Tanking and Thanking

Appreciating Aaron Gordon’s, Evan Fournier’s, and Nikola Vucevic’s time in Orlando

10 min readMar 26, 2021

The People’s Champ
Air Gordon
Flash Gordon
Splash Gordon
Double 00 AG
Mr. 50

You can call Aaron Gordon a lot of names, but a “bust” is not one of them. AG has proven his all-around modern skill-set as an NBA player; he’s good at most things, not really bad at any one thing, with the drag being that there seems to be a trend between his decision-making worsening as his on-ball perimeter creation increases. Aaron has flashy handles, good vision, a capable spot-up jumper, and bounce for days. Gordon’s second jump may be the second-quickest in the league behind Zion. Last season, he was a more efficient scoring creator out of the post than Nikola Vucevic by PPP. There’s really not all that many NBA players as dynamically gifted with athletic tools and ball-skills who aren’t already stars; at the very least, AG is a skilled starter who can match up with any of his world-athlete peers defensively.

The People’s Champ will be remembered nationally as the unsung hero of the dunk contest; someone who has as many notable All-Star weekend jams as anyone in the last decade, but no trophy to show for it. (D-Wade hasn’t been seen in Orlando since) Air Gordon dropped insane 360 windmills, levitated over a mascot’s head while taking a seat in the air, and left every viewer in awe with multiple you-remember-where-you-were jams in the best back-and-forth dunk contest battles of the 2010's against Zach Lavine and Derrick Jones Jr., respectively.

In Orlando, he’ll always be a home-grown fan-favorite, even if he’s remembered as the top pick whose potential never fully panned out. He’d convince you he was gradually putting it all together while always leaving you wanting more. No one wins the blame game; the Orlando Magic organization spent most of Aaron Gordon’s career misusing him in the wrong role that usually felt one position lower than where he belonged, and yet Orlando still somehow never played its young core-four of Markelle Fultz, Aaron Gordon, Jonathan Isaac, and Mo Bamba on the court together for a single minute. (via pbp stats) Alongside another versatile forward in Jonathan Isaac and a suddenly stretchable five in Nikola Vucevic, Gordon finally found a workable role as a point-of-attack defender, secondary post-creator, and spot-up off-ball threat. Gordon’s worst habits bubble up when he’s asked to do too much with the ball, forced to decide between a pull-up middy (fun) and running a play (boring) on a game-to-game basis.

The Paul George flashes might be left better off as flashes; whereas playing off an elite scoring creator like Jokic, Luka, Steph, or Lillard (Congrats, Joker!) would allow Gordon to thrive in his ideal role as a play-finisher. When those superstars are doubled leading to a 4-on-3, Aaron Gordon gets a choice on the short-roll to attack the rim or keep the ball moving to a better shot. Whether it be cutting backdoor, rolling to in P&R, waiting for lobs in the dunker spot, creating out of the post against mismatches, sitting on the wing for C&S looks, or attacking the basket against panicking defenses as a secondary creator, Aaron Gordon can do it all with flare. Denver found the perfect swish-army-knife wing to complement the best passing big man in NBA history.

In addition, other than AG’s red-hot February before the league shut down in 2020, this season might be the best off-ball shooting stretch of Splash Gordon’s career:

47.3% 3P% on 2.4 C&S 3PA/GM
1.396 PPP on 48 C&S poss — ranks in the 94th percentile in the NBA
1.153 PPP on 59 Spot Up poss — ranks in the 80th percentile in the NBA

(via Synergy and NBA Stats; 3/22/21)

Evan Fournier is heading to Shamrock City. The Celtics add a player ready to slide right in as the third or fourth scoring option depending on the night. Similar to Tim Hardaway Jr. finally thriving in a off-ball secondary scorer role behind Luka Doncic in Dallas, Evan is built to play for a contender as a secondary creator who can do all sorts of efficient things with the ball from attacking scrambling defenses, drilling C&S looks, and running second units while Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown catch a breather on the bench. Putting aside his past playoff shortcomings, Evan Fournier has sneakily played well this season when he’s been available:

In twenty six games, Evan’s averaging career highs in PPG, FGA, 3PA, FTA and AST. Fournier is shooting 46% FG% on 14 FGA , 39% 3P% on 7 3PA, and 80% on 5 FTA, while scoring 20 PPG and averaging 3.7 AST. (via BBall Ref)

Evan has one of the most efficient Runners in the NBA. (1.195 PPP, 93rd percentile, 41 poss) His Jump Shot, rated “Very Good” by Synergy, scores 1.078 PPP on high volume (206 poss); while his 1.109 PPP in 119 off-the-dribble Jump Shots rates in the 91st percentile. Here’s a look at Fournier’s most efficient Play Types, via Synergy:
0.952 PPP in 146 P&R Ball-Handler possessions rates in the 70th percentile,
0.988 PPP in 80 Off-Screen possessions rates in the 50th percentile,
1.081 PPP in 74 Spot Up possessions rates in the 63rd percentile,
1.36 PPP in 50 Hand Off possessions rates in the 94th percentile.

