1. Jacque Gone: We all know the axiom that coaches are hired to be fired. Such is the case of Jacque Vaughn, whom Orlando finally let go today. Did Vaughn get a fair shake? On the one hand, the Magic are a legitimately bad team and it is unlikely a more proven coach would’ve made them a playoff team. On the other, the Magic are in midst of their third 20-something win season under Vaughn and have lost ten straight and 16 out of 18. A run of losing like this is bad enough to prompt a firing because management would have to figure that any coach could lose that much. In addition, the Magic don’t really do anything well as a team. They are 28th in offense and 25th in defense this season and Orlando does have enough talent that they shouldn’t be so bad in both phases of the game.
You can’t really defend a coach with that kind of record. Still, Vaughn’s time in Orlando did have some benefit. He did a nice job of developing young players:
-Kyle O’Quinn has turned into a nice player as a second-round pick
-Tobias Harris and Nikola Vucevic have improved a lot under Vaughn after coming over in trades
-Victor Oladipo has improved offensively, though it does not appear he should ever play point guard again
Elfrid Payton looked solid enough but it is way too early to tell if Vaughn helped him develop in anyway. The only other young player who regressed under Vaughn was Mo Harkless, who lost time to Harris.
Where one might question Vaughn most is the lack of defense. A defense this bad does not match up with some of the athletic pieces, particularly Payton and Oladipo. There are some reasonable counterpoints to this defense concern: (1) Payton/Oladipo are very young, so maybe their defensive instincts will take some time to develop and (2) putting aside the backcourt, the Magic are terrible at blocking shots (29th) and are getting manhandled in the paint, which may be more of a front office failure. Both are fair points, but even if you afford a degree of truth to them, Orlando was just too bad overall to save Vaughn.
The rumored replacement after the season is Scott Skiles. He makes sense on his coaching record (he tends to get a lot of defense out of his teams) and his pedigree as an original Magic player (remember, Skiles has the NBA single game assist record from his time in Orlando). If he can improve the Magic’s defense, Orlando could become respectable quickly. Skiles does tend to wear out his welcome after a few years but that is preferable to the years of limbo they have been in now.
2. Blindsided by Whiteside: The other big story of late is the development of Hassan Whiteside in Miami. Whiteside’s numbers this year are off the chart. Per-36 minutes, he is averaging the following: 18.4 ppg, 15.6 rpg, 4.6 bpg, .649 FG%, 28.9 PER. It is highly unlikely that Whiteside will be quite this good but it does look like he is a seriously good player now.
Whiteside’s background is interesting and shows some evidence that he can play (albeit not as good as he has so far). He was a second round pick of the Kings in 2010 after only one season at Marshall. The Kings assigned Whiteside to Reno of the D-League for most of the 2010-11 season (he played one game for two minutes in Sacramento). Whiteside was so raw that he barely even played in the D-League that season, though he did block a crazy 7.3 shots per 36 minutes. 2011-12 worked out substantially the same way, with a little D-League time and 18 games and 109 minutes for Sacramento. In the limited minutes in Sacramento, Whiteside was very active (5 blocks and 12.9 rebounds per 36 minutes and a 16.2 PER). The Kings waived Whiteside after the season and he played abroad (Lebanon and China) until this fall, when the Grizzlies brought him to camp. The Grizz cut him Whiteside during camp but brought him back on November 19, 2014, only to cut him the next day. Shortly thereafter, the Heat signed him and assigned him to Sioux Falls of the D-League. When Whiteside finally got to the Heat, he has looked like a young Dikembe Mutombo with offensive skills of David Robinson.
In fact, Whiteside’s 28.9 PER is the highest of any player to average between 19 and 30 minutes per game in a season, besides David Robinson’s 31.0 PER in his six-game 1996-97 season (next on the list is Michael Jordan’s injured shortened 18-game 1985-86 season). Whiteside is in uncharted territories as a player but if he is even half the player he has been this year, he is a bona fide NBA center.
3. Other Late Bloomers: It is quite rare to see a player fail to develop in the NBA and come back a few years later as a very good player. I thought it would be interesting to see if there were any other players who fit Whiteside’s mold. There are a couple of players who went to Europe first and then came to the NBA as more mature players and became regulars. Here’s a rundown of such players (note that we are excluding European-born players from the list because they are more likely start out in Europe for a variety reasons having nothing to do with ability to stick in the NBA):
-Antonio Davis was drafted out of UTEP in 1990 and came to the NBA four years later in 1993-94 (age 25) and was an impact player immediately. Davis wasn’t quite as good as Whiteside (his PER was 15.2 as a rookie) has been but Davis’ career was long and impressive as a solid power forward/center.
-Dean Garrett is a forgotten and extreme example. He played for Indiana’s last title team back in 1986-87 and was drafted in the second round in 1988. Garrett played in Europe for years before signing with the T-Wolves to be a backup in 1996-97. Garrett was so good that he became the starting center over Stojko Vrankovic (a player who washed out of the NBA in the early 1990s and was trying to return years later). Garrett was 30 at the time but was quite effective: 11.7 pts, 10.7 rebs, 2.7 blks per 36 minutes and a 17.7 PER. Garrett parlayed his play into a big deal with Denver. Alas, the Nuggets paid the top on Garrett, who immediately morphed into a below average big man. Denver traded him back to Minny after the 1997-98 season but the magic was gone. Garrett stayed at this lower level for the remainder of his contract and retired after the 2001-02 season when his contract expired (he was 35 at the time).
-In the olden days, a lot of Americans tried Europe first. The best of the bunch was Bill Laimbeer, who spent a year in Europe after being a third-round pick in 1979. He stuck in Cleveland in 1980-81 and the rest of his career is pretty well known (and hated by most non-Piston fans). Also, Kurt Rambis was drafted in the third-round by the Knicks in 1980 and spent a year abroad before coming to the Lakers in 1981-82.
What about guys who specifically washed out of the NBA can came back? Well, here’s the list:
-Ike Austin bounced around the NBA as an overweight center from 1991-1994. He wasn’t awful but had no traction because of his weight. He went to Europe for two years and came back to the Heat in 1996-97 to be Alonzo Mourning’s backup. Austin played well as the backup and was in line for a big contract after the 1997-98 season (Pat Riley knew he didn’t want to overpay a backup with Zo in the fold so Austin was traded at the deadline to the Clippers for Brent Barry). Orlando gave Austin a five-year $22 million deal and he promptly came into camp out of shape and was never more than bench fodder again (his career ended when the contract expired after the 2001-02 season).
-Anthony Parker from Bradley was a late first-round pick of the 76ers in 1997. He barely played in Philly and Orlando over the next three years. Parker went to Israel and established himself as a star player for six years before coming back to the NBA and Toronto for 2006-07 (when he was 31). Parker was a solid player for two years in Toronto before spending another four years as a backup (he retired at age-36 as after the 2011-12 season).
The lesson here is that there is a relatively untapped market of good players abroad that can fill roles in the NBA on the cheap if you look carefully (last year, Atlanta got decent minutes out of Pero Antic for low cost and the Knicks are happy with Pablo Prigioni). Granted, there are plenty of examples of busts going this route (see Nate Huffman) but capped out teams, in particular, should be open to the idea.