With a new week, comes a new showcased fanpost. This time from Eyriq the Red, who provides an assessment of the Magic after the first 32 games. Check it out. - ER

As Ben Q. Rock notes in his post game recaps, Four Factors have been shown to stand above the rest in terms of leading a team to victory, or defeat. These are Effective Field Goal Percentage, Free Throws/Field Goals, Offensive Rebounding, and Turnover Rate. So, how do the Magic look after 32 games? Which Factor are we strongest in? Weakest? Let's take a look.

What I did was look back through all our games so far and I recorded how many games we beat the other team in a particular category. So for eFG we are 26-6, or in other words 26 times we had the higher eFG% against our opponent. I also noted how we rank compared to the rest of the association. Below is a table showing the results.

[editor's note: Click after the jump to see the stats.]

Our strongest Factor was by far eFG. We consistently hold our opponents to a lower eFG%, as our 26-6 record in that category shows, which isn't hard considering we have the 4th best eFG% in the league. But what we do on offense is only part of the story; we should also note that we have the best eFG% defense in the league.

OREB% is our weakest Factor. We win this Factor only 34% of the time, and are 27th overall in the league. We were 27th last year as well, though our overall OREB% is slightly better this year. Dwight is improved in this regard and having Battie playing helps as well. Our best offensive rebounder though, statistically, is Gortat, so getting him more playing time could help with this Factor even more.

            The relation of the Magic's performance in each Factor and it's relation to our real Wins and Losses should also provide us with some insightful information. The table below shows the number of times we were outperformed in each category during our 7 losing contests this season.

            We have only lost the battle of eFG% in 6 contests this year, but a whopping 4 of those contests turned into losing games. For the Magic, this is by far the most telling Factor in our wins and losses. If we are losing the FG% battle you can bet we are going to lose the game.

            Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly considering we are winning so many games, OREB% has little relation to whether we win or lose a game. Yes we get beat in the category but apparently we keep it close enough so as to do little harm to the overall outcome.

            The same is true in the Turn-Over department. We are just good enough to break even against our opponents and very rarely do we lose games because of TOV's.

            FT/FG is a little more impactful on whether or not we are going to win or lose a game. This is because we typically do such a good job of getting to the line more than we send our opponent there. It is still not hugely important though as only 31% of losses in this category turn into losing efforts for the team. I think not relying on this category is part of the secret behind our Road success, as home teams can at times get the benefit of the whistle. Though getting killed in this Factor against Detroit coupled with porous shooting did kill our chances in that game.

Some final thoughts:

• The Magic are elite because of one thing, their ability to make shots and keep the other team from doing so. A big part of the separation that exists between the Magic and their opponents is due to the 3pt shot. When this shot is falling the Magic are practically unbeatable.
• If the Magic are getting out gunned from the field it is pretty much game over. The two games we won while at the same time getting beat on FG% were against Dallas and Chicago. In both we went to the Stripe at a much greater clip. Being a poor FT shooting team often times cancels out this advantage, and both these game went down to the wire. Also interesting is that we had the advantage in OREB against Chicago and TOV advantage against Dallas. This doesn't happen often enough to be considered a safety net though.
• Pietrus is our best OREB outside of our bigs, so having him out hurts us in that area. And no, Lewis is not one of our "bigs" when we talk about OREB, lol.
• Gortat should really be worked in more with Dwight on the floor. It would do wonders for our OREB. What I don't know is how it would affect our eFG%, which is really our calling card and not to be sacrificed if we know what's good for us.

All in all this is a Magic team that is dominating the league right now and looking very tough to stop. They are getting it together offensively and I won't be surprised to see us climb even higher in eFG% before the year is done. The same actually goes for our OREB% and TOr. I honestly think this team is just as good as the Bostons, Clevelands, and L.A.s of the world, which has to scare the bejesus out of other teams. I mean, besides the Lakers we have the largest window for winning a title... or 4.... of any of them.