Yahoo Sports senior NBA analyst Kevin O’Connor spoke with Pierre Andresen about Orlando’s early season struggles and who’s most at fault for the 4-6 beginning to their campaign. Check out the full conversation on “The Kevin O’Connor Show” and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.
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Video Transcript
You have Orlando at this point where the blame game is beginning among Magic fans.
They’re 20th in offensive rating, 26th in 3-point attempts per game, 21st in 3 point percentage, 22nd in turnovers per game.
How hot do you think the hot seat should be on Jamal Moseley?
Because it feels very hot among Magic fans.
As much as you want to blame Jamal Mosley and as much as blame he should get because at the end of the day, he is the head coach.
I am also disappointed in the players as well.
When I watched the Orlando Magic.
I don’t see a true defined leader.
They have so many miscommunication issues on the defensive side of the basketball.
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I don’t know how they lost the identity there because that was, that was something that was always given me and most basketball people confidence in this team.
And then offensively, again, there’s no real defined leader.
One of the top 3.
Guys are put in situations where they feel like they have to do something to kind of stop a run or start a run or go make a play happen.
And it just hasn’t been as cohesive as I thought.
Previous game, Desmond Bain had 1 3-point attempt.
There’s been numerous games where he’s shot 2 3-point attempts, and I, I, I don’t think they went in and invested in that trade to get that type of production.
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I think you do have to look at coaching with things like that.
But I also want to say to Magic fans, sometimes these issues appear and you think it’s just, let’s get the coach out of here.
Some of these things are, uh, it looks deep-rooted.
And I’m not necessarily saying they’re wrong for maybe wanting a different coach or a different voice, but it’s sometimes super hard to change the identities of players, especially overnight.
So, I don’t know if you’re gonna just get a new coach in there.
And everything will be able to be figured out.
Like this is something from a roster construction, from a player perspective that is gonna take some deep changing of, and I hope they can figure it out soon because you know the next step, it’s Franz or Paolo, the same way it was Tatum or Brown, and that team, Tatum and Brown were winning.
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They were having success.
They just didn’t win a championship, but even the playoff runs didn’t stop.
The conversation of one or the other.
By Christmas, that conversation, if they don’t get things together, may become a real conversation.
They gotta figure something out fast.
I am super, super disappointed in this team, and they kind of get me fiery as you can see because me, you, and a lot of people around the media, we were high on this team coming into the season, super high.