And For Their Next Trick: The Orlando Magic’s Offseason Moves in Spider Graphs

The Orlando Magic have made perhaps the most dramatic offseason moves out of the East’s elite teams.

They replaced two of their starters, bringing in Vince Carter and Brandon Bass to start in place of the departed Courtney Lee and Hedo Turkoglu. But does it make them a better team?

Spider Graphs can give us an idea.

If you haven’t seen Spider Graphs before, they’re a new way to reflect a player or team’s statistics in a visual way that gives you an overall impression of their style. They were created and first used by the author in evaluating the 2009 NBA Finals, and their origin (and a explanation of Spider Graph methodology) is here.

Here’s a quick summary. The top half of the graph represents offensive statistics (FG%, points, and assists), and the bottom half represents defense (steals, blocks, and rebounds—which I strongly feel are a defensive statistic). A player whose graph has more area up top should be considered a bigger contributor on offense, and a larger bottom half suggests a defensive focus.

To add another layer, the three upper-right statistics (points, assists, and steals) tend to be associated with perimeter players, whereas the bottom-left three (blocks, rebounds, and high FG%) tend to be the jurisdiction of big men.

These graphs use maximum values of 40 points, 20 rebounds, 20 assists, 5 blocks, 5 steals, and 75% shooting, normalized so that they’re all on a scale from 0-100. A zero score represents zero in every case except FG%, where zero on the graph represents 25% shooting (to amplify differences between players).

All statistics are per 48 minutes instead of per game, to account for differences in playing time for players coming from other teams. They use 2008 regular season numbers, and are only meant to reflect past statistical performance, leaving out intangibles and change to a player’s game over time.

Without further ado, here we go!

First let’s examine swapping Hedo Turkoglu out of the lineup for Brandon Bass. It’s an interesting comparison because Turkoglu played small forward for the Magic and Bass is a power forward, but ESPN reports that Orlando will be sliding Rashard Lewis into the 3 spot and starting Bass at the 4.

Even at a quick glance we can see that Turkoglu, despite being 6’10″, plays more like a wing than a big man—his statistics exceed Bass’s in all three of the upper-right categories.

Bass on the other hand plays much more like a traditional big, and his graph shows it, with heavy emphasis in the lower left.

What the graph doesn’t show here, however, is that Bass hasn’t held a starting role in the NBA before now. The graph shows that his per-minute statistics are good, and the Magic will benefit from his interior presence if he can play a whole game at that level. Last year he averaged just over 19 minutes per contest.

Based on the area of Bass’s graph being larger than Turkoglu’s, we could see Bass become more of a statistical producer this year than the Turk was last year—and as a young player (this will be his fifth season) he may continue to improve year after year.

The Magic depended on Turkoglu to come through big in the fourth quarter, which he did regularly. While it’s hard to see Bass measuring up as well in clutch situations, he may very well be a 40-minute guy that consistently takes care of business.

Next up: Vince Carter replacing Courtney Lee.

Lee’s graph is the archetype of the athletic two guard. The spike toward steals reflects his quickness, and the indentation on the assist axis reveals that he is, in fact, a shooting guard and not a point.

In analyzing last year’s Finals, we found that Lee and Trevor Ariza play similar games, as reflected by their Spider Graphs. Check it out here.

Lee gets shown up by Vinsanity, however, in almost every category. Everyone knows Vince Carter is an offensive powerhouse, but the graph adds context by showing exactly how much the Magic have upgraded offensively at the 2 by bringing in Carter—assuming his efficiency is similar to last year’s.

Vince adds versatility, as well—his assist and rebound numbers outdo those of Lee, who was a rookie last year.

Where the Magic lose in the Vince trade is on defense, which doesn’t get accurately depicted in the graph. That’s one area where Lee has shined, especially during Orlando’s 2009 playoff run where he was called upon to defend Kobe Bryant.

So, with those two moves made, where do the Magic stand?

Verdict: Better statistically than last year, across the five starters (depth is a different discussion).

Because of the NBA’s salary cap and trade restrictions, it’s difficult for a team to improve more than incrementally any given year. But to take a team that went to the Finals last year and improve—even that small increment—can be a very big deal.

It’s difficult to see in the graph, and of course it’s difficult for individual players to make a huge impact on an overall team’s statistics, but the graph for this year’s Magic squad wins in almost every category.

Since the points average is higher but the assists have remained constant, we can assume that they’ve added someone who can create their own shot (Vince). They’ve added some paint presence as well, highlighted by the heightened rebound and block statistics (and brought by Bass).

And most importantly, they did it without giving up too much in other categories. The only area where they are noticeably hurting is steals, which they enjoyed from Courtney Lee’s quickness and tenacity on defense.

Overall, it appears that the Orlando Magic have done well for themselves this offseason. If Carter can fit into the team’s chemistry and defensive scheme, and if Bass can put up numbers for big minutes, the Magic could be back in the Finals next year.

Unless everybody else got even better.

This article is the first in a series applying Spider Graphs to 2009 NBA Offseason moves. Stay tuned for analyses of Cleveland, Boston, the Lakers, and others. See other Spider Graph articles here.