Dog days time here. The Magic are getting killed! I’m going to try to not turn this into existential question about the Magic!
As the Magic turn over every penny to find literally anything to keep their three point shooting over 30%, Jett Howard played in 5 of the past 6 games, with his minutes ticking up a bit, to close to 15 per game. He scored 4 points a game, shooting 42% from the floor and 31.2% from three. He no “big game” here but did pick up 7 rebounds and 7 assists in this span - better than his normal clip. It’s not great, but it’s something, and it’s two straight updates with a few more assists.
The desperation for more shooting has not re-uncovered Caleb Houstan who only played in games decided by 20+. He played 16 total minutes and made 1 of 2 three point shots as well as another basket.
I’m not positive where Moussa Diabate sits in the rotation. He picked up a straight up healthy scratch in the first game of this stretch with the Hornets opting for Williams and Nurkic. But Williams can’t play back to back and is precariously healthy anyway, and Nurkic…is ill but also not very good anymore? He played the next 6, and played a bit over 18.5 minutes in those games. The Hornets have been getting historically slaughtered (losing 3 straight games by 131 points is an NBA record) but Moussa has done ok? He scored 7.5 ppg in those 18.5 minutes but only on 47% shooting - not great for a guy shooting everything from around the rim. He pulled down 33 boards (5.5 per game), 16 of which were offensive (2.7 per game). I’m going to assume some of those were grabbing his own misses. He also picked up 10 stocks (7 steals), so has been making some plays on that end.
Across 6 games, Franz scored 24 ppg on 48.8% shooting using 119 shots to score his 144 points. That’s solid efficiency (not spectactular) on pretty prodigious volume. He only shot 21% from 3, and is at 30% for the year now. Further, his volume there is clearly dipping from his original breakout this year. He added 5 boards a game, 4.5 assists, with moderate defensive playmaking (10 stocks). His free throw grifting helped maintain his efficiency somewhat, picking up 22 points at the line over the 6 games. His TS% here sticks at “a bit below average” at 54.5%, so he’s sort of a good stats on bad team guy right now (they went 2-4 in these games and 6-11 since he returned from injury). I think this team constuct is just broken and can’t work, personally - he’s obviously part of that and his shortcoming (can’t shoot threes) are also his team’s writ large (not that other people missing are his fault). I think there’s also a bit of the team looking at Franz, Banchero, and Wendell Carter and deciding these are guys who offer good positional playmaking for others and didn’t need to get a PG who can help others get shots…but that seems to be wrong!
Jordan Poole played in 4 of their 5 games, scoring 19.25 points a game on 44% shooting (35.5% from three). It’s all fine, not much else to say here, especially since his number are really just getting pulled down by one particularly bad outing (3/11, 0/6, no assists). If you’re interesting in such things, the Wizards, while in possession of the worst record in the year, are far better right now than the Hornets, and proved it by beating them 13 last night.
Caris Levert (Hawks version) gets up a bunch more shots (4 more a game in 4 additional minutes, usage up 2 points). In these 5 games, he scored 15 ppg in nearly 28 minutes. He shot 46% from the floor, but 28.6% from 3, taking 63 shots for his 75 points…sort of “meh”. Playing alongside Trae Young (he’s not starting, but again, 28 minutes) he’s not handling the ball much at this stage, which was his main job in Cleveland, registering 7 dimes in these 5 games. I’m honestly still a bit bummed he got dealt from Cleveland.
THJ is still not terribly productive. He scored 10 points a game, but only crossed double figured twice in six games (and one of those he got 10 points) and shot 32.6% from three. His best performance was making 6 of 10 threes on his way to…18 points…in a five point win in Atlanta.
Duncan Robinson’s two weeks contained multitudes. He scored 20 points and tallied 2 assists in his first three games, totalling 6 in games 2 and 3 combined and made 2 of 9 shots in those two games. Then, in the next three, scored 54 points hitting 48% of his threes, racking up 16 assists. In total, you get 12.3 points, 52% from the floor (41% from 3) and 3 assists - a somewhat more efficient version of what he does most of the time.
