With their victory over the Jazz on Thursday, the Magic have won five games in a row, the second-longest active streak in the league. In that stretch, Orlando has outscored opponents by nearly 14 points per 100 possessions, a mark that would rank second for the season behind only the Warriors. Before then, they were actually being outscored on the aggregate.
Bringing Victor Oladipo off the bench has changed the Magic’s season
The second overall pick of the 2013 draft is excelling in a sixth man role, and the Magic are a much better team because of it.
Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports
The biggest reason for that huge turnaround has been Scott Skiles' decision to bring shooting guard Victor Oladipo off the bench, move Tobias Harris to small forward and start sharp-shooting big man Channing Frye.
Oladipo is excelling in his new role
Oladipo was struggling as a starter, averaging 13 points while shooting just 37 percent from the floor. He was defending and doing the little things, but as a scorer, he wasn’t as good as Evan Fournier, and as a playmaker, he was superfluous next to Elfrid Payton. Playing those three guys together also put the Magic at a size disadvantage, so one of them had to go to the bench.
In most cases, that wouldn’t have been the second overall pick of a recent draft, but Skiles pulled the trigger and Oladipo accepted it.
“I’m going to embrace it,” Oladipo told The Orlando Sentinel’s Josh Robbins. “I’m going to get it poppin’, like I always say. Whatever it takes to win, that’s what I’m going to do.”
The move is already paying off. Oladipo has upped his scoring by over four points per game while playing six fewer minutes. His field goal percentage has climbed to a still-bad, but-not-atrocious, 43 percent.
He’s also assisting more, turning the ball over less and getting to the line at will. His 24 points, eight rebounds and six assists per 36 minutes are star numbers.
It’s not just about going against reserves more often, either. He’s simply been given more freedom to be the lead ball handler and attack, something he couldn’t do next to Payton. He’s been driving to the rim more, but his best weapon has been his pull-up jumper after a screen by a big man.
Now that he has the ball, that shot is always there and he’s fantastic at getting points off of it. He’s shooting 56 percent on pull-ups since coming off the bench, a ridiculous number.
Oladipo's productivity is helping Orlando's bench significantly. The all-sub lineup of Shabazz Napier, Oladipo, Aaron Gordon, Andrew Nicholson and Jason Smith has outscored opponents by 10 points in just 29 minutes during the streak. The starters with Oladipo and Nicholson in Evan Fournier's and Frye's place are doing even better, posting a plus-21 in just 30 minutes. Moving Oladipo to the bench has not only helped him, but also the Magic's depth in general.
But that’s not all.
The new starting lineup is destroying opponents
The Magic's old starting lineup of Payton, Oladipo, Fournier, Harris and Nikola Vucevic was a disaster on both ends. It was undersized, so it got shredded on defense. It also lacked outside shooting, which severely limited its potential on offense. It was being outscored by over 16 points per 100 possessions, a dreadful mark for any unit, not to mention a team's most-used lineup.
The new starting unit, on the other hand, is doing a fantastic job, outscoring opponents by nine points per 100 possessions. They are protecting the paint better, allowing just 43 percent from within five feet of the rim, over 14 percentage points fewer than the old starting unit.
Frye’s 47 percent shooting on three-pointers over the past five games, meanwhile, has spearheaded a Magic attack that is killing opponents from outside. Harris has caught fire and is shooting 47 percent, and Fournier is connecting on a solid 37 percent from beyond the arc.
Suddenly the Magic have three legitimate three-point threats spotting up around Vucevic, which has allowed the fifth-year center to play closer to the basket. More of Vucevic’s shots are coming close to the rim and he has made a killing on the offensive glass, averaging over four per game in the winning streak.
The new starting lineup is simply much more balanced. Oladipo is producing more. The Magic have found a rotation that works.
Is it sustainable?
That’s the big question. Obviously the Magic won’t continue to destroy opponents like they have so far. Their margin of victory during the streak has been similar to a contender’s, and Orlando is not close to that level yet. Some individual performances -- including Oladipo’s -- are bound to see some regression. Harris, for example, won’t continue to shoot well over 40 percent from outside.
The reasons why the new rotation is working out, however, make logical sense. The starting lineup now has the shooting it needed and the bench its perimeter scorer. If Vucevic and Frye continue to be as solid on defense as they have surprisingly been so far (98.5 points allowed per 100 possessions in 131 minutes), there’s no reason why the Magic can’t be a winning team and make the playoffs.
The Magic’s front office trusted its core and believed a coaching change was all that they needed to improve. So far they have been proven right. Skiles’ decision to bring Oladipo off the bench has made Orlando a much better team.
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