Nikola Vucevic: An All-Star in the Coaches’ Eyes

On the heels of a career-best 34 points and 16 rebounds against the Portland Trail Blazers, Orlando Magic center Nikola Vucevic’s case to be an All-Star has never been stronger. He isn’t getting much love in the fan voting for the starters, receiving just over 68,000 total votes based off of last week’s most recent returns, but the head coaches from around the Eastern Conference who will be voting for the reserves are definitely taking note of his production.

“He’s a heck of a player,” Miami HEAT head coach Erik Spoelstra said. “You can’t just say he’s a good, young player anymore. He’s a very good NBA basketball player who is multi-skilled and a big target. There’s not a whole lot that he can’t do from the center position. He’s shooting the ball great and he’s a good passer and obviously he’s a very efficient post-up player.’’

“Vucevic has been a guy that you hear from multiple coaches around the league about how advanced he is,” Boston Celtics head coach Brad Stevens added. “He may very well be an All-Star center in the East at some point soon.”

Vucevic is leading the Eastern Conference in double-doubles, putting up 18.4 points and 11.1 rebounds a night. He’s doing so while shooting a career-high 52 percent from the field, and handling the increased burden of being a primary offensive option for the Magic exceptionally well.

Without a doubt, he’s putting up All-Star caliber numbers, but the removal of the center position and the depth of talent in the frontcourt of the Eastern Conference works against him. He’s going to have to battle the likes of Kevin Love, Chris Bosh, Marcin Gortat, Joakim Noah, Al Horford and Paul Millsap among others for one of the coveted three frontcourt reserve spots and two wild card positions.

While statistically Vucevic has a great argument against those players, they all have a common trait that he does not: playing for a winning team. Vucevic’s Magic are just 13-27 and in the midst of a six-game losing streak. Vucevic understands that he’s ultimately judged by how well his team performs, and that in order to receive the proper credit he deserves as an individual, he has to lead his to more victories first.

“It’s tough when you lose a lot of games lately, but you always want to find something (positive) out of a loss,’’ Vucevic said to reporters after the team’s most recent loss to the Trail Blazers. “Obviously we want to win, but if you compare the game from (Friday) night to tonight, you see that tonight we played with each other and we played hard and we gave ourselves a chance to win. You have to learn lessons from every game and these back-to-back games are a great lesson. The approach to every game has to be very important for us.’’

The Magic are in their third season without Dwight Howard and knew that they would be embarking on a lengthy rebuilding process when they shipped him off to the Los Angeles Lakers. What they didn’t know at the time, though, was that they would be receiving as good of a replacement for him as they could ask for in Vucevic. Howard, still trying to recapture the level of dominance he played at while a member of the Magic, is averaging numbers that are very similar to Vucevic’s: 17.2 points per game, 11.6 rebounds per game and 1.8 blocks per game. At 24 years of age to Howard’s 29, it’s safe to say the days of missing Howard are gone. The Magic have their next great center in Vucevic.

“Vucevic is an All-Star and a terrific player,” Los Angeles Clippers head coach Doc Rivers said. “He’s probably the best player in the league that nobody knows. I don’t think you hear anybody talking about him, but when you look at his raw numbers they are superstar and All-Star worthy, but nobody knows it.’’

The Magic are well aware of how good he has become, which is why they wisely signed him to a four-year, $53 million extension before the start of the season to lock him up as one of the faces of this new era of Magic basketball. The deal hasn’t even gone into effect yet, but Vucevic has already proven to be worth the investment.

Although this is regarded as the golden era of point guard play, a quality center may be more rare and valuable. That’s why the Denver Nuggets were recently able to acquire two first-round picks for big man Timofey Mozgov, despite the fact that he hasn’t accomplished half of what Vucevic has up to this point in his career. It’s also why the Lakers were willing do whatever it took to land Howard back when he was regarded as the best five-man in the league and risk losing him for nothing the following offseason, which they did (as history will tell you).

In Vucevic, the Magic have one of the best big men in the game. He may not end up an All-Star reserve this year despite being worthy, and the Magic still have a lot to figure out outside of the starting center position, but with him in place they have one giant checkmark on their rebuilding to-do list that makes everything else easier. Finding a foundational piece like Vucevic is the hardest part of rebuilding. Putting the right pieces around him and continuing to develop a winning culture, just as they did with Howard during their run as one of the East’s elite, is all that’s left.

Mary Stevens contributed to the reporting for this article.