8. ORLANDO MAGIC, 6-12
The Good News: Would the Rockets trade Dwight Howard for Arron Afflalo, Nik Vucevic, Mo Harkless and three no. 1s? Probably not … but they'd definitely have a four-hour meeting about it. That makes Orlando the first NBA team ever to successfully trade a superstar for 100 cents on the dollar.10 Kudos to Magic GM Rob Hennigan for making history while salvaging an ugly situation. You can absolutely build around Afflalo, Vucevic, Victor Oladipo, Tobias Harris, Andrew Nicholson, Harkless and two 2014 first-rounders. Oh, and they're $16 million under the cap next summer. Who wants to go to Disney World???
The Bad News: Ideally, the Magic would have submitted one more gawd-awful season, landed in the lottery's top five, drafted Marcus Smart and completed their post-Howard rebuild. But they've been a little too competent. Who knew a rejuvenated Big Baby Davis would be lighter than he's been since the eighth grade, or that Afflalo would become a top-five 2-guard (totally true, by the way)? My advice: Figure out how to plant a locker-room staph infection, and figure it out fast.
Random Thought: By my calculations, the Magic are paying Gilbert Arenas, Hedo Turkoglu and Al Harrington somewhere between $18 million and $20 million to NOT play for them this season. And yet you'd still rather have those three guys than Amar'e Stoudemire. Sorry, I had to.
Most Interesting Subplot: I mentioned that Afflalo has become a top-five 2-guard, followed by you making a face and saying, "Typical Simmons, what an ass." Know this: Afflalo leads all 2-guards in PER (21.46); he's first in Estimated Wins Added (3.6); he's third in PPG (22.6); he's sixth in 3-point percentage (46.3 percent), seventh in FT percentage (85.4 percent) and sixth in FG percentage (48.8 percent); and he's an excellent defensive player. With James Harden taking the season off defensively (hey, James, you're not a DH), and Dwyane Wade taking days off left and right like he's the retiring CEO of a successful company or something, Afflalo is the league's most reliable 2-guard right now. He's also one of the league's best bargains at $7.5 million per year, making him the single best commodity on the trade market right now. It's true.
SportVU Revelation: Vucevic averages 10.9 rebounds per game, but 7.5 of them are uncontested. That makes Vucevic's "contested rebound percentage" 31.0 percent — much lower than Drummond (42.2 percent) and Tristan Thompson (43.2 percent), higher than Dwight Howard (30.7 percent) and just behind Boogie Cousins (32.4 percent). Is this a fancy way of saying that Howard, Vucevic and Boogie get too many cheap rebounds? I say yes!
Worst-Case Scenario: Doesn't exist. They're in the best shape of any Eastern team not named Indy or Miami — they have cost-effective assets, draft picks and cap space. Part of me wants to pull a Tom Ripley on Hennigan and take his job. I'm only half-kidding.
Prognosis: They'll fade after the All-Star break because of injuries, fake injuries, self-sabotage trades and erratic substitution patterns. I have them happily missing the playoffs. Well done all the way around, Orlando.
