This will UNLOCK the Magic …

This will UNLOCK the Magic …

Will Jonathan Isaac remain with the Orlando Magic through the upcoming season? Will he be on the team at the start of the season? Well, he’s been involved in a lot of trade talks this off season, casting doubt on his future with the team. But the Magic have shown nothing but faith in Isaac since they drafted him despite his history of injury. So, time will tell how and what he can do and where. But, I’m here today to tell you that I think Jonathan Isaac should and will be on the Orlando Magic this upcoming season. and we will see about going forward. But I’m super excited to see this team run it back with hopefully a healthy Jonathan Isaac because I think he is going to be a major key to unlocking the best version of the Orlando Magic. And we’re going to do a little deep dive into Isaac’s career today. But first, what’s going on Magic fans? This is your host Sam Rodriguez back with you today on Magic Digest to keep you updated on all things Orlando Magic this off season and preparing you for what we hope to be a really exciting season for this team and I cannot stress enough the word healthy, a healthy season. I am also here to remind you guys to subscribe to the channel. Uh 67.5% of you are not subscribed and that will just not do. So make sure you hit that subscribe button. Make sure you turn the notifications on. As we get closer and closer to the regular season, things are going to ramp up here on Magic Digest and you are not going to want to miss a video. Now, as promised, we are going to talk a little bit more about Jonathan Isaac on this channel. He just continues to present uh such an interesting situation for the magic in so many ways that I have not stopped thinking about. Um he represents the patience that the Magic have practiced over the course of his career and even before that to be honest. Uh and in their plans given his history uh of injuries uh and yet when he’s healthy he’s one of the best defenders on the floor. So you you really do have to kind of balance out his value with his uh availability. Uh also the Magic are going to be a luxury tax team for the next few years. And you can see what they’re paying Jonathan Isaac up here now. um they’re paying him $15 million a year. They just have a lot um to consider moving forward and I think this upcoming season will reveal a lot. I think there’s a lot of pressure on them to win. I also think there’s going to be a lot of pressure on Jonathan Isaac uh to perform, but uh I’m excited to see what he does uh with that pressure. So, just a brief overview for those unfamiliar with Jonathan Isaac. They drafted him sixth overall in the 2017 NBA draft. So, a high draft pick um with high expectations. Obviously, uh injuries have hampered uh that a bit, but at 610, he typically plays power forward, though he’s spent some pretty productive time at center over the last two seasons. We’re going to touch on that a little bit as well. Um he has a 38 inch vertical and a 7 foot wingspan. So, from that description, you can tell he’s got the great physical tools to be the great defender that he is. He can guard all five uh positions. And I want to show you guys a really cool graphic from Craft at NBA. I’m referring to the defensive matchup uh graphic on the right there. Um but it shows how much time he spends guarding each position. Uh primarily he’s defending centers and forwards a little over 20% each. Um but he definitely can and definitely does defend the guard positions as well. I thought this was um a really cool way to kind of like demonstrate to you guys how all over the floor uh that he really is and how versatile uh he is. He’s also a really good rim protector. He averages around a steel and a block per game. Now, the unfortunate part about Jonathan Isaac’s career is that there are so much potential and so much proof of him being in the elite tier of the league’s defenders, but availability has just always uh put a damper uh on his um ability to help the Magic. You know, he played uh only 34 games in the season prior to his injury. He tore an ACL and then um suffered a hamstring uh issue as well. and those injuries kept him out a full two seasons and then he only played 11 games in the season that he returned. But as I alluded to earlier, the Magic have never really wavered on Isaac. Granted, uh we could play the other side of that. He’s a bit of a tough cell due to the injuries, but over the last two seasons, we’re finally starting to see um that patience rewarded. uh we’re starting to see what a healthy Jonathan Isaac looks like and how he could help the team win games. So I want to take a look at the 23 24 season where he played 58 games. That was the third most uh amount of games that he played in his career. Uh it was the first time in his career he shot better than 50% from the field. Uh when he was on the floor uh opponents scored 7.8 ate fewer points per 100 possessions he played. And uh they also turned the ball over uh 1.9% more often when Isaac was on the floor. He also had a 7.1 block percentage and a 2.3 steal percentage. And you can see here he maintained those averages