Written by Rohan Nadkarni at SI.com
Of all the early season NBA anomalies, the Orlando Magic are perhaps the biggest outlier. The second-best offense in the NBA? A top-10 defense? The same net rating as the Warriors? Frank Vogel’s beard?
Aside from letting the team use actual magic, it would have been difficult to fathom Orlando pulling off all of these feats before the season. But here we are, at the end of October, with the Magic at 5–2, with victories over the Cavaliers, Spurs and Pelicans.
It’s no secret that last year’s Magic team suffered from an incredible roster imbalance. After trading for Serge Ibaka last summer, Orlando peculiarly decided to add Bismack Biyombo in free agency, as well. With Nikola Vucevic and Aaron Gordon already on the roster, the Magic employed an army of big men in a league trending smaller by the day. Until Ibaka was traded to the Raptors, Vogel stubbornly played two bigs too often, shifting Gordon down to small forward with two other centers on the court. The result was awful spacing and another year of mostly stunted development for Gordon.
This year, the Magic have seen what a little spacing can do. With Ibaka gone, and Vogel seemingly embracing 21st century basketball concepts, Gordon has surged early this season, and the Magic have become much more threatening offensively. Gordon is playing with the freedom of a little brother who no longer has to share a room with his pack-rat older sibling, and the returns have been promising.
The Magic have a 10.0 net rating with Gordon on the floor, with the former No. 4 pick currently averaging career highs in points (21.0), rebounds (9.0), assists (2.2) and blocks (1.0) while shooting personal bests from the field (54.9%) and beyond the three-point line (59.1%). It’s the outside shot that’s really transformed Gordon’s game so far this year, with the big man hitting 13 of his 22 attempts from deep. Even if Gordon fizzles out and becomes just a 35% shooter from three, it would mark a huge improvement from his career 30.3% average.
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