Xatticus wrote:pepe1991 wrote:Vogel and Skiles took offense away from Vučević and failed misserably because of it. Basic logic: play offense through your best offensive player.
Nobody took offense away from Vucevic. He has had the highest usage among our starters in each of the past five seasons. He simply didn't do much with the usage he was given up until this season. Some combination of a contract year, his replacement being drafted with the 6th overall pick, or the hiring of Steve Clifford finally lit a fire under his ass. Now we are looking at the prospect of paying him $25M per year in the hope that this is the new norm, while players with superior offensive résumés (Brook Lopez and DeMarcus Cousins) are playing for contenders for a small fraction of the price we are contemplating.
His next contract really worries me. If we get something more comparable to the player we have had for his first six years in a Magic uniform, his contract becomes a huge problem. There is just too much depth at the position across the NBA and few teams will actually value him in the way that Clifford does. Clifford will use him as a crutch, but most of the NBA has moved beyond using the post game to facilitate offense.
It's not hard to track his usage and see that team did best when he did much more than others.
2014-15
Vučević 26% usage rate = 52,4% eFG ,19,3 ppg
Oladipo 25% usage rate = 47% FG, 17,9 ppg
Tobias Harris 22,6% usage rate= 51% eFG, 17 ppg
So Vučević scored more on almost identical usage rate, just on 5% eFG better than second most used player.
2015-16 , second most sucesfull season in rebuild
Vučević 27% usage rate
Oladipo 23%
Payton 20%
2016-17 moving offense from Vučević
24,8% usage rate
Fournier 24% usage rate
Payton 21,6% usage rate
Ibaka 21% usage rate
Vučević "lost" 3% usage rate, result , from 105 OFF rating to 103 ( 21st to 29th ), Magic go from 35 to 29 wins.
2017-18
Vučević 25,9% usage
Gordon 25% usage
Fournier 23% usage
Simmons 22% usage
25 wins.
2018-19
Vučević 29% usage rate
Ross 24%
Evan and Gordon moved below 22%
Result: playoffs.
So co-relation is there. When his usage was challenged , or equaled by lesser players (Payton,Gordon, Evan) whole team was crumbling.
Now would you want admit it that facts are there, or not. It's really not mine problem.
Logic is simple : your best player has to have huge usage rate because he is that much better than guys around him. And with him and Magic it's more obvious than anything else.