uh this past season despite some other areas of regression. Now, uh let’s take another uh let’s take a look at another uh stat from crafted NBA. If you take a look at that bottom line, um under 2025, you can see all those red hour um arrows pointing downward. Um it just shows his regression kind of across the board uh last season. Uh quite noticeably on offense. Uh he shot 41% uh last season compared to 51% from that 23-24 season. Uh specifically from the field I’m referring to. And he shot 25.8% from three compared to 37.5% in that 23-24 season. Uh he was definitely uh off defensively as well. You can’t see this here, but in that 23-24 season, he lowered his opponent’s accuracy by 6% when he defended them. And this past season, opponents actually shot.3% um better with Isaac on them. So, if you listened to Isaac’s interviews, he talked about how he gained weight for last season so that he could play more at the center position where the Magic experimented uh with him in that 23 24 season. They did see uh some success with him uh at that position uh in the regular season and there was a bit of a fall-off during the playoffs during that uh seven game series uh against Cleveland. That was a a really great playoff series uh excuse me. But that experiment carried over to this past season and uh the results were a slower, less agile Isaac. Uh which he explained didn’t really fit with the way that he likes to play defense. Uh and you can see the quote here. Uh I tried to work through it as much as I could. I started to feel a little better toward the end of the season. Felt a little lighter, a little more agile. And so I’m taking that into the summer and just focusing on my game and really getting into shape, shedding some weight, and getting back to where I was before. And uh this is where he’s at now. These pictures were posted by the Orlando Magic Eggs account uh taken sometime during the summer. So you can see uh that he is getting into uh whatever shape he wants. But I can’t really speak to how the weight gain this past season affected him offensively. uh I understand it more from a a defensive standpoint, but regardless, it’s definitely an area that needs to improve. Uh but despite the regression, there are some positives to look out for from these stats. For one, he averaged the most blocks of his career since the injury. Uh he actually averaged uh I believe 2.3 blocks in that season, his best season. But the most impressive positive was that he played 71 games, uh the second most games of his career. Uh, and I think that’s what it all comes down to at the end of the day is that Jonathan Isaac’s availability, while the biggest question of his career, the biggest risk of having him on your team is also his biggest strength, uh, when he is on the floor, when he is available, um, he’s impactful defensively and he’s going to help the Magic win basketball games with that ability to defend and be versatile doing so. So, my thoughts are if in fact last season’s uh regression was due to inconsistencies while he was trying to adjust to the weight gain, then then fine. I’m glad they experimented. I’m glad they saw what worked, what didn’t work. Um, but I would just say let’s get Jonathan Isaac back to the weight from that previous season, that 23 24 season, which was one of the most efficient seasons of his career. He was super sharp defensively. If we add that guy, um the best version of Jonathan Isaac, um and not even best case scenario Jonathan Isaac, uh because even when he’s not the greatest defender, he’s still really really good. Um, if you just give me an improved Jonathan Isaac, um, just like kind of let’s get back to the level he was at the 23 24 season and you add him to this Orlando Magic team, which is the the best version, uh, of this team in terms of roster construction that we’ve seen in in how many years, the best version of these two things, I think, is a really scary team. So my point is, let’s stop including Jonathan Isaac in trade scenarios for now. Run it back um with him at his new weight in this new time, meaning in in a wounded Eastern conference and I think that they could unlock something magical. Pun intended here. Uh don’t forget to subscribe to the Magic Digest channel. Uh, I’m going to be keeping you guys updated on all things Orlando Magic uh, this off season. And please do me a favor, drop a comment as always. Let me know what you’d like us to cover here at Magic Digest. And I will be back with you with some new news ASAP.

Sam Rodriguez takes a deeper look into Jonathan Isaac’s defensive impact for the Orlando Magic.

Magic Digest is a YouTube channel dedicated to covering all the latest news, trades, reports, and rumors about the Orlando Magic. We provide in-depth coverage of game highlights, player performances, and analysis of team strategies. Our channel features discussions on key players like Paolo Banchero, Franz Wagner, Jalen Suggs, and Jonathan Isaac, along with insights from Head Coach Jamahl Mosley and President Jeff Weltman. Stay tuned for all the exciting updates and engaging content on everything Magic!

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