Victor Oladipo's Sophomore Leap Could Expedite Orlando Magic Rebuild
Ever since Rob Hennigan took over as general manager of the Orlando Magic and traded Dwight Howard away to the Los Angeles Lakers, the Florida-based franchise has been stuck in rebuilding mode.
It's been a gradual process of working back toward respectability, acquiring talent little by little and making moves geared toward the future. Trading Arron Afflalo back to the Denver Nuggets this offseason for Evan Fournier, a first-round prospect with only limited NBA experience under his belt, serves as the perfect example.
But in 2014-15, Nikola Vucevic has emerged as a fringe All-Star candidate, establishing himself as the clear-cut center of the future. Elfrid Payton has shown flashes of promise at point guard, and Tobias Harris has become a more consistent option at the forward positions. All of these, along with other developments like Fournier's hot shooting at the start of the year, offer reason for optimism.
However, none can stack up to what we've seen from Victor Oladipo, who has made a significant sophomore surge and asserted himself as the future centerpiece of this up-and-coming organization.
Far Better Shooting
Oladipo is actually scoring 0.2 fewer points per 36 minutes than he did during his rookie season with the Magic, but he's putting up those numbers with much greater efficiency. That's helped him eat up fewer possessions during the average game and allowed him to spend more time involving his increasingly talented teammates.
Spacing the court is crucial, especially when playing next to a point guard like Payton who can't hit shots from the outside. This newfound shooting ability has helped Oladipo keep the offense running when he's on the floor, unlike in 2013-14 when the team scored 4.1 more points per 100 possessions while he was resting on the bench.
And it's not just from any one spot on the court. Across the board—with the exception of a decline at the charity stripe—Oladipo is connecting with much more frequency in 2014-15:
The Indiana product has also improved as the season has progressed. Though he's still inconsistent and prone to poor shooting performances, such as his 2-of-15 outing against the Boston Celtics on Dec. 23, he's had stronger scoring outings with more frequency in recent weeks.
Oladipo explained near the end of his rookie season, per Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel:
"They're going to let me shoot it. So I'm not going to be afraid to shoot it. I'm just going to continue to keep shooting with confidence. I can work on it; it's not like I don't work on it. The only way I can better it is if I continue to shoot it, so I'm just going to continue to shoot with confidence.
"
He did work on it and got better during the second half of the season, drilling nearly 40 percent of his long-range shots after the All-Star break. Now, he's backing up his words even more strongly and proving that improvement was no fluke.
The same can be said about his ability to create for himself.
Making a concerted effort to get to the basket rather than settling for contested jumpers, he's scoring at a comparable rate, doing so with increased efficiency and creating 0.3 percent more of his makes from inside the two-point arc without using a teammate's pass.
That may seem like an insignificant improvement, but it's not. The fact that Oladipo needed assists on only 23.6 percent of his two-point buckets last year can no longer be viewed as a fluke or a result of inefficient and ill-advised play.
This combo guard has developed into a truly dangerous offensive player, and he's done so far more quickly than expected.
Though his distributing can use some work, he's capable of spacing out a defense and taking advantage of holes by attacking the rim with ferocity.
According to NBA.com's SportVU data, 21 players are scoring more points per game off drives, but Oladipo gets more impressive when you include his kick-out passes. In terms of team points per contest on bursts to the hoop, he's No. 19, slightly ahead of drive-and-dish luminaries such as John Wall and Goran Dragic.
Pair that with his continuously solid defense and you can see why he's become more valuable. But perhaps the most impressive change has come between his ears.
Late-Game Leadership
Closing out games is not easy in the Association. Neither is acting like a leader on the court when the going gets tough. And both are even more difficult for younger players without much experience carrying their teams and serving as go-to players down the stretch.
All the same, Oladipo has excelled in his crunch-time role.
NBA.com defines "clutch" as the last five minutes of games with a five-point margin or less, and this young guard hasn't been afraid of those big moments. Though he wasn't remarkably involved early in the season, he's made 13 clutch appearances and is shooting 63.6 percent from the field, while producing 23.5 points and 7.4 assists per 36 minutes.
Lately, he's been leaving memorable moments in his wake while continuing to play efficient offense with the clock ticking down.
