New Magic coach Scott Skiles: 'It's time to stop winning 25 games'

Three years into a snail-slow, post-Dwight Howard rebuild, the Orlando Magic are ready to stop spinning their wheels and start rolling, swiftly and purposefully, towards relevance.

They believe the man to kick them into gear is Scott Skiles, the beloved former Magic point guard hired to be their new head coach three weeks ago. In 13 seasons as an NBA coach, the hard-nosed Skiles has shown a knack for accelerating development curves, motivating players to max out their potential, and holding players accountable on defense.

Skiles sees plenty of potential in the Magic's talented young core, raw and untested as they are, and hopes to turn them into an elite defensive team - a top-five outfit, even - a season after they finished 25th in defensive rating.

Skiles elaborated on what excites him about the Magic job, and how he sees the team developing in the seasons to come, in an interview with Sports Illustrated's Chris Mannix published Friday:

I wanted to be in the position where everybody was moving in the same direction, we're all going to sing from the same song sheet, we're going to have our goals and our plan and our principles, and we're going to do our best to stick to those. And, (general manager) Rob (Hennigan) and the people here have done a nice job of getting high-character, young guys that have talent, and now what we've got to do is, we've got to get them into position where they're playing in meaningful games. Then, we can really start to see. There's a nice little core here, but it's time to stop winning 25 games and start trying to get focused on having a winning record.

Skiles, whose teams have typically favored a plodding, grind-it-out style in the fashion of today's Memphis Grizzlies and Chicago Bulls, said that while the team will show progress, it won't always be pretty.

A big percentage of the NBA games during the season are kind of ugly, it's not every night that you go out and make 14 threes, so can you win a game 89-86 on the road somewhere when you don't play particularly well, and that's how you go from 41 wins to 54 wins. And when the season's over you look back, and it's like, "Wow, we won this game, and this game and this game," and they add up.

At the same time, he acknowledges the youth of the roster will likely necessitate an adjustment on his part, by which he'll have to tailor his strategy to his roster's strengths. Skiles has a long history of leaning on veterans and handcuffing youngsters, but the Magic simply don't have any viable veterans to lean on. He seems prepared to embrace the challenge.

Our biggest weakness is all of our key players are under 25 years old. That's usually a recipe for disaster in the NBA, but we have to turn that from our weakness to our strength. That has to be our strength. We always have energy, we're pushing the ball, we’re creating pace, we're out on the break, we're attacking the rim, we're up on people defensively, things like that to kind of make up for our lack of experience.

If Skiles can put his money where his mouth is, the Magic should be one of the more interesting teams to watch next season, and beyond.