National Basketball Association

Orlando Magic seeking assists with new roster

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

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The Orlando Magic last year were one of the league leaders in assists. It did not mean a great offense, but the Magic need to keep passing to score.

When Scott Skiles took over the Orlando Magic, he laid out a new offensive philosophy. The Magic’s relatively simple sets the previous years was out the window. The Magic were going to move the ball and use the pass more and the pick and roll less to create offense.

It was a very intentional offense, demanding quick cuts and passing to loosen the defense for driving lanes. This was the way the Magic would have to play. Without a premiere scorer or driver, the Magic had to find other ways to break down a defense and create open 3-pointers.

When the Magic were running this offense, it was extremely effective.

Orlando ended the year seventh in assists per game with 23.6 per game. The team posted the 10th best assist rate in the league at 59.6 percent. The Magic created 47.3 potential assists per game, according to NBA.com’s player tracking statistics. That was the fifth most in the league.

That does not mean the Magic had an effective offense — 22nd in the league at 102.6 points per 100 possessions. The game still comes down to making shots. But when they were effective, they were moving the ball. It was a big purpose to their offense.

Orlando’s top passers last year by assist rate were Brandon Jennings (32.7 percent), Elfrid Payton (31.7 percent) and Shabazz Napier (25.3 percent). Victor Oladipo was not too far behind (18.2 percent) and Nikola Vucevic is pretty solid for a center at 15.2 percent.

Largely though, the Magic’s passing players are gone. Elfrid Payton is the only point guard returning and the big assist guy left. No one else had a 20-plus percent assist rate. Vucevic is good for a center, but there is not a lot of clarity on whether the Magic can move the ball as they did last year.

And assumedly, the Magic will rely on a pass-heavy offense once again without a ball-dominant scorer or one-on-one, isolation player.

That may not bode well for the Magic this season. They simply do not have the same quality of passers they had even last year — another sign of uncertainty for the Magic and their offense.

Take Evan Fournier as a great example.

Fournier is often viewed as a good driver who can attack a shifting defense and make plays in the pick and roll. But his assist rate was relatively low, especially for a guard. Last year, he posted as 12.8 percent assist rate. That ranked 69th among the 94 guards that averaged at least 24 minutes per game.

The Magic’s starting lineup is not full of accomplished passers. Here is the Magic’s two-deep depth chart with their assist rates from last season:

The only positive from that chart is Nikola Vucevic rated sixth among centers who played at least 24 minutes per game in assist rate. But it is rare for a center to lead a team in assists.

Surely, the Magic will see players like Fournier and Aaron Gordon increase their assists now that they will play new roles. Fournier, for instance, averaged 4.8 assists per 48 minutes at shooting guard last year, according to 82Games.com.

That is still not a high number — especially since he will not play 48 minutes per game.

Both of the Magic’s biggest newcomers — Serge Ibaka and Bismack Biyombo — were in the single digits in assist rate. Perhaps Ibaka’s assist rate will increase as his offensive role increases, but it likely will not increase that dramatically.

That is not dire coming from centers and post players. But it emphasizes how much wing players like Fournier and Gordon will have to pick up some slack this coming season when it comes to ball movement and passing.

It is hard to know exactly what kind of offense Frank Vogel is going to run. During Summer League, as valuable as that can be, it looked like Orlando was running Princeton and motion sets. It could end up being an offense very similar to what the Magic ran last year with Scott Skiles.

That means passing will become important once again.

Much of the Magic’s offense, just as it was last year, will be predicated on assists and moving the ball to loosen up a defense in mid-rotation. It is still unclear how much the Magic can rely on straight post ups for Ibaka or Vucevic — although both appear pretty good at it (Vucevic scored 0.93 points per possessions on post ups and Ibaka scored 1.00 points per possession on his limited post-up opportunities).

Vogel is going to spend a lot of time reforming the Magic’s defense. The Magic offense may lag behind — as many of Vogel’s offenses have in his coaching career.

It is unclear what the offense will look like. Without that driver and creator, the Magic may continue to run a motion-based, by-committee offense that relies on ball movement to create open shots.

The problems with last year’s offense came when the Magic were not completely bought in or deviated from the motion offense they ran. Often one fumbled pass would throw off the timing and create bad isolation situations or force a hurried pick and roll.

Perhaps the Magic will be better at the pick and roll now — although Gordon is unproven in that area and Fournier is moderately effective at 0.80 points per possession as the ball handler in pick and rolls. Perhaps given more opportunity those players will see their assist rates naturally rise. Like with points, somebody has got to score and someone will have to wrack up assists on those scores.

The offense though will have to answer this question about how the team gets open shots. Right now, the Magic do not have a lot of players who are proven to create assists and create ball and player movement. And that lack of assists is a concern entering training camp.

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