His resiliency in a Dec. 13 win over the surging Atlanta Hawks, one that kept Atlanta from having its streak of undefeated play hit double digits, serves as one example. Despite quite the rough start during the first half that featured six turnovers, Oladipo dominated during his final 25 minutes on the floor, going for 12 points on seven shots, pulling down four boards and recording assists with nary a mistake.
"Oladipo played his best once the Hawks took a 92-86 lead with 2:57 to play in the fourth quarter," Robbins detailed after the game. "From that point on, he scored seven of the Magic's final 14 points on 2-of-2 shooting from the field. He also hauled in a rebound and dished out two assists with no turnovers."
His performance earned notice from head coach Jacque Vaughn, just as it's been drawing the attention of everyone who watches him during one of his better outings. Per Robbins:
"Early in the game, he did struggle. You always have that decision of: Are you going to keep believing in your players and have faith in them or go the opposite way? We continued to have faith in them and put the basketball back in his hands at the end of the game, and he delivered multiple times for us.
"
And speaking of delivering, how about what he did two weeks later at the end of a road victory against the favored Miami Heat?
With the score tight, Oladipo drove past Dwyane Wade and made an incredibly difficult shot from the right wing that seemed to hang in the rafters before kissing off the backboard and falling through the net. Then he froze Norris Cole on a crossover, drew a foul at the basket and made one of his free throws to take a one-point lead before playing solid defense against Wade on the final shot.
These are not easy plays. They aren't coming in cakewalk situations, either.
But Oladipo has consistently come up big this season on the occasions that the Magic have found themselves in tight games. That's a huge sign of growth for this young combo guard, especially after he struggled during clutch situations as a rookie.
Per NBA.com, he averaged 11.3 points, 6.8 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 2.5 turnovers per 36 minutes on 31 percent shooting, and the Magic were outscored by 17.6 points over the same average stretch.
The former Hoosier still has plenty of room for improvement, especially, as NBA.com's John Denton details, when it comes to his work as a point guard rather than an off-ball player. However, he's already grown so much from one season to the next, and that's been great news for an organization with plenty of reason for optimism.
Ahead of Schedule
It's not hard to find good news in the Amway Center.
Vucevic has been so impressive during his latest season with Orlando. Harris is getting better, and Fournier has been a pleasant surprise. But particularly pleasing has to be the development of Oladipo's relationship with Payton, as that backcourt is the future of the team. Denton reveals just how crucial this pairing is, based on what the Magic have done to promote it:
"And it’s certainly a good sign for the Magic – both in the short term and the long term – that Oladipo and Payton have started building a chemistry together on and off the court. They are fully aware that much of the Magic’s hopes are riding on their abilities to both play together and play off one another.
For road games, their lockers are side-by-side and their seats on the bus to the arenas for shoot-around practices and games are usually nearby as well. The hope is that they can speed up the learning curve of thriving in the NBA and also speed up the process of figuring out how to make one another better while together on the court.
"
It's easy to write off the Magic right now, but doing so would be a mistake.
Don't forget that Oladipo missed action at the beginning of his sophomore season, as he had to allow his fractured face time to heal completely. When he debuted against the Milwaukee Bucks on Nov. 14, Orlando had already slumped its way to a 3-6 record; since then, the Magic have gone 10-16, which is a bit more respectable.
Is this team going to make the playoffs? Not this year, even in the amazingly weak underbelly of the Eastern Conference.
But there's far more hope for upcoming seasons now, as Oladipo looks like he has star potential and seems to be fitting in well with his fellow backcourt player of the future. This rebuild was never about 2014-15, but rather, it was letting the young pieces grow and prove themselves on the court.
Oladipo has done that and more, and he's done so more quickly that expected. His developmental timetable never indicated that he'd shoot so well this early on in his career, as he had so much perimeter trouble at Indiana. Neither was it a reasonable expectation that he'd make such a big crunch-time leap in just one season.
Nonetheless, the Magic have to love what they're seeing.
Note: All stats, unless otherwise indicated, come from Basketball-Reference.com and are current heading into Jan. 2's games.
.jpg?w=600 "Colts Release Kenny Moore")
