Much less than impressive.

A phrase to sum up the Magic to this point in the season. Sure they are on a two game winning streak, and sure they are 2-2 so far. That’s just not good enough right now. While they have won the last couple games, the Magic have yet to look truly good this year. The Magic have yet to put an entire game together that resembles their consistently great play last season. They have shown flashes and have played great for stretches and even quarters, but they haven’t put it together for an entire forty-eight minutes to date. There are a lot of reasons why our team has not looked as good as last year yet, but all of it centers around one common theme. It all boils down to good old fashioned selfishness.

Some things point to this selfishness this year, and it becomes plain as day to see. As a team last year, the Magic averaged 20.8 assists per game, on their way to an Eastern Conference leading 104.5 points per game. Turn it around to this year, and the Magic look much worse. Averaging just 96.5 points per game, the Magic have passed for just 16.5 assists per game through four games. That is an 8 point drop off from last season’s scoring, but a four assist drop off from last season shows why the scoring drop off has taken place. It is amazing and startling that the Magic have had such a turn for the worse offensively, due to everyone wanting to be the grinch that scores the basket.

It can easily be seen when watching, and it starts with last years most improved player, Hedo Turkoglu. There are stretches where he thinks he is the only player on the court. Driving to the basket just to put up a terrible shot over two sometimes even three hands waving around in his face. Last year he would have passed in these situations, well…not so much this year. This year Hedo has looked for his own shot, and it has helped to make our offense look much worse. When he has been looking to set others up this season, the Magic have played their best ball, plain and simple. Evidenced by the start of the third quarter in the game against the Bulls, the Magic came out and stormed off to a 17 point lead. In the first 6 minutes of the quarter alone, Hedo had three assists, and was looking to keep the passing alive. Unfortunately it didn’t keep up. After a trip to the bench, Hedo came back in looking for his shot. As he continued to want to score himself, the Bulls slowly but surely started coming back. Just one example of the selfishness that we have been experiencing from the reigning Most Improved Player award winner this year, and it’s something that can’t continue.

The newcomers play into the equation as well. Pietrus looks to score a majority of the time when he touches the ball. Be it through driving to the hoop or shooting the three, Pietrus has not shown a desire to play team defense. He doesn’t swing the ball around the perimeter when the defense is trying to rotate. And, he doesn’t pass the ball when he drives to the basket very often. Along with him, newcomer Anthony Johnson has not shown to be the kind of point guard we expected. Johnson, who was hyped at the beginning of the season to be the true backup point guard that we haven’t had in recent, has not proven to be that type of point guard. He has constantly looked for his own shot and constantly over dribbled. In fact, the offense as a whole has looked pretty bad when Nelson leaves the court and Johnson comes back onto the court.

When you combine some of the newcomers with Turkoglu’s ball hogging nature this year, it is easy to see why the Magic are selfish. Looking at the points per game difference from last season, we also see the impact that selfishness is having on the Magic team. If the players could put away their egotistical desire to be the center of attention and pass for the good of the team, the Magic would be a much better team. Last season was a testament to that philosophy . Unfortunately, to date, this Orlando team has just been selfishly unmagical.