PESSIMISM ALERT! PESSIMISM ALERT!
Look, I like Al Farouq Aminu. I understand the value he brings to an NBA team. On any other team, 6 games into the season, he’d be a major asset no doubt. However, he plays for the Orlando Magic, a team that cannot cover for his deficiencies. If anything, his weaknesses are magnified on the current iteration of this ball club. As of November 4th, Al Farouq Aminu has a usage rate of 11.7%, a turnover rate of 18.2% and an assist rate of 6.1%. Those percentages are atrocious, right? It gets worse. The two lineups he is most featured in (MCW/Fultz/Ross/Aminu/Bamba & Augustin/Ross/Gordon/Aminu/Bamba) commit around 5 more turnovers per 100 possessions than their opponent. I bring this up because as a team that struggles to score the ball (struggle is probably an understatement at this point) the Magic cannot afford to turn the ball over. Sure, you can’t put the blame for the team’s deficiencies on the offensive end solely on Aminu (Ross is in both of those lineups and he has been equally as terrible), but he has a lion’s share of the blame here. You can’t rank 2nd to last in usage rate on the team while managing to be responsible for 9% of its turnovers.
I’m aware that I just threw a bunch of numbers at you and spewed analytical vomit everywhere. My bad. But the point of all of it was to highlight that maybe, just maybe, the Magic front office should’ve allocated their mid-level exception in different ways. Do they have buyer’s remorse yet? I think not. Should they? Probably not. Should they be concerned? Absolutely. Especially when you consider Al-Farouq’s minutes come at the expense of Wes Iwundu, who had a better defensive rating last year than Aminu did and earns roughly 8 million dollars less. Admittedly I am a Wes Iwundu “Stan” (I mean how can you not be?! The guy went on twitter and tried to pull Rihanna!) and selfishly I’d love to see him play more minutes, but from the very get-go the numbers show that Wes is actually a solid, young role player. Why stunt his growth with a $29,162,700 investment in Aminu?
Another “expected” fallout from this signing is Aaron Gordon’s early struggles. Gordon, who played 60% of his minutes last year at PF has thus far played 88% of his minutes at SF. This is primarily due to Jonathan Isaac’s emergence but also due to Aminu needing significant minutes. We saw this in the 16-17 season, where AG was forced to play out of position due to Ibaka getting his minutes at PF. The results were disastrous. Merely three years later history has repeated itself. Jeff Weltman is trying to fit a square peg in a round hole (AG at the 3) and the results thus far have been detrimental to the team.
With a team that finished last season ranked 22nd in offense, why didn’t the Magic make a move to improve in that regard? Is it ineptitude on the part of the front office? Maybe. I won’t rule that out yet. The Magic need to use that MLE to fill actual needs (shooting, playmaking, scoring). Seth Curry, Delon Wright, Austin Rivers, Isaiah Thomas, Derrick Rose, Rodney Hood, Tomas Sotoransky, Wayne Ellington, Troy Daniels, Jake Layman, Avery Bradley, and Jabari Parker all were signed for the same amount or less than what Aminu was signed for and all would’ve filled some needs for the team. For me, this is cause for concern. It’s still early in the season and things will inevitably change, but as it stands now, the results of this signing do not look promising.
