OrlandoMagic wrote:Popsicle1228 wrote:OrlandoMagic wrote:
I honestly get what you are saying and even agree a little bit. But how many teams actually run their offense through the center position? Ross to me is an important player just because I do believe he is our bench scoring. Without him who scores in the second unit?
Without Vuc who scores on the 1st unit?
Within the first unit both Gordon and Fournier have shown they can score when given the opportunity. And you can almost make a case for Issac as he improves. It in our second unit you really can’t say this person or that person can. Or maybe you can? I just personally don’t see or would trust anyone in the second unit to score much. Now if we solely become a lock down defense with our second unit then scoring doesn’t matter as much.
Not really. Vucevic's gravity, screens and spacing were fundamental to both being able to get shots off.
Gordon has proven over and over that he can not break down set defenses with any consistency or efficiency. From 8' to the inside the 3PT line, he shot at an unacceptable 35%...not at low volume either, shots in that zone accounted for a quarter of his offense. One fourth of his offense was him being forced into low value shots that he shot very poorly. This wasn't an anomaly, its what we've seen from AG since Vogel put the ball in his hands. I would love it if he evolved into that, but we're heading into year 6 and its still doesn't look feasible.
That was with Vucevic (and often Ross) drawing most of the defenses attention.
Gordon's best offense comes off of opportunistic cuts and attacking broken defenses. Vucevic and Ross were the primary reasons that defenses bent; if you remove those two from the equation, there is no one on the roster that has any gravity at all. That's going to greatly impact the only offense that AG was semi effective at.
Fournier played secondary playmaker, but his penetration was highly reliant on running PnR/Pop type actions with Vucevic. Nobody on the roster replicates Vucevic's gravity in that dynamic. You take that away (like Toronto did in playoffs) and he loses most of his ability to break down set defenses.
DJ had a great year, but it would be a mistake to expect the same. His effectiveness was mostly off-ball as a lot of the offense was run through Fournier/Vucevic. As with Fournier and Gordon, a lot of DJ's quality opportunities will be negatively impacted. You'd have to put him in a more traditional PG role as the primary creator for others; thus allowing defenses to just focus on stopping him.
Its going to be a really really ugly offense if the Magic don't replace Vucevic with another player that they can run an offense through. Maybe Fultz is that guy, but right now that seems pretty doubtful.
