Magic 'Regression to the Mean' Coming Soon?
ORLANDO - The Orlando Magic (13-22) has escaped the doldrums of the league after plummeting to the bottom of the NBA standings.
Standing with a 5-20 record three weeks ago, the Magic held the league's worst record, but eight wins in their last 10 games have given the team some life as the team inches closer to the halfway point in the season.
CBS Sports took a closer look at the reasons behind Orlando's recent success and believe that the recent stretch of wins may be a fluke.
The article points out Paolo Banchero shooting 46 percent from three during the team's hot streak after shooting just 25 percent in his first 20 career games. It also discusses the fact that the team shoots 40 percent from distance when Mo Bamba is on the floor, while teams are only shooting 32 percent from three as a whole against Orlando on wide-open threes in December.
"All of this suggests that while the Magic has structural advantages that make them better than they looked early on, they aren't about to jump into the play-in race or anything," CBS Sports writes. "Their success has been so predicated on shooting, both their own and their opponent's, that a regression to the mean is probably coming."
Orlando ranks 17th in the league in three-point percentage at 34.9 percent, a big jump from ranking 28th last season at 33.1 percent.
Whether or not this clip is sustainable has yet to be determined, because the Magic will see the return of Jalen Suggs soon, and Jonathan Isaac is expected to make his season debut in the coming weeks. So the product on the floor will change, and that makes the Magic one of the sneaky scary teams in the Eastern Conference.
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