https://youtu.be/izOVyhzkJCI
When Nikola Vucevic, Aaron Gordon, and Evan Fournier all got scattered across the league at the trade deadline, Terrence Ross had the perfect response. He posted that picture of the emaciated-looking Somalian pirate saying “I’m the captain now.” This was in reference to the fact that the Magic no longer had any good players, and that Ross had determined that he was the best player remaining on the roster. Personally, I think that Otto Porter Jr. would be the best player on the roster if he tried, but that’s neither here nor there.
However, the new captain of the Magic didn’t play last night. He was out with knee soreness. Is that a real injury or a fake injury? I’ll leave it up to you to decide, but the reason for Ross being out doesn’t really matter. Either way, the Magic had to find a new, temporary captain, somebody who could take control of the ship and hopefully allow the Magic to not get blown out. Again, I feel like the captain should have been Otto Porter Jr., but Dwayne Bacon obviously felt that it should have been Dwayne Bacon, and one thing we’ve learned from Bacon’s stints in the NBA and the G-League is that when he decides he wants to shoot, he’s going to shoot, and nobody’s going to stop him.
The result? 26 points for Dwayne “Release the Bacon” Bacon, and a three-point Magic loss against a Lakers team that is also suddenly shorthanded. I’m not in support of Bacon being the full-time #1 option for the Magic, because he only gets worse as he takes more shots, but if Bacon gets it in his head that he’s the primary offensive threat on the team, there’s not much I or anyone else can do about it. The only way to get him to stop shooting would be to literally freeze him out of the offense completely, but then there’s the problem where he’ll grab a rebound and take the ball up himself.
Why isn’t Otto Porter Jr. good anymore? Why can’t he wrest control of the team away from Bacon? That’s the real question here.