Digging In: The Stats I'm Watching for This Season's Key Teams

Featuring the obvious Magic stat, pushing the pace, and more

Every team’s identity can generally be deduced from its stats. The Pacers played faster than anyone else in the league, and their identity was about running you into the ground. The Celtics took the most ridiculous volume of threes you’ve ever seen, which also happened to mean that if they were on an off shooting night, you best believe they’re gonna lose the game.

The list goes on and on. The rebounding-heavy Rockets (53% rebound rate!), the very slow New York Knicks (26th in pace), and the shoot-lights-out Cavaliers (1st in true shooting percentage) all have their own identities. However, during the offseason, there’s bound to be some changes that could swing those identities in various ways, and that’s what I want to talk about today.

I want to take a look at three teams along with some of their key stats from the previous season, with the point of analyzing how those stats may change and what it may mean for each team’s competitiveness.

First up, let’s get the very obvious, much-talked-about stat for the Orlando Magic out of the way…