https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mZl9ThlDO4
Last summer, the Orlando Magic’s biggest signing was Channing Frye. They inked him to a four-year, $32 million deal (front loaded) and hoped he would help spread the floor for a bunch of slashers and drivers (a team essentially without any knock-down shooters). Frye was seen as an important piece because of his veteran presence and his shooting.
Things did not work out well for Frye and the Magic though.
Frye had one of his best shooting years of his career — 39.3 percent shooting from beyond the arc. But Frye’s poor defense and poor match with Nikola Vucevic ultimately helped derail the Magic’s season. Frye was not solely responsible, but he did not deliver as a free agent acquisition and drew fans’ ire for it.
The veteran power forward is not going anywhere though. He has three more years left on his deal. As a veteran, he seems pretty comfortable with who he is as a player and can quickly gain a coach’s trust. Especially a coach who wants to and expects to win.
So how do the Magic get something better out of Frye?
The Magic have to use him slightly differently, as I wrote for Orlando Magic Daily:
There was a reason the Magic brought Frye in. A player of his caliber does not usually become completely useless over night. Indeed, even Frye seemed to express some frustration at the end of the season both with how his season went and how he was used overall.
Frye took the majority of his shots from beyond the arc last year — 71.0 percent of his shots came from beyond the arc last year, by far the largest ratio of 3-point shots for his career. Frye was quite clearly used different than he had ever been used before in his career. He took virtually no 2-point field goals.
Offensively, at least, he needed to be used in a much more effective and diverse manner. Frye was largely relegated to spot-up shooting with little diversity in where he shot the ball and how he received. This despite the fact Frye was pretty effective as the roll man on pick and rolls and is a solid spot-up shooter.
Frye can still put the ball in the basket and can do it more efficiently than most players on the Magic. As I dove into in the post, the Suns used Frye a lot more in cutting and off-ball screen situations to get him his 3-pointers. Frye got into the paint and did some posting up to score around the basket. He did virtually none of that in Orlando.
There is still a strong offensive weapon in Frye. Something that could still be very valuable to the Magic.
Defensively, Frye certainly still has issues and that end of the floor could ultimately determine his role (and future) with the Magic. His defensive numbers were very poor, especially when paired with Nikola Vucevic.
Some of that may have come because Frye never fully recovered from a preseason knee injury that knocked him out of most of training camp. Some of that may have come because Frye hit the age wall and things just dropped off suddenly.
Either way, Frye has a season of redemption to come in 2016. He has to prove to himself, his teammates and everyone else that he is still ready to contribute in the NBA.
