The Orlando Magic are a perplexing team.

As Zach Lowe explained with his usual thoroughness, the Magic are a team with lots of intriguing, young pieces that don’t mesh together particularly well. With that said, you get the feeling that this team should probably be a lot better than the 15-29 record they currently possess. It’s probably why there has been increasing speculation around the job security of Jacque Vaughn as head coach. Vaughn’s approach, especially on offense, and overall effectiveness are rightfully being questioned given the team’s stagnation despite another influx of talent -- both young and old -- this offseason.

As Lowe points out in his piece, Orlando is currently relying on an up-tempo, spread pick-and-roll offense that has led to some mixed reviews. But after assessing the pro’s and con’s of the Magic’s attack, Lowe makes an interesting comment:

“But if Orlando can’t play this system, it is Vaughn’s job to craft a better alternative. I just haven’t heard any suggestions from the anti-Vaughn crowd about what that might be.”

That statement triggered a fun question any hoops junkie like myself loves to try and debate: if you were head coach of this current Magic team, what type of offense would you run?

The first thing that needs to be assessed is what type of concepts suit the majority of Orlando’s personnel, particularly their young core of offensive stalwarts Victor Oladipo, Elfrid Payton, Nikola Vucevic and (maybe) Tobias Harris. The easy way to generally assess who is good at what is to avoid the complexity of plays and schemes and focus on actions. There are four general things that players can use to create offense on a basketball court:

Pick-and-rolls

Post ups/Isolations

Attacking closeouts (think spot up shooters)

Off-ball screening situations

So when looking at the Magic, we know that Vucevic, while not a dominant post player, is best doing work on the block rather than rolling to the rim after screening in pick-and-rolls or spotting up inside (or outside) the perimeter. Oladipo is being used a lot as a pick-and-roll ball handler with middling results -- he ranks in the 46th percentile as a scorer thanks to a high turnover rate, per Synergy Sports data. Though last year he would have been the same “dead spot” liability off-the-ball as Payton is now, Oladipo’s improvement as a shooter has allowed him to post much better numbers spotting up off the ball and attacking a defense that’s already been shifted by one of his teammates.

Payton, and his Rondo-esque game, seems to be well suited for pick-and-roll play. Payton’s shooting limitations put a damper on his effectiveness as a scorer out of this action, along with other situations. But while not ideal for playing in pick-and-rolls, it won’t stop him from being an effective weapon.

Rondo has been a pick-and-roll maestro for years despite his broken jumpshot because of his ability to read defenses and make plays out of it. Payton is operating along that same vain. When taking a shot attempt in pick-and-rolls, Patyons Points Per Possession rating (PPP) is a paltry .632, per Synergy data. Passes that have been tracked out of those situations, however, have produced a PPP of 1.11 -- which is an indicator of great offense for an NBA team.

Harris is a little more interesting. Per Synergy Sports data, Harris is most effective playing out of ball screen situations, though that data doesn’t account for the fact that Harris often isn’t trying to make plays out of the first pick-and-roll in a possession that typically occurs against a set defense. Most of the time Harris is in that situation, it’s been in a ‘second-side’ (meaning some type of action has already been run and the ball has been reversed to the opposite side of the floor) pick-and-roll, which is far easier to generate good looks from. Harris, like Oladipo, has also improved as a shooter so his effectiveness spotting up has also increased.

But subjectively, and Synergy data backs this up, Harris’ best niche is probably as an inverted post-player (a wing that posts) where he can bully smaller wings on the block with his size and strength. In some ways, he can become a ‘Melo-lite’, but will likely never be able to compromise opposing defenses the way a (healthy) Carmelo Anthony is capable of. To pull off consistently posting up wings, however, you do need a big man to alleviate any spacing concerns -- which the Magic have now in Channing Frye.

So in piecing this together and factoring in the strengths of the team’s remaining personnel like Aaron Gordon, Evan Fournier, etc, what is a system that augments the strengths of the Magic’s best players? Ironically, given the premise of this piece, it’s similar what Vaughn already has in place -- a fast paced, spread pick-and-roll attack led by Payton -- but with a few tweaks.

Since running a bevy of pick-and-rolls mitigates the strengths of Vucevic and Harris slightly (and renders the shot-challenged Aaron Gordon as a liability on offense), Orlando needs to find sets or concepts that still puts those players in positions to be successful without taking away from an overall philosophy that has the team moving in the right direction.

That latter part is key as coaches can sometimes rely on a series of plays that may individually augment a team’s personnel, but fail to coalesce into a common, big picture identity that players can buy into. For example, a team like Orlando can’t be committed to both playing fast while also randomly walking up the floor to call post up plays for a Vucevic and Harris. Those things must occur in the natural flow of the offense -- like the ball moving around the perimeter out of a pick-and-roll and finding a diving Vucevic on the block -- otherwise players get can confused on their overall directive.

