As the Orlando Magic's recent stretch of six losses in eight games illustrated, they aren't a terribly good offensive team. They scored a franchise-low 56 points in a loss to the Boston Celtics, but also had outings of 67 points (against the New Orleans Hornets) and 69 points (against the Philadelphia 76ers) in that span. On the season, the Magic's average of 102.5 points per 100 possessions ranks 19th in the NBA.

Some new research might illuminate why a team stocked with such talent sometimes struggles to score. Tom Ziller, SB Nation's NBA editor, recently posted a story examining what he called offensive volatility, a measure of a given player's scoring average relative to his standard deviation from his scoring average. Among the 15 players averaging 20-plus points per game this season, Magic center Dwight Howard is the second-most volatile, with a rating of 41.5 percent. That means, in general, that Howard has a 41.5 percent chance of having an extreme scoring performance (eight points above or below his average) whenever he takes the floor. Contrast that figure with LeBron James', which leads the 20-plus-point scoring crowd at 20.8 percent, indicating James is almost exactly half as volatile a scorer as Howard. Phrased another way, James is almost exactly twice as reliable.

Ziller speculates that his high-volume, low-accuracy shooting from the foul line explains Howard's volatility. "Seeing a big man so high on the list fights conventional wisdom, which is that since big men tend to have higher shooting percentages, their production is more reliable," he writes. "While Kevin Love, Blake Griffin and LaMarcus Aldridge all seem to bolster that hypothesis with relatively low volatility marks, Howard -- a regular near the top of field goal percentage rankings -- is a blinking signal of doubt."

Howard's inconsistency on offense hurts the Magic enough, but it gets worse: He and Hedo Turkoglu are tied for the best volatility mark on the team. An Orlando Pinstriped Post study of the Magic's roster shows it's a collection of inconsistent scorers. The data are below the jump.

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Given that the Orlando Magic lead the NBA in three-pointers made and attempted since the 2007/08 season, it's a surprise that only one player has represented them during an NBA All-Star Three-Point Shootout during that span: Rashard Lewis placed second to Daequan Cook at the 2009 event in Phoenix. With Orlando hosting the 2012 NBA All-Star Game and shooting brilliantly from three-point range to start the lockout-shortened season, it seems likely that the NBA will invite a Magic player to join defending champion James Jones and four other entrants in the 2012 Three-Point Shootout.

Which Magic players have the best chances of earning an invitation? Ryan Anderson, Hedo Turkoglu, and J.J. Redick lead the team in made triples, in that order, so they'd seem to be the most likely candidates. Though the league does not publicize the methods by which it selects three-point shootout competitors, one can examine the data to find the characteristics of prior entrants, and then see how this year's Magic squad measures up to them.

Orlando Pinstriped Post did just that, finding the typical invitee to the last three Three-Point Shootouts averaged 2.2 made three-pointers per game through the end of January, with a 41.5 percent conversion rate; note that these averages ignore the figures of reigning champions, whom the league automatically invites to defend their titles. Cook returned in 2009/10 despite shooting 30.8 percent, for example.

To see how Anderson, Redick, and Turkoglu stack up to the field from the last three seasons, make the jump.

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In general, Orlando Magic fans reacted positively to the news Orlando re-signed Earl Clark on Thursday, welcoming the young forward's athleticsm, energy, and defense. Clark appeared in only 33 of a possible 56 games after the Magic acquired him from the Phoenix Suns last December, but many of those same fans contended coach Stan Van Gundy needed to make him a regular part of his playing rotation.

Though Dwight Howard, Glen Davis, and Ryan Anderson are the only power-position players sure to log heavy minutes in the coming season, Clark has a great opportunity to carve a role for himself on this team, perhaps becoming an everyday player for the first time in his career. As is usually the case with Van Gundy, the key to playing time is defense. From Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel:

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The Denver Nuggets re-signed forward/center Nenê to a five-year contract worth $67 million, according to multiple reports Tuesday night, with ESPN's Marc Stein (by my unofficial observation) tweeting the news first. The burly Brazilianear had a four-year, $64 million offer from the New Jersey Nets, but chose to stay with the one NBA team he's ever known over the chance to anchor a front line with Brook Lopez when the Nets move to Brooklyn before the next season.

A Western club re-signing its top frontcourt player, oddly enough, has bearing on the Orlando Magic's goal of doing the same when Dwight Howard hits free agency next summer. Had Nenê chosen New Jersey, it would have limited its long-term salary outlook, complicating its pursuit of Howard.

Instead, the Nets' salary cap is mostly clear for 2012-13, making a run at Howard possible and giving them some leverage; if the Nets stay far enough below the cap, it can afford to sign Howard outright as a free agent. And if Howard makes clear the only team with which he'll play is Brooklyn--as Carmelo Anthony did with the New York Knicks last season--he and the Nets can effectively force Orlando to trade him there or risk losing him for nothing come summer.

