Three things. 1. On offense he is camping out at the 3 point line so less chance of ORB's 2. On defense he is actually being asked to play his man as well as box out instead of cherry picking. 3. Lebron James and Mozgov
I dont want to harp on this as Magic is my second favorite player ever behind Hakeem but totally different eras and style of play. Defenses are far more sophisticated now compared to the 80s. Players were less athletic back then but far more fundamentally sound compared to today. I think people should just stop the comparisons between eras just because the game has evolved tremendously so stats dont always translate 100%. Not to mention the culture of the 24/7 news media which places a huge microscope on today's players which Jordan, Magic, Bird and the rest did not have to deal with. Those Celtics and Lakers teams were also as ridiculously stacked as LeBron's Heat and the Cavs now. Neither Magic or Bird had to deal with the lack of talent LeBron had pre-Heat on a consistent basis. LeBron gets heat for it because he helped form that team (they colluded in my eyes no doubt) whereas the Lakers and Celtics front office just fleeced teams and found loop holes to get their talent. I mean Auerbach drafting Bird a year before he graduated. Crafty front offices no doubt. Also in regards to the FT question Karl Malone shot 48.1% his rookie year in the NBA and went on to be a career 74.2% FT shooter - shot nearly 80% (79.7%) twice in his career I hate Malone but his work ethic was no joke
He is used as a three point specialist to open the line for James. If I am not mistaken, Bosh's rebounding number was down too when he played with James.
He was a big fish in a small pond so being the only good player on his team he became a stat monkey. Can't do that anymore, Cavs have Mosgov and Thompson that are more athletic so he focuses more on scoring