The Magic are on the right track in general, but they can still do better. Here are three suggestions that could push the team’s offense from their inexplicable 28th-place ranking to a more respectable position:

1. Let Harris (and maybe Gordon) make the “rim run” whenever Frye is on the floor

For an up-tempo team, the rim run -- where a player runs, literally, from rim to rim -- is traditionally reserved for a big man looking to beat his man down the floor for an early score or post up. Since the concept of early offense was invented (and refined with Dean Smith’s Carolina break), the power forward or center is typically tasked with making this move while his opposite frontcourt partner lags slightly behind in the ‘trail’ spot -- located right around the top of the key outside the 3-point line. The Magic could get a little innovative with this and allow Harris, a wing, to make the rim run instead.

And because Frye is around, nothing is lost by Harris reprising a role on offense that a traditional big man would assume. Fyre’s ability to stretch the floor means that he can fill an outside lane (the path along the sideline perimeter players take down the court), essentially swapping places with Harris and providing the same shooting threat that teams get from their perimeter players. By scooting down the floor early and making himself available for a quick post up -- if he’s out in front of the pack after Orlando obtains possession -- Harris could find a way to go to work on the block without the team having to slow down and call a set play for him to do so.

2. Take Vucevic out early and bring him back quicker with the reserve unit

With Oladipo, Payton, Harris and Frye all in the starting lineup, the Magic’s bench just doesn’t have any reliable firepower or surefire way to score, even if they stick to their up-tempo approach. Removing Vucevic really in the first and third quarters -- right around the six minute mark -- and bringing him back in once the bench players are back in will help Orlando kind consistent offense. The reserves would continue to play fast and pick-and-roll heavy, but with the notion that the goal of every ball screen situation isn’t designed for the ball handler to score, but to allow Vucevic to set up shop for a deep post catch. This way, the Magic stick to their overarching principles but allow for Vucevic to get ample touches on the block rather than being resigned to a ‘dive’ man in pick-and-rolls with Payton and Oladipo all game long.

3. When the play stops, head to the corner (action)

Rick Adelman’s corner offense was a thing of beauty when combined with slick passing big men. Vucevic somewhat fits that mold. Despite his impressive size, the young Magic big man is skilled enough to be successful from that spot on the court -- he can pass, shoot and even presents a passable threat to put the ball on the floor drive to the rim. Putting Vucevic in that position would just add more value to his game.

And while Orlando would be unwise to fully commit to the system wholeheartedly, they would benefit from using sets featuring corner (also known as “push”) action during walk-up situations -- like when a timeout or foul call stops play. But instead of using the traditional alignment that features a big man at each elbow, the Magic should use a modified version that Brooklyn used last year with Jason Kidd featuring spacing like this:

Instead of standing at the elbow, the big opposite Mason Plumlee, Andray Blatche moves out to the perimeter while the two wings screen for each other in the corner. Not only does that help make the corner action harder to guard (help is stretched further way after all), but it allows for an interesting series of options if the ball is reversed to the other side of the floor. Take a look:

While the result of the play is a savvy cut by Plumlee into the paint, the focus should be on the two-man duo of Blatche and small forward Andrei Kirilenko. If you replace those two with Frye (instead of Blatche) and any of Orlando’s perimeter players (Kirilenko), you can get to a series of fun options.

If a non-shooting wing (Gordon, Payton, Devyn Marble) are in the corner (Kirilenko’s spot), you can have them step in and set a flare screen for the sweet-shooting Frye.

Any good ball handler (Fournier, Harris, Payton, Oladipo) can also receive the same type of pass-and-follow, pick-and-pop from Frye you saw Blatche and Kirilenko perform in the video.

Frye can also move to set a “wide-pin” -- a wide angled screen -- for the corner player to free them to attack the middle of the floor off a screen, a particularly nice option for Fournier.

Harris, if stationed in the corner, can also duck-in and turn any reversal to Frye into a quick post up.

The other benefit of hammering a set like this during dead-ball situations is that it’s good way to take non-shooters that clog up spacing in pick-and-rolls and make them offensive threats by turning them into those corner cutters. Gordon, in particular, would go from a liability to an asset, using his size and athleticism to sneak into unoccupied space.

With no silver bullet of a system hidden in some secret basketball labyrinth, that notion -- of finding subtle ways to improve each individual -- is what the Magic need to focus on if they are to improve not just their dreadful offense, but their underachieving team as a whole.