Again, that outcome is contingent on the Nets being fiscally responsible and Howard ruling out Orlando, the Dallas Mavericks, and the Los Angeles Lakers, which are reportedly the other teams to which he's considering committing long-term.

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The Orlando Magic, like the rest of the NBA's teams, are preparing for a frenzied free-agent period. Beginning December 9th--just 16 days before the season tips off--teams can begin to sign players to new contracts; until that time, the NBA has prevented them from making offers--written or otherwise--to prospective free agents, though teams are indeed permitted to have contact with player agents. How the NBA plans to enforce this rule is both beyond me and the scope of this article.

At all rates, the Magic face few questions with regard to their own free agents. Orlando's roster is plenty flawed, as we saw in its first-round playoff loss to the Atlanta Hawks, which had all the elegance and pleasantness of a fully-blown balloon's erratic, flatulent flight when one suddenly lets the air out of its neck. However, the questions for Orlando don't so much concern keeping good talent from leaving as much as how to add talent from the outside.

Starting shooting guard Jason Richardson, reserve utility forward Earl Clark, and break-glass-in-case-of-emergency big man Malik Allen are Orlando's only free agents. President of Basketball Operations Otis Smith told the Orlando Sentinel that re-signing Richardson, who turns 31 in January, is his highest priority this offseason.

Below the jump, an evaluation of the Magic's free-agent standing with regard to its incumbent free-agents-to-be. This site will attend to Orlando's options with regard to other free agents later.

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Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade recently claimed that NBA superstars--such as himself, naturally--remain the league's most underpaid players under the Collective Bargaining Agreement which expired on July 1st. In Monday's edition of The Hook, SB Nation NBA editor Tom Ziller did some investigating and poked holes in Wade's argument, finding that players on rookie-scale contracts actually offer the most bang for the buck.

Estimating that one win during the 2010/11 season was worth $1.47 million, Ziller calculated the value each NBA player offered his team in terms of Win Shares, a catch-all statistic Bill James developed for baseball and Justin Kubatko adapted for basketball. For example league MVP Derrick Rose earned 13.1 win shares in 2010/11 at a salary of $5.4 million. The disparity between his value (13.1 * $1.47 million) and his salary stands at $13.7 million, making him the league's most underpaid player, according to Ziller's analysis. LeBron James, Wade's teammate on the Heat, was the only player in the top-10 list of underpaid players who is not on a rookie scale contract.

I wanted to apply Ziller's analysis to the 2010/11 Orlando Magic to evaluate the extent to which it paid its players fairly. You'll find the distressing results after the jump.

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Orlando Magic center Dwight Howard has hired free-throw shooting coach Ed Palubinskas to improve his accuracy at the foul line, reports Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel. Howard, a career 59.8 percent free-throw shooter, "conducted interviews with at least several potential hires" prior to deciding on Palubinskas, LSU's all-time leader in free-throw accuracy, at 87.5 percent.

Palubinskas has sought to work with Howard before, writing to the Sentinel last May to say he had contacted Howard's representatives but received no response.

As a rookie, Howard connected on 67.1 percent of his foul shots, but has shot between 58.6 percent and 59.6 percent in each of his six subsequent seasons.

Notably, during the NBA's experiment with a synthetic basketball in October, November, and December of the 2006/07 season, Howard shot 66.7 percent from the stripe. The league abandoned the synthetic ball on January 1st and Howard shot 53.9 percent the rest of the season.

Howard's poor foul shooting--which, as Sebastian Pruiti illustrated in February, might be due to a hitch in his release--is a problem for Orlando because of the sheer volume at which he draws fouls. In the last five seasons, Howard has taken 4144 foul shots, nearly 500 more than any other player. On a per-game basis, he also leads the way, taking 10.3 free throws per game at 59.2 percent.

How much will Palubinskas help Howard? We won't know for sure if and until the NBA season begins. However, we can quite easily project the impact improved free-throw shooting would have on Howard's scoring.

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The 2011 NBA Draft came and went without the Orlando Magic making a major trade, but they nonetheless managed to add Richmond forward Justin Harper (via a trade with the Cleveland Cavaliers) and Kentucky swingman DeAndre Liggins (via the 53rd overall pick). With a good showing in training camp, the two players can work their respective ways onto the Magic's roster, which currently stands at 10 players.

As it turns out, both players theoretically have skills that make them worth taking a closer look at in training camp and the preseason. And, with second-round picks, most teams just want a closer look at players that interested them. Because second-round picks don't have guaranteed contracts--as opposed to first-round picks, whose salaries are guaranteed for two years, with team options for the third and fourth years--there's no financial penalty for drafting a bum. My opinion is that if the Magic, or any team, finds a solid 11th man in the second round, it has succeeded.

Of the two, Harper is the most interesting, both for what he can offer as well as what Orlando gave up to get him. The Magic sent second-round picks from 2013 and 2014, according to Otis Smith, the team's President of Basketball Operations, to the Cavaliers for Harper's draft rights. Smith said Harper ranked in the mid-20s on his draft board and he was surprised to see him available at no. 32.

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