2007/08 Magic League and Player Rankings

NBA Team by Position stats

from www.82games.com who are the stats geeks for the NBA.

Below is the Magic performance compared to the rest of the league by position, not player. PER is a John Hollinger stat from ESPN. 82 games ranks PER - Opposition PER.

Orlando Magic

07-08	Ranks (Net)						PER Difference
POS	Pts	FG%	Reb	Ast	T/O	FTA	PER	Opp	Rank
PG	16	7	19	12	16	14	16.7	16.8	14
SG	27	5	25	30	1	25	14.1	17.1	24
SF	8	5	14	5	28	14	17.9	15.7	7
PF	8	3	30	7	25	23	17.0	16.1	12
C	4	1	1	23	30	1	22.6	15.1	1

A lot of the data here is pretty obvious to Magic fans.

1. Dwight Howard plays over 80% of the available Center minutes for the Magic so it's no big surprise the Magic are the best in the league at the position overall, FG%, Rebounding and Free Throw Attempts. Howard can still get better, he is relatively poor at passing and very bad at turnovers. Plus there are three teams that score more out of the Center position.

2. The combination of Turk and whoever is pretty good all around.

3. Lewis & company is clearly playing out of position at PF with very poor rebounding and turnovers. Then again, how much rebounding is needed with Howard at Center? As with SF, the Magic get strong passing from the PF position, and marksman-like shooting.

4. My anti-Magic Guard bias figured the PG position was even worse than these numbers show. Plenty of room for improvement here. I still have trouble picturing the Magic winning a title with Nelson as starter. And he was much better than Arroyo and Dooling.

5. I knew the SG position was a bit on the bad side, but these stats say they were awful last year. SG was mostly Evans, Bogans & some Dooling. Pietrus and Lee are in a position to really help the Magic out in 2008/09. They would really have to suck to maintain last years production.

Here is a look at the entire roster as sorted by Roland Rating which is:

This rating isn't an absolute measure of a player's ability, but it does represent how successful a player is with a given team. In general the player with the best Roland Rating on a team is the difference maker (exclude the guys who play a statistically insignificant number of minutes). When the top guy is on the floor the team performs at a much higher level.

These ratings represent a player's value to a particular team and are not intended to be an accurate gauge of the ability and talent of the player away from the specific team.

Explanation: The on court +/- number repesents the team's net points with the player on the floor per 48 minutes, while the off court number is the team's net with the player off the floor per 48 minutes. The Roland Rating is the difference between the two, with a positive number indicating the team has played better with the player than without.

Again, very obvious to fans. The big three are Howard, Turk & Lewis. Arroyo, Nelson & Dooling were neutral contributors (ie. with big three on the court along with them the team succeeded, when they were on the court with others the team performance was poor.) The rest of the list is like dragging an anchor on a speedboat. Evans/Bogans hurts the team performance quite a bit. Cook, Foyle & Garrity quite a lot, with Garrity just killing the Magic when he's was on the floor.

Getting rid of any or all of the guards is not a bad summer plan. Just two years ago Nelson was the 2nd best player on the team. Now he's badly overpaid at $8 million.

Production			On Court/Off Court			Roland
Player	Min	Own	Opp	Net	On	Off	Net	Rating
Howard	78%	25.8	13.3	+12.5	+7.4	-1.6	+9.0	+11.1
Turkoglu	77%	20.2	14.6	+5.6	+7.0	+0.3	+6.8	+6.1
Gortat	1%	22.5	9.6	+12.9	+0.0	+5.5	-5.5	+5.5
Lewis	78%	18.9	14.6	+4.4	+6.5	+1.6	+5.0	+4.6
Arroyo	32%	14.6	15.3	-0.7	+5.1	+5.6	-0.5	-0.6
Nelson	50%	17.6	18.9	-1.3	+5.6	+5.3	+0.2	-0.7
Dooling	34%	16.0	16.1	-0.1	+4.4	+6.0	-1.6	-0.7
Bogans	56%	12.5	17.7	-5.2	+6.6	+4.0	+2.6	-2.1
Redick	7%	14.7	14.8	-0.1	-2.8	+6.1	-8.8	-3.6
Evans	41%	15.7	19.4	-3.6	+3.1	+7.1	-4.0	-3.8
Ariza	3%	14.5	20.2	-5.8	+4.6	+5.5	-0.9	-3.8
Augustine	4%	12.1	17.8	-5.7	+2.9	+5.5	-2.6	-4.4
Cook	14%	11.1	20.2	-9.1	+1.9	+6.0	-4.1	-7.1
Foyle	20%	11.2	18.7	-7.4	-0.8	+6.9	-7.8	-7.6
Garrity	7%	4.3	16.2	-11.9	+0.5	+5.8	-5.3	-9.3
Outlaw	0%	10.3	38.2	-27.9	-29.1	+5.5	-34.6	-30.6