Orlando Magic 2016-17 Season Outlook: Returning To The Playoffs
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.
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All five players are long, athletic, and have more than adequate size and foot speed. Again, scoring on them will not be fun for opposing teams. The offense is where the bizarreness of this team begins to manifest. Gordon is young, inexperienced, and has no experience as a small forward; Biyombo barely plays offense; Payton can barely shoot; and Fournier and Ibaka have so far produced like complementary players at this point in their careers.
If Vucevic starts instead of Biyombo, the offense in the starting unit is bolstered by Vooch’s shooting and post play with an aligning downgrade in defense. And if Biyombo is on the bench, who on the bench is going to score?
If D.J. Augustin is your first option in any NBA scenario you’re in trouble. Furthermore, outside of Fournier and Vucevic to a certain level and Gordon if Orlando is lucky, where is the shot creation going to come from?
Who is going to be a 20 point scorer whose going to be matching production with the Lebron James’ and Demar Derozans of the NBA? If big man defense didn’t matter it would be arguable that Vucevic is such a player but unfortunately for Big Vooch his defensive limitations starkly limits his net productivity. Where are the “stars”?
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The Orlando Magic’s defense and athleticism should win them some games but their lack of shooting, shot creation, and “star power” will most likely hurt them. They will probably win somewhere around 35 and 42 games.
Will they make the playoffs? Maybe, but in a very competitive Eastern Conference there’s a small chance of that and even if they do there’s very little chance they’ll get close to approaching the second round.