of missed potential.

What happened Friday was absolutely unacceptable to everyone. And clearly, the team is not good enough.

.@OrlandoMagic Coach Frank Vogel's Postgame reaction after a disappointing loss to the Boston Celtics. pic.twitter.com/cEQA0jYNvu

— FOX Sports Florida (@FOXSportsFL) January 28, 2017

“I don’t think any of us are living up to when you say we have good defensive players,” Vogel said after the game. “We aren’t playing like good defensive players. I’m not tying these guys together as a good defensive good. It’s a collective failure on that end that we have to get right.”

In the plainest words possible, there it is. The team has failed to live up to its expectations and their coach has struggled to get them pulling in the right direction.

And the general manager? He too also puts the blame on himself. This team’s failures are certainly his failures, as he told Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel earlier this week:

OS: After losses, players have often talked about energy and effort being lacking. How is that possible? Shouldn’t energy and effort be more of a given rather than inconsistent?

Hennigan: Absolutely. I think those are two areas where if our fans watch us play they have every right to be frustrated and disappointed when that happens, because those two things should be givens. And if they’re not, quite frankly, then that’s on me.

OS: How is that on you if the energy and effort are not there?

Hennigan: Because we decide who’s on the team and who’s not on the team. Our belief is that our players possess energy and competitiveness and fight. We just don’t do it on a consistent-enough basis.

These are the words. What the team has done on the court is the action.

And what has happened on the court is an inconsistent team lacking the defensive identity they were supposed to have. A team that is in the bottom 10 of both offensive and defensive efficiency. A team that is in the bottom five in net rating.

This is a lottery team. And a team angling for a high draft pick. At least statistically.

Despite all protestations to the contrary, that does not appear to be changing.

Who is at fault for this mess the Magic find themselves in, leaving them questioning everything about their present and their future? The answer is right there.

Everyone has their blame to shoulder.

Vogel is right, he has not gotten his players on the same string defensively. He has gone through the same rotations trying to believe the same groups will suddenly work. He has changed his lineup on a few occasions to limited effect. The process is not working. Not to its fullest.

But that is not all on him. The players have to execute the game plan. They have proven they can do it. In one long stretch in late November and early December, they were among the best defensive teams in the league. That team, as has so often been said and believed, is in there somewhere.

Yet, even the most basic game plans cannot go anywhere without the basics of consistent effort. Each game it is unclear whether the Magic will play with energy or for how long. In Friday’s loss to the Celtics, the Magic started off fine on offense, but they quickly receded to the background.

That effort problem, as Hennigan stated, ultimately falls on him. He built a flawed roster and made some serious bets that have not cashed out. With a directive to win, Hennigan has somehow made his team worse. The Magic would have to go on a big run just to reach last year’s 35 win total. Much less the Playoffs.

And finally, the fans have some blame to shoulder too.

After four years out of the Playoffs, everyone got restless and wanted a quicker pace to the rebuild. The calls to move things faster. They have a right to do so, of course. It is their money paying for season tickets. But a 10-win improvement was not enough.

A rushed rebuild always brings the chance for failure and collapse — taking bigger risks to get bigger rewards. Progress is never inevitable, but change brings with it a little risk. And the greater the risk, the greater the chance of failure.

There will be time to reassess where this team is and how it got to this point in the offseason. The team can do a full autopsy then.

What is clear after another lax effort and more than half a season gone by, this season has slowly drifted away.

There has been plenty of talk of getting better and little action to get there. Everyone has their role to play in that — whether it is Friday or the entire season.

What has to happen next is the team has to find a way to move forward and move past everything that has built up so far this season. They have to find a way to make something of this season — even if it is merely hope for the future.