In Orlando, Fournier had an up-and-down relationship with Magic fans. Evan was always cordial; he took time for autographs. His inconsistent play, especially in the playoffs, eventually took its toll on his reputation over seven seasons. With Nikola Vucevic, Magic fans don’t consider either a bad player; rather, both were always overtaxed in their roles as the top-2 scoring options on a team. That duo would give any team a 7-seed ceiling, competitive enough to make the playoffs and steal Game 1, but never contend. The Fournier- Vucevic P&R was ran into the ground for over half a decade, but it had moments as one of the better two-man games in the league, especially as Vucevic stretched his range to beyond the arc. Fournier had his moments. Evan hit go-ahead shots and game-winners, including his last game in an Orlando Magic uniform, and he had stretches where he shot the lights out of the gym, such as a flaming hot pre-January start to the 2019–20 season coming off a summer where he led Team France to an upset over Team USA.

Artis Gilmore, Joakim Noah, Nikola Vucevic. Shaquille O’Neal, Dwight Howard, Nikola Vucevic. The list of all-time Bulls and Magic centers is short; Vooch walks out of Orlando’s Top-3 and into Chicago’s Top-3 upon arrival. Chi-Town adds one of the best pick-and-pop threats in the league; a true stretch-five who has mastered quick off-ball jumpers to go with the rest of his traditional big man skills as a post-up board-collector. Nikola is heading to a team that has its main scoring option in Zach Lavine, its budding potential star two-way forward in Patrick Williams, and decent depth to make a playoff push with the veteran help of Thad Young’s defense and a team-first table-setter in Tomas Satoransky.

Vucevic is not on the superstar level of Joel Embiid or Nikola Jokic, but he’s on the short list of most productive centers in the league just after that. With the defensive impact of Rudy Gobert and Bam Adebayo, there’s a barbershop debate to be had, but Nikola Vucevic is matching or surpassing the offensive box score numbers of any non-superstar center in the league; he’s basically producing like peak Karl-Anthony Towns.

Nikola Vucevic’s second All-Star season:
(2021, age 30)
24.5 PPG 11.8 REB 3.8 AST/1.9 TOV 1.6 Stocks
48% FG% — 40.6% 3P% — 83% FT% (20.6 FGA — 6.5 3PA — 2.5 FTA)

Karl-Anthony Towns’ second All-Star season:
(2019, age 23)
24.4 PPG 12.4 REB 3.4 AST/3.1 TOV 2.5 Stocks
51.8% FG% — 40% 3P% — 83.6% FT% (17.1 FGA — 4.6 3PA —5.8 FTA)

(via BBall Reference)

I deep dove into Vucevic’s off-ball numbers in last week’s Three Pointers from Beyond The RK, where he’s leading the league in P&R Roll Man possessions and pick-and-pop (P&P) possessions with the 2nd-most efficient P&P scoring rate (1.156) of any player averaging 2+ P&Ps/GM. Catch-and-Shoot Vooch is 2nd in Total C&S 3PA, 3rd in C&S 3PA/GM, and T-14th in C&S 3P% with his new teammate, Lauri Markkanen, among players shooting 4 C&S 3PA/GM. (via NBA Stats)

An interesting note on Vucevic the post-up scorer these past few seasons is that Nikola’s normally at his best posting up mismatches after a pick-and-roll, rather than a slow set-up for a prodding post-up as the main option. Due to his vision as a playmaker in both the low and high post, he’s actually more efficient against double coverage than single. Against one defender, Vooch’s team scores 0.924 PPP in 210 post-up possessions, ranking in just the 39th percentile. Compare that to 180 possessions where the defense commits to a Vucevic post-up, Vooch’s team is scoring 1.133 PPP, ranking in the 52nd percentile; and, in the 145 possessions where the defense sends a hard double team, Vooch’s team scores 1.055 PPP, ranking in the 66th percentile. (via Synergy)

