By John DentonOct. 27, 2015
ORLANDO – Time, as it relates to basketball, allows young players the chance to patiently mature and improve and it gives teams opportunities to gel and harden through a vast array of experiences.
But ultimately time guarantees those players and NBA teams nothing. Players don’t thrive and teams don’t win in the NBA just because it’s time and they are entitled to success due to serving some sort of hard-knocks internship. Instead, they win because they are talented and tough, cohesive and cool, battle-hardened and battle-ready. Then, and only then, is it a team’s time to win.
It’s understandable that the Orlando Magic would feel like it’s their time to win what with all that the franchise has suffered through while rebuilding the roster and allowing players to blossom organically. Playing with youth-filled rosters, Orlando has taken its lumps much of the past three years while waiting for players packed with potential to evolve and for the team to come together. And the passing of time has allowed that group to learn – albeit the hard way with lots of growing pains – what it takes to win at the NBA level.
The convergence of many of Orlando’s players coming into their primes and the arrival of veteran head coach Scott Skiles has many believing that the Magic are ready to win. But whether or not this team is able to turn the corner on rebuilding and surge back into contention this season will ultimately depend on the franchise’s collection of talent maturing and being good enough and not some arbitrary clock set to go off Wednesday night in the regular-season opener.
“You’ve got to go and take it because nothing in this league is given to you,” said guard Victor Oladipo, one of the leaders of Orlando’s core of young talent. “Nobody is going to give it to us, so if we want to win we’ve got to go and take it. I believe we’re good enough to (win), but just because you’re good enough to doesn’t mean that it’s going to happen.”
When the Magic tip of one of the franchise’s most important seasons in years Wednesday night at the Amway Center against the Washington Wizards, it will be the first chance to measure just how much growth the team has made. Skiles, the former point guard and fan favorite from the first Magic team in 1989, was hired in late May to bring his unique style of tough love to a young team seemingly poised to make the next step. Skiles, 51, has brought his reputation and history of success on the defensive end to the Magic and the squad showed noticeable improvements during a 6-2 exhibition season that ended with five straight victories.
But even Skiles, he of 10 years as a NBA player and 13 seasons as a head coach, doesn’t know fully whether the youth-filled Magic are ready to win just yet. He’s been highly complimentary of the players’ willingness to make changes and adapt to his new principles. But it will take time, Skiles said, for the Magic to prove that they can thrive late in pressure-packed moments, weather injuries and adverse situations and stay the course course against other elite NBA teams. Do those things, Skiles said, and then it will be the team’s time to win.
“They see the benefits of committing on the defensive end and the benefits of sharing the ball more and not so much dribbling. But until you get in real games, you just won’t know,” Skiles said. “A lot of times fans or people who haven’t played team sports before think that chemistry and leadership can be conjured up. But those things happen naturally. Oftentimes it’s born from a group of guys going through something such as winning a difficult game, winning a game when they shoot 36 percent from the field, don’t make enough free throws and somehow win or they are on the road against a good team and win. That’s when guys really start believing in each other. … We’ve got a chance here to get some good wins and it’ll be good for the group.”
The season ahead could also serve as a referendum on the young core of players that the Magic have spent three years stockpiling through the draft and trades. Projected starters Nikola Vucevic, Tobias Harris, Evan Fournier, Elfrid Payton and Oladipo and top reserves Aaron Gordon and Mario Hezonja are all 25 years old or younger, but they are in key weight-bearing roles because of their vast potential.
Whether or not that young core thrives – or is potentially broken up if it struggles again – will likely come down to these questions. Can Vucevic – a threat to score 20 points and/or grab 20 rebounds nightly – become a better defender and get to the free throw line more? Can Oladipo play with the consistency that has allowed him to show flashes of greatness and become a more efficient force? Can Harris add to his do-everything skill set and make others around him better? Can Payton improve his shot and adapt to a Skiles’ system that prefers more passing and cutting and less dribbling? Can Gordon stay healthy and become the lockdown wing defender the Magic so desperately need? And can Hezonja, 20, ever be as beyond-his-years instinctual and confident on the defensive end of the floor as he is with the ball in his hands offensively?
“It’s important to go out and build something positive because we’re planning on being together for a while,” said Oladipo, one of Orlando’s true leaders on the floor and in the locker room with his actions. “It’s all about building chemistry together and learning how to win.”
Added Payton: “This season is very important. We’re not really using that word `young’ anymore. We’re not trying to use that as an excuse or anything like that. So (this season) is very important.”
Skiles knows full well that much of the Magic’s overall success will depend on whether the collection of early 20-somethings and teens can be mature and tough-minded when tough times invariably hit. Skiles that because the group has yet to show that it can win together in the recent past while the team was rebuilding there will be constant gauging as to how the parts fit together. A straight shooter who is oftentimes bluntly honest, Skiles has told his players that they will be held accountable for their actions on the floor and if they aren’t producing they won’t continue to play for development purposes.
“Because of the lack of wins so far we have to be in evaluation mode and see who – going forward – are guys who can truly be built around,” Skiles said candidly. “That’s hard to know when you aren’t winning enough games. We’re high on all of the guys, we like all of the guys and we think we have good, young talent, but until you go out and perform in crunch time, win big games, go on the road and win games, that’s when guys really show themselves to you.”
Orlando believed in the futures of Vucevic and Harris so much so that they gave both four-year contract extensions in the past year. The same sort of extension could be in the cards in the coming days or next July for Fournier, a core piece of the team. And on Sunday, the Magic picked up the fourth-year option for Oladipo and the third-year options for Payton, Gordon and Shabazz Napier.
Now, the franchise is looking to that group to affirm that belief in it and start living up to it’s potential. They have endured the pains and struggles of the past three years to get to this point – when it is ready to win. Not because it’s time to win, but because they are good enough to make the Magic playoff contenders again. “Everybody on this team understands that it’s not going to just happen,” Harris said. “In this training camp, we’ve made a lot of improvements as a unit and individually guys have gotten a lot better. So this will be a test and see if we’re ready to get things going around here.”
