As they embark
Magic: Bring on higher expectations
on the 2016-17 season, new coach Frank Vogel and the Magic are exuding confidence as they gear up to end the franchise’s playoff drought.
Some coaches run from expectations.
New Orlando Magic coach Frank Vogel embraces them.
When his team convened Monday for its annual media day, Vogel pledged to raise the bar for a franchise that failed to make the playoffs the last four seasons.
“We’re going to be a team that has a shoot-for-the-moon mentality, a dream-big mentality,” Vogel said.
The players followed his lead, offering bold words of their own.
“We want to go back to the playoffs, and if we don’t, it’s going to be a bust, basically,” swingman Evan Fournier said. “The playoffs or bust.”
No one within the Magic — executives, coaches or players — offered any Joe Namath-like guarantees, but they conveyed heightened optimism. The offseason arrivals of seasoned veterans Serge Ibaka, Bismack Biyombo and Jeff Green have infused the franchise with desperately needed confidence. Prior to last season, for instance, general manager Rob Hennigan said the team expected to compete for a playoff spot; these days, Hennigan is saying the team expects to make the playoffs.
Hennigan largely dismantled last season’s team that started strong under coach Scott Skiles but slumped to finish with a 35-47 record.
Only six players return from that roster: Fournier, Aaron Gordon, Mario Hezonja, Elfrid
Payton, Nikola Vucevic and C.J. Watson. When they returned to Orlando after their summertime vacations or international commitments, the team’s roster looked almost completely different.
“I think the youth was a big issue for us in the past,” Vucevic said. “I think now we can’t use that as an excuse anymore.”
Vogel will be tasked to coalesce the roster into a coherent whole.
It will be a formidable challenge.
“I’m going to tell the truth,” Ibaka said. “It’s going to take time. We’re going to be getting better and better every day. We’re going to build step by step.”
The process will start this morning, when the Magic gather for their first practice with Vogel as their coach. The returning players aren’t quite sure what to expect. Payton predicted Vogel will need to do “a lot of talking” to explain his philosophies and X’s-and-O’s schemes. Damjan Rudez, a trainingcamp invitee who played one season for Vogel with the Indiana Pacers, thinks the morning workout will be difficult.
“I expect it to be very intense, very hard,” Rudez said. “But also a lot of fun.”
Vogel’s Pacers teams reached the postseason five out of six years. Their only playoff absence occurred when All-Star Paul George missed almost the entire 2014-15 season because of a broken leg.
When Vogel took over the Pacers as an interim coach midway through the 2010-11 season, he immediately told his players he thought they could turn their season around. They did. These days, he’s telling the Magic they can reach the playoffs for the first time since 2012.
“I wouldn’t be this way if I didn’t really believe in this team,” Vogel said. “I don’t think you can fake that type of talk, that type of belief. I really believe that this team has what it takes to make the playoffs and have success in the playoffs.” jrobbins@orlandosentinel.com Read his blog at OrlandoSentinel.com/magicblog.