The Orlando Magic were among a handful of teams that made moves before the 2016 NBA trade deadline, trading Tobias Harris to the Detroit Pistons for Brandon Jennings and Ersan Ilyasova. But, maybe they shouldn’t have?
Full disclosure: right after I wrote about the Magic trending downward in the early part of the season, they went on a mild tear that helped them move up through the Eastern Conference standings. I’m going to posit the theory that my editor is secretly a huge Orlando fan, trying to see if my writing can help bump them up the standings again. Ed’s note: I’m not.
Truth be told, it won’t. The Magic have some issues to work out and it isn’t all down to just one player or head coach Scott Skiles or their mascot needing to step his game up or a lingering curse from a dunk contest that Aaron Gordon should have won. Now, all of these topics deserve some type of attention and I could (and maybe will) write 4,000 words about the great Toronto Screw Job that was Zach LaVine supposedly beating the most insane dunk of 2016, but we’re just here to look at how the Magic a dealing with life after Harris.
Quick synopsis – not well.
When Detroit snagged Harris, they were in the middle of a losing skid. They brought that to a halt pretty quickly after Harris showed up and over their last 10 game, which include two from the tail end of a five-game losing streak, they are 6-4. Simply put, they’ve improved four games in the win-loss column in the last eight games. Those games include wins at Cleveland and versus Toronto and Portland. Things are looking pretty good for the Pistons.
The Magic are dealing with a bit of a different scenario. They are 3-7 in their last 10 games. Caveat: they lost to the Warriors twice in that span. Caveat-caveat: two of those three wins were against the 76ers and they did lose to both the Suns and Lakers. Yikes.
There’s still a lot of great in Orlando, right? They have a whole bunch of young guys with high ceilings, though one less now. Still, when Elfrid Payton bricks consecutive free throws and Victor Oladipo chucks up the ugliest uncontested 16-foot jumper that somehow hits both the backboard and the rim but never comes close to going through the basket, you see that there is a long way to go.
Enter a gunner guard with a repaired Achilles tendon and Nikola Vucevic Light. The two players have had interesting and opposite reactions since joining the Magic. Jennings has cratered on offense so far. Sure he was the high-scorer just a few games back, putting up 22 in a Magic uniform, but overall he’s sitting at an offensive rating of 98 in Orlando. A fair assumption is that this is part of the adjustment of playing in Orlando after spending an extended amount of time in Detroit. But, you would also think that this wouldn’t be such a shocking experience of Jennings considering he has played for Skiles before in Milwaukee.
Ilyasova has had a better go of it, locking in an offensive rating of 116 since the move over.
Both players are coming off the bench, Skiles opting to start three “guards” in Payton, Oladipo and Fournier to go with a frontcourt of Gordon and Jason Smith. Jennings, averaging 16.5 minutes, and Ilyasova, averaging 17.4 are limited to a bench role and have shared the court just over 10 minutes per game.
So far, as you might expect results haven’t been so great in most five-man lineups for Jennings, or for the Magic in general. Still, running a three guard starting lineup and then sticking with that throughout the game is what you get when you trade your best small forward away. Jennings’ best lineup that has played more than one game together is a lineup that features Mario Hezonja, Jennings, Ilyasova, Oladipo and Vucevic. That lineup has only had the chance to crack the floor for about 5 minutes over three games, but the lineup has a net rating of +7. That’s an extremely offensive lineup and Ilyasova compliments and substitutes well for Jason Smith, Aaron Gordon or Nikola Vucevic. Putting Vucevic and Ilyasova on the floor together would theoretically open the court up a bit on offense, but also give you two bigger bodies on the interior. Maybe size will help both players overcome their defensive issues.
Despite the inspiring potential of that Magic lineup, it hasn’t had the chance to really develop so far. Alarmingly, the few lineups that are getting a lot of run with Jennings aren’t doing quite as well. The highest plus-minus for a Jennings five-man lineup in Orlando that has played more than 10 minutes together is -1. Not ideal.
It’s always important to substantiate a claim with empirical evidence, where available. What I’m building in this article is this: there isn’t a whole lot of empirical information available that really indicates anything to contradict what you’d expect. The Magic aren’t good right now. They’re getting worse. Ilyasova is a decent sub, but not a big minutes guy and probably shouldn’t impact the bottom line enough to move the Magic back into the playoffs. The same goes for Jennings. The numbers to support any sort of significant or important change for the positive really isn’t there.
So what’s this all about? Well, Skiles traded away a guy he’s traded before. I guess we can assume no love lost? Just doesn’t see Harris as working within his system? Okay, you want to move a player that you don’t see as a fit and he’s a guy that can get you a return. That happens frequently in a lot of sports and definitely in the NBA.
But the Magic got a diminished return for Harris. They participated in a trade that made the other team, Detroit, better, while not strengthening their own position.
There is some rationale for bringing in Jennings and Ilyasova. Just like the Timberwolves brought in Andre Miller for veteran presence and Kevin Garnett, the ultimate Timberwolf returning home. It was good for morale and teaching young men the IQ side of the game to go with their unlimited physical ability. The Wolves gave up Thad Young along the way, but not a cornerstone piece or a high-value guy that played an important role within their team.
There is some value in acquiring players who are both veterans and have played under the coach in question. Having some guys that carry weight in the locker room and during practice who get in line with the coach is important. Both guys they got from the Pistons wouldn’t been great bench guys to acquire to play limited roles and help speed along the indoctrination of Skiles principles among the ultra-talented youth of the Magic, but not at the cost of Harris.
The Magic will get better, not a whole lot of worse to get, but they’ll have to do it with a three-guard Skiles rotation and not with a talented small forward. Oh, and then there’s the concern that the Harris move could be the crack in the façade of the front office staying patient with younger guys. If this trade is an isolated incident, they can survive this, even if it is a setback. If the front office has suddenly found a new comfort with trading away their young core because their players didn’t have the same rookie splash that the current class of Karl-Anthon Towns, D’Angelo Russell, Jahlil Okafor, Kristaps Porzingis and the rest of the 2015 draft class, there could be a bigger issue around the corner.
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