Nikola Vucevic’s absence
Injury to Vucevic alters dynamics
due to a fractured left hand could have a wide-ranging long-term impact as Jeff Weltman and John Hammond plot a direction for the franchise’s faltering rebuild.
WASHINGTON — One of the many debates within the Orlando Magic front office in the years before Jeff Weltman’s and John Hammond’s arrival revolved around the team’s starting center, Nikola Vucevic.
No one questioned Vucevic’s talents as a shooter or as a passer or his character as a human being. But team officials wondered whether his lack of ferocity and his deficiencies on defense were so significant that they irrevocably held the Magic back. The Magic are about to find out. Vucevic fractured the metacarpal of his left index finger in a defeat Saturday night, and the injury will have far-reaching effects on the Magic this season. He’s their third-leading scorer, their best rebounder and, as coach Frank Vogel often maintains, perhaps the
most unselfish player on the roster.
“It’s huge,” point guard Elfrid Payton said. “It’s unfortunate.”
As significant as the short-term impacts will be, those impacts likely will pale in comparison to the long-term effects.
Weltman, the team’s president of basketball operations, and Hammond, its general manager, have said they will spend this season evaluating how all the players on the roster fit together. Now, with Vucevic out, Weltman and Hammond will get to assess how the other members of the nucleus function and interact within a fundamentally different dynamic.
Bismack Biyombo will assume the starting center job, and the plain truth is Biyombo brings none of the shooting or passing skills that Vucevic possesses. Indeed, Biyombo often struggles simply to catch passes.
Yet at the same time, Biyombo offers qualities that Vucevic lacks. Biyombo prefers to roll to the hoop when he sets screens, while Vucevic tends to default to mid-range jumpers. Biyombo also brings a degree of toughness and deterrence on defense that Vucevic often doesn’t provide.
How will point guard Elfrid Payton perform without Vucevic’s floor-stretching ability but also without Vucevic’s preference to pick-and-pop and instead of pick-and-roll? How will swingman Evan Fournier and forward Aaron Gordon play without Vucevic in the mix?
The answers to these questions will become evident once Fournier returns from a sprained ankle and Gordon returns from a strained right calf and a bone bruise in his right leg.
At least a few members in the Magic’s prior front office regarded Biyombo as an upgrade over Vucevic on the defensive end and in overall spirit and leadership. That explains why, in July 2016, the team signed Biyombo to a four-year contract worth $17 million a season, a deal that constrains the franchise’s salary-cap flexibility and now, in hindsight, looks utterly outlandish.
Last season, Biyombo received an opportunity to wrest the starting center job from Vucevic, but Biyombo didn’t hold onto the job. Biyombo was a liability on the offensive end, and the defense struggled even when he was on the court.
Vucevic is in the next-tolast year of a four-year contract that pays him $12.25 million this season and will pay him $12.75 million in 2018-19.
Because of his skills on offense and his relatively inexpensive salary, he would have been one of the Magic’s best trade chips before the NBA trade deadline on Feb. 8. But his injury seems to diminish his trade value.
Meanwhile, the Magic have lost their last eight games and 19 of their last 22 games, and they own the league’s fifth-worst record.
The Magic have emerged as serious contenders for the league’s worst record and, therefore, the best odds of winning the 2018 NBA Draft Lottery. In the long run, winning the lottery almost certainly would give the Magic their best chance in years to add a cornerstone player.
But if the team begins to play well once Fournier, Gordon and rookie forward Jonathan Isaac return from their injuries, then Weltman and Hammond at least will have learned more about the team’s dynamics.
One of the Magic’s biggest questions — just how beneficial is Vucevic? — is about to be answered.