National Basketball Association

Orlando Magic 2016-17 Season Outlook: Returning To The Playoffs

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 6:33 p.m. ET

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Oct 3, 2016; Memphis, TN, USA; Orlando Magic guard Mario Hezonja (8) shoots over Memphis Grizzlies forward James Ennis (8) during the first quarter at FedExForum. Mandatory Credit: Justin Ford-USA TODAY Sports

After some questionable moves this offseason, the Orlando Magic hope their unorthodox approach pays off in 2016-17 by returning to the playoffs

For most NBA teams, there is generally a perceptible direction in which they are headed. The team is doing X to accomplish Y so they can eventually and hopefully win a title. That is not so evident with the Orlando Magic.

Their first move in the 2016 offseason was their trade for former Oklahoma City Thunder forward Serge Ibaka. In a mildly confusing deal, the Orlando Magic exchanged Victor Oladipo, Ersan Ilyasova, and Domantas Sabonis for Serge Ibaka.

On the roster at the time, former 3rd overall pick Victor Oladipo was the most high-upside player there. He averaged a solid 16 points, 4.8 rebounds, and 3.9 assists last year, a year after averaging a career high 18 points per game. The 6-foot-4, athletic and skilled, Oladipo was one of the more highly touted prospects of his draft class, and he has so far appeared to be well on his way towards fulfilling at least some of the hype.

Instead of continuing to develop that potential, the Magic traded him and a high potential prospect in Sabonis for potentially a one year rental of a 27-year-old, in a contract year-Serge Ibaka. In the end, the Magic may have feasibly traded a future fringe All Star for a one year rental for a player who may not even get them into the playoffs. What was the cost benefit analysis here? If not winning, then selling the product of basketball would be the biggest priority. So is watching Serge Ibaka serve as the leader of an 8th or 9th seed in the East for one season really going to be such a profitable fan attraction? Its possible but as an uninformed skeptic I am not so sure.

Even if he does stay, Ibaka is 27 and has never shown the production or ability to function beyond a complementary floor spacing option on offense while being a very good defender. Assuming he does not have a huge leap out of nowhere, Ibaka probably has around 3 or 4 more seasons max of being as effective as he is now before his inevitable age related decline.

Will four years of Ibaka really be more valuable than a potential eight years of prime Victor Oladipo? Even based off position scarcity, it is an interesting move: stretch fours are at a premium in today’s NBA, high upside guards with size and takeover potential are not. Even so, Ibaka does have a lot of value. For this season at least, he has the potential to be a leader of one of the NBA’s best defenses.

Sep 26, 2016; Orlando, FL, USA; Orlando Magic center Bismack Biyombo (11), center Nikola Vucevic (9) and forward Serge Ibaka (7) pose for a photo during media day at Amway Center. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

The Bigs

Not only did the Orlando Magic trade for Ibaka, they also signed Bismack “Earned 72 Million Dollars Because Of Two Games” Biyombo to a very auspicious deal. While paying that kind of money for an offensive almost-non factor is relatively suspect in my opinion, Biyombo and Ibaka project to function as a very defensively dynamic front court duo.

On paper, they would be ridiculously versatile defensively (both players fit the currently trendy bill of being rim protectors with concurrent abilities to survive while guarding guards in screen and switch actions) while also boasting complementary outside shooting from the proven floor spacer Ibaka.

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Mildly reminiscent of Philadelphia, Orlando has a surplus of talented bigs. They have Ibaka, Biyombo, and Nikola Vucevic. And just like in Philadelphia, this is a problem. They either just paid Biyombo like a star to come off the bench, or a relatively established player who quietly averaged around 18 points and nine rebounds last year is getting demoted in favor of a player who has to this point mostly functioned as a defensive specialist.

Unfortunately for Vucevic, the latter situation is probable and Biyombo is likely to start, if not at first than by the middle of the season. While Biyombo is questionable at best at offense, Vucevic is almost equally as questionable defensively. And as I wrote in my debut article about the positional value of defense, big man defense is very important.

And sadly for Vucevic, he leans more towards Mirotic than Jokic on the scale of “European Big Men Who Are Skilled Offensively And Who Have Nikola As Their First Name”: he is not a strong rim protector and he is very vulnerable to being burned in screen and switch actions. While Vucevic’s one way game may be more aesthetically pleasing than Biyombo’s, the nature of today’s NBA turns players like Biyombo into very rich men, and players like Vucevic, Al Jefferson, and Greg Monroe into relative dinosaurs.

Ideally for the team, Vucevic will probably end up as a massively overqualified sixth man this season. Expect him to receive Sixth Man Of The Year Votes if the Magic end up in the playoff race. Also expect very loud rumors of Vucevic’s unhappiness. When a player notably states with confidence that he is starting and that the team he plays for is “his”, it is unlikely that he will be happy being benched.

All of this is discounting UNLV alum Stephen Zimmerman, a 7-foot, 240 pound center prospect who the Magic drafted with the 41st overall pick in the 2016 draft. His immediate playing prospects are probably not of immediate concern for the Magic, but he was regarded as an intriguing prospect coming out of UNLV, and a potential successful stint in the D-League would only expedite the awkwardness of Orlando’s front court situation.

The Wings

On the wing, the Orlando Magic have two high upside players in Aaron Gordon and Mario Hezonja, and they also signed an inexplicable one in Jeff Green, who apparently signed a contract with the basketball devil that forces him to pay for every good game with at least three weeks of unexplainable disappearances.

Anyway, Gordon and Hezonja should have Magic fans very excited. Both are approximately 6-foot-9 athletic freaks who have potential to be competent playmakers, shooters, and defenders. Gordon is blessed with the combination of having elite athleticism, spider long arms, and insane versatility potential, both offensively and defensively.