By putting in the work to extend his jumper from 18ft to 23ft and buying into the defensive schemes of Head Coach Steve Clifford, Vucevic took his game to another level, from average starter to All-Star center. Coach Clifford brought the best out of Vucevic’s game, instilling him to run the offense as a high-post playmaker while minimizing his lack of defensive mobility by keeping his tall frame near the rim, similar to how Coach Bud utilizes Brook Lopez in Milwaukee. Both might fall into drop coverage for every pick-and-roll, even if that means foolishly giving up a pull-up jumper to Damian Lillard, but consider that box-out-and-board to close the defensive possession locked UP. (if Dame misses)

The Nikola Vucevic Era will bring out mixed feelings for any Magic fan. For many, he was the prize from the Dwight Howard trade who stuck it out through the bad times, is considered the best Magic player from the 2010s, and most importantly, is the rare All-Star who actually wanted to be here. To some, he was the post-up brute black hole, a walking double-double turnstile who would put up 18 and 8 in the first half, grab a couple buckets and boards in the second half, and give up 25+ to a random big like Robin Lopez along the way, but eventually developed into a modern stretch-big and reliable scoring creator. Whether or not fans would want to go through it again, an era happened, and Vucevic leaves behind some Magic Moments:

Orlando’s front office faced a crossroads moment that’s been building up ever since their arrival. “What will happen to the leftover players from the previous GM’s tenure, and what is the realistic direction of this team?” Jeff Weltman and John Hammond took over a roster with a hodgepodge of misfit talent, skilled players who should have value as individual assets on the trade market, but didn’t quite fit together well enough to maximize their skill-sets to show that value. The only player leftover today from Rob Hennigan’s tenure is Terrence Ross, who was traded by Weltman’s Raptors to Hennigan’s Magic just months before Weltman took over as President of Basketball Operations. That season ended with the Magic landing the sixth overall pick, which Weltman and Hammond used to select their new franchise cornerstone, Jonathan Isaac, as their first move.

From there, Orlando’s front office brought in respectable veterans and scarred prospects to rebrand The Magic’s image from chaotic Knicks South to the brand rehab facility of OKC East. As a small market team with fewer realistic options than most to find star talent, Orlando wanted to be the place for former first-round picks and veterans on the fringe of the league to come play for a second chance, almost like the NBA’s farm system or a more expensive G-league team. Cups of coffee were had by Jonathon Simmons, Mo Speights, Shelvin Mack, Arron Afflalo (a second time), and Orlando Magic Playoff Legend D.J. Augustin. Markelle Fultz went from the bud of everyone’s joke to the current and future starting point guard for the franchise. Injured prospects aren’t rushed back, they’re given an abundance of recovery time out of precaution, from Chuma Okeke not signing his rookie deal until a year after being drafted, to Mo Bamba taking as long as he needed to recover from the virus, and Jonathan Isaac being in and out of the lineup throughout his short career.

At yesterday’s trade deadline, the Magic played their cards using a similar small-market strategy to Oklahoma City, building out their cupboard of long-term assets. The Magic cashed in its three top scoring options and two veteran role players for three lightly-protected first round picks, a rotation player center prospect in Wendell Carter Jr., a late first-round rookie in R.J. Hampton, two defensive-minded team-first rotation players in Gary Harris and Otto Porter Jr., and a few other small assets while clearing up cap room this season and going forward. With Cade Cunningham and Evan Mobley topping next year’s rookie class, and the 2023 class featuring the tantalizing Victor Wembanyama, the Orlando Magic front office must be thrilled to have their own first and a top-4 protected first from Chicago in both drafts.

This is now Jonathan Isaac’s and Markelle Fultz’ team going forward. With Chuma Okeke, Wendell Carter Jr., Mo Bamba, Cole Anthony, R.J. Hampton, and all that draft pick inventory in hand, Orlando’s options are open. The Magic are prepared to chase star talent in the few ways available to them: they could get lucky in the lottery, trade up for a targeted draft prospect, or package together some of these stockpiled assets to acquire a disgruntled superstar. Orlando is ready to roll out the youth movement, and don’t be surprised if Coach Clifford has this defense looking long, smart, and a little nasty as soon as next season.

A sincere thank you to Aaron Gordon, Evan Fournier, and Nikola Vucevic for seven years of nightly hoops, what-ifs, and Magic Memories.