Note: The contents of this page have not been reviewed or endorsed by the Orlando Magic. All opinions expressed by John Denton are solely his own and do not reflect the opinions of the Orlando Magic or their Basketball Operations staff, partners or sponsors.
By John Denton
Jan. 3, 2016
AUBURN HILLS, Mich. – For as far back as he can remember, Elfrid Payton has never missed a game because of injury or illness since he contracted chicken pox and was knocked out of a Pee Wee football game as a 7-year-old.
That impressive streak of durability ended for the Orlando Magic point guard on Monday night.
Payton, 21, missed the first game of his NBA career on Monday when he was held out of action against the Detroit Pistons. The 6-foot-4 guard was Orlando’s only player to appear in all 82 games last season and he played in each of the first 34 games of this season despite suffering from a string of injuries of late.
“I guess all good things have to come to an end,” Payton said before Monday’s game. “I feel like I could go tonight, but (resting his injured ankle) is cool. It’s tough for me because I want to help my team, but I’ll have to do it from a different perspective.”
Orlando moved Victor Oladipo back into the starting lineup to replace Payton. Oladipo started 12 games early in the season, but was moved into a reserve role over the past 20 games. Oladipo is more comfortable at shooting guard, but head coach Scott Skiles wants to get him into the starting lineup in an attempt to fix the Magic’s sagging defense of late.
Skiles said that even if Payton had been healthy on Monday night he still would have made the switch to Oladipo because of the needed defensive spark.
“We still don’t like the way (Payton) is moving and we’re going to try to make sure something doesn’t linger and see how he feels,” Skiles said. “We need to find out if the injury is why he’s moving around the way that he is. If that’s the case, hopefully with a couple of days of rest he should be fine again. We’re hopeful that’s the case.” Payton said he could have played – if he had been allowed to by the coaching staff – but admitted that there was still some lingering pain in his ankle. Asked if his ankle had restricted his lateral quickness of late, Payton said, “I’m not going to make excuses.”
Payton suffered a left ankle sprain on Dec. 18 when teammate Nikola Vucevic accidentally fell into his leg. He then sprained his right ankle on Dec. 28 when he landed awkwardly and rolled the joint. Payton tried to play through both of those injuries, but he was pulled out early from the next games.
On Saturday in Cleveland, Payton was accidentally kicked in the ankle while trying to fight over a screen in the third quarter. That injury knocked him out of Sunday’s practice and put his availability in down for Monday night.
On Monday, the decision was ultimately made to rest Payton so that he could fully recover from his troublesome ankle injuries. That ended his consecutive games streak at 116 at the NBA level.
“Definitely, I’ve been blessed,” Payton said. “I’m just going to go with it now.”
For the season, Payton leads the Magic in assists (5.9) and he is averaging 11 points, 3.6 rebounds and 1.41 steals a game.
OLADIPO ON OFFENSE: There is no questioning how good Oladipo is defensively against opposing point guards, but it’s on the offensive end where he must make the biggest transition after playing mostly shooting guard the past two seasons.
Oladipo said that he will lean on his experience from his rookie season of 2013-14 when playing point guard in Orlando’s offense.
“Everything happens for a reason, right? That (experience) is helping me right now,” Oladipo said of his time at point guard early in his career. “It was tough at first in the beginning when I was a rookie trying to figure (playing point guard) out. But now I have to be (ready) because some guys are hurt and I have to step in and play that role. God has blessed me to be able to do multiple things out there and I’m going to go there and do what it takes to lead the team and help us win because that’s what it is all about.”
Skiles said that he is confident that Oladipo can organize the Magic’s offense as the team’s point guard while also continuing to play stellar defense. Stopping the dribble penetration of opposing point guards has been an issue of late and it only makes sense to get the team’s best on-ball defender onto the floor more, the coach said.
“He’s out best defensive (point guard) and (shooting guard), so he’s really good on the ball and we need that right now at that (point guard) position,” Skiles said. “Offensively, even though maybe that’s not his natural position, we’re trying to simplify things for him and we want him to be aggressive, make decisions on the fly and hope that he makes good decisions.”
WALL TOPS MAGIC AGAIN: Washington all-star point guard John Wall, who has bedeviled the Magic much of the past three seasons, got the better of Orlando again on Monday when he was voted the Eastern Conference Player of the Month for December ahead of Orlando’s Vucevic.
Wall won the award even though the injury-ravaged Wizards went just 8-8 in December. The point guard averaged 22.6 points, 11.7 assists, 4.8 rebounds and 2.3 steals in the month. He is the first player to average at least 22 points, 11 assists, 4.0 rebounds and 2.0 steals in a month since Chris Paul in April 2009. The guard also became the first player to post three straight games with at least 26 points, 12 assists and five rebounds since Dwyane Wade in November 2006.
Vucevic was a primary factor in Orlando closing December with wins in seven of its last nine games. The Magic’s 10-5 mark in December made it their first 10-win month since February 2012 when they went 11-4.
Vucevic, a hopeful to reach the NBA All-Star Game in February for the first time in his NBA career, closed December with seven straight games with at least 20 points, giving him eight 20-point efforts in the month. He also showed off his versatility with 12 games of at least three assists in the month. In December, Vucevic averaged 19.4 points, 9.0 rebounds and 3.5 assists. For the season, he’s posted career-best numbers in assists (2.7) and field goal percentage (52.7 percent) while also averaging team highs in scoring (16.8 ppg.) and rebounding (8.5 rpg.).
Wall had 24 points and 13 assists in Washington’s defeat of Orlando on Jan. 1 – the 11th straight time that the Wizards have topped the Magic since April of 2013. Orlando did score a victory of sorts when Skiles was named the East’s Coach of the Month. As expected, the coach deflected the credit to the team.
“It really should be `Team of the Month,”’ Skiles said. “Anytime you get recognized individually in a team sport it’s because of others. Even with the MVP (award), Defensive Player of the Year or Coach of the Year anything like that is relative to the people around you. You know me – I’m concerned about (January) right now and we have to get back and start winning again.”