He could feasibly guard three or even four positions with his height and length, and offensively he looks a bit like prime Shawn Marion with a slightly less hilarious looking jumpshot: he may one day be able to proficiently function as a gap filler for anywhere needed on offense and defense for positions 1-4, while also having takeover potential. New coach Frank Vogel notably compared Gordon to Paul George for a reason.

While many analysts have voiced concern that Gordon may be better suited to play as a playmaking 4 rather than as a 3, he probably has the requisite athletic and physical tools to play the 3 competently eventually. As a playmaker he has already flashed ball handling ability. While anything having to do with the summer league should be taken with salt, Gordon did dominate in a slightly Paul George-ian way for the short time he was there.

Maybe Vogel is right to be optimistic. It’s difficult to say exactly how productive Gordon will be this season, but at the very least his development will be quite exciting to watch.

Speaking of exciting, Mario Hezonja essentially looks like the prototype of what teams would want out of an ideal scoring wing in today’s NBA. He doesn’t appear to possess the defensive versatility or outright athletic scariness quite to the level Gordon does (although that is simply due to the differing nature of their body types: Hezonja has a more conventional body type than Gordon’s slightly alien-esque build), but Hezonja is an elite athlete himself, and he projects to be no slouch as a defender and like Gordon can fly with ease.

He has long been the subject of scouts’ drooling due to his shown the potential to be the entire package offensively as a wing who could function either as a complementary option, or (probably farther down the line) as a featured scorer. Hezonja is known for his legendary confidence which borders on arrogance, but it is at least somewhat warranted. If he develops as he should, his walk may just one day match his enormous talk: a high goal maybe, but it is a realistic one.

The Guards

In the backcourt, the Orlando Magic will mainly feature Elfrid Payton and Evan Fournier, with proven role players D.J. Augustin and Jodie Meeks as the probable main backups. So far in his career, Payton has looked quite a bit like Rajon Rondo if Rajon Rondo was longer and had insane hair.

He has shown the ability to function as a good defender, a strong passer (boasting a two season career assist average of 6.5 per game), and a solid playmaker overall. Much like Rondo however, his shooting has not been so excellent (“boasting” a two season career three point percentage of .306). At the very least, Payton should be a reliable, albeit unspectacular and not especially accurate force for the Magic this season.

Evan Fournier should also be solid and unspectacular overall. Being 6-foot-7, relatively athletic at the NBA level, and with shooting ability should on paper give a player potential to be legitimately spectacular. However, whether for lack of ability or role, Fournier has not generally shown the creativity, aggressiveness, or production associated with stars.

He was efficient and productive last year for Orlando (15.4 points per game on .462/.400/.836 shooting lines is nothing to sneeze at), and he will likely continue to be so this year. I just don’t see Fournier as a player who’s all of a sudden going to be averaging 22 points a game efficiently for a winning playoff team.

If Fournier makes the All Star team this year and leads the Magic to home court advantage in the playoffs, I will justifiably be exposed as a total fraud who will have to prematurely end his blogging career. Frankly though, I don’t exactly see that happening. I would love to be proven wrong though. Seeing new and unexpected faces become stars is always a special journey: save a seat for me on the Evan Fournier for MVP hype train!

D.J. Augustin, Jodie Meeks, CJ Watson, and Willie Green round out a guard bench rotation that shouldn’t theoretically burn the house down when Payton and Fournier aren’t putting in work as Orlando’s version of Patrick Beverly and James Harden (I’m getting on that Fournier train before I’m run over by it).

Their defense may be suspect, especially Augustin’s, but Orlando’s surplus of athletic defensive bigs helps them in that regard. They project to be a competent, if wholly unremarkable bunch who will be able to space the floor for any attacking starters they are paired with.

The Coach

Newly minted head coach Frank Vogel is widely celebrated and rightly so. He somehow turned Roy Hibbert and Lance Stephenson into an All-Star and a borderline All-Star respectively, and now seems to be the only reason they were ever close to that level.

No one wanted Lance Stephenson anymore this summer until New Orleans signed him at the last second just to see what will happen when you put him and Tyreke Evans in the same locker room (probably), and Roy Hibbert is seemingly only in the NBA at this point because he’s 7-foot-2 and knows how to play team defense competently.

It almost appears as if Vogel cast a spell on them that continually wears off as they spend time away from him. Both players have only regressed with time. It seems Vogel doesn’t take team loyalty lightly.

Secretly a wizard or not, Vogel was the head of a 2013-2014 Indiana defense that was historically potent until it inexplicably slid in the second half of the season. For Orlando, he should have a similar effect defensively, hopefully aside from the second half implosion. Building a defense around players such as Payton, Hezonja, Gordon, Biyombo, and Ibaka shouldn’t be difficult for most coaches, and a coach like Vogel should be able to take full advantage.

Trying to score against Orlando will be quite a challenge for other teams this year. Offensively I’m not sure what impact he will have: the personnel on Orlando is not very analogous to his Indiana teams. He has claimed he wants to use Aaron Gordon like Paul George, but it remains to be seen whether Gordon will be up to that task, especially as soon as this year.

We will probably see a lot of transition play that utilizes their athletes, and pick and pop play that utilizes the shooting of bigs like Ibaka and Vucevic. Orlando’s seeming roster imbalance likely foreshadows many problems for them, but it is unlikely that Vogel will be one of them.

Overview

Defensively, this team may be pretty scary. In the probable starting five (assuming Payton, Fournier, Gordon, Ibaka, and Biyombo start, Vucevic may start in Biyombo’s place) there is an impressive amount of defensive positional versatility and one on one stoppage capability.