The Orlando Magic have faded into the background ever since dealing away Dwight Howard in 2012. They’ve had lottery pick after lottery pick in town and none of them have yet to emerge as superstars worthy of the attention and coverage of the national media — Victor Oladipo had his breakthrough last year, but with the Indiana Pacers.
Now on their fifth coach (Steve Clifford) since 2012, the Magic are still nowhere near being relevant. However, the intrigue in Orlando is about their roster construction heading into the 2018-19 season. Orlando isn’t lacking for talent, Nikola Vucevic, Aaron Gordon, Jonathan Isaac, Evan Fournier, Mo Bamba, and Jonathon Simmons are all players that would be part of a playoff contender’s roster.
Yet, there remains a huge hole on this team at point guard. The Magic’s depth chart lists D.J. Augustin, Jerian Grant, and Isaiah Briscoe as the only three point guards on the team — and Briscoe might be waived after training camp. In an age where point guards are dominating the league and seemingly every team has top-level talent at the position, Orlando has gone the complete opposite route.
With the pick-and-roll heavy offenses becoming abundant around the NBA it would seem counterintuitive to not have anyone who could be penciled in as a starter at point guard from day one. Despite the deficiency, there are other ways that the Magic’s offense can operate this season.
The easiest way to do this is for the primary action in the offense to occur away from the ball. Championship contenders like the Golden State Warriors, San Antonio Spurs, Boston Celtics, and Toronto Raptors all have made use of sets that involve off-ball action to varying degrees of success.
Here, the Magic are doing their best to duplicate those contenders. One reason why these actions are successful is the inside-outside threat of Vucevic at center. No matter where he is on the floor he requires defensive attention at all times.
In the first play in the video above, Vucevic steps out at the high post to set a flare screen for a cutting Fournier. The Heat defenders rotate towards Fournier on the wing leaving Vucevic open to splash a 17-foot jumper. For the second play, Vucevic receives the inbound pass and swings the ball across to Gordon. As the pass occurs the inbounder runs off a back screen from Augustin and gets a lob dunk.
Finally, Vucevic acts as the hub once more and initiates a dribble handoff with Fournier resulting in another open midrange jump shot. Another option for Orlando is to use a secondary creator to initiate the offense instead of one of their point guards.
During the preseason, this role has often fallen on the shoulders of Jonathon Simmons with the second unit.
In these three clips, Simmons receives a high ball screen and then proceeds to attack downhill. Simmons is adept at using his long strides and explosiveness to quickly get into the paint as the defense retracts on their heels.
Giving Simmons as many advantageous opportunities as possible in these type of situations can create easy looks at the rim or for rolling bigs — Bamba and Khem Birch are the screeners in the video — or shooters — Wes Iwundu in the final play — spaced out in the corners.
Lastly, there’s the easiest way to avoid placing the ball in the point guard hands: transition.
Aaron Gordon was brought back on a four-year, $76 million dollar contract this summer, and even though the likes of Bamba and Isaac look to be the frontcourt of the future, that doesn’t mean Gordon can’t help them right now. Here, he gets the rebound and immediately starts the fastbreak. A trailing Vucevic finishes off the play by knocking down a 3-pointer.
Players like Gordon, Simmons, Fournier, Isaac, and potentially Bamba all have the necessary skills the be “grab-and-go” types and create transition opportunities off of rebounds. The Magic are likely to find themselves in the lottery next summer, hopefully, they can find their point guard of the future there, but there are ways in which they can still have an average-level, functioning NBA offense even though they currently roster below average players at the position.