Leaderboard

Yea one thing the bubble has highlighted to me is that Fultz has a long way to go to even be a good starting PG, never mind a star. Someone like Ja Morant is so far ahead of him and is younger. I think it's a mistake to assume he's the answer to our lack of star power.

Oh the stress of the ping pong ball game. This is why I absolutely hate 'tanking'. We tried to lose games, as an organization. But we didn't lose enough - by one game the year Luka came up - and we didn't move up in the draft during the entire process. Despite that, we drafted a star in Oladipo, and we traded him before he blossomed. We traded for a future All-Star in Tobias, and we gave him up for nothing. And neither of those things seemed completely crazy at the time, because those guys weren't supposed to be stars. You can have all the lottery luck, get the star player, but if you don't have a good culture, it doesn't matter. I question just how good Luka would be in Orlando. Surely he'd be good, but I doubt he'd be this good. The problem in Orlando has not been the players, it has been the culture of the team, created by coveting the likes of Luka in the draft, rather than trying to find Giannis or Mitchell while competing the best we can. The culture of this team IS changing, though, that's clear. I think we need a better coach, honestly, for the final change. Cliff has done a good job, but he's been basically what we expected Skiles to be years ago - the transition coach who shook off the expectation of losing. Maybe he can do better than I expect, but we'll see. I still keep hoping OKC will get stupid and fire Billy Donovan. My point is that I get the idea of this team being stagnant, going nowhere. But I don't think that means we should return to the 'tanking' process. The Heat were stagnant, going nowhere. Now I think Milwaukee better win a championship or Miami's going to steal Giannis. OKC was supposed to rebuild after they realized they couldn't compete in the West with Russ and Paul George. Indiana is competitive with a hurt star and a bunch of guys no one wanted - a second-round pick, a guy Phoenix gave them for cash, a guy who was traded twice in his first two years as a throw-in, and a guy who couldn't run right. Minnesota had two first picks in the draft - technically three if you count Bennett. Now they have a dominant first pick Center and an All-Star Guard. And they haven't made the playoffs yet. Phoenix might finally have something, but we'll see; they still ain't made the playoffs yet, and Golden State is coming back into the picture out West, as is Memphis. And the poster-boys for the "Process" going right, the 76ers... we lasted longer in the playoffs than they did. See, I don't want to imagine having Luka. I'd rather imagine having the organizational mentality of the Nuggets or the Bucks or the Rockets or the Pacers or the Heat. Or, hell, the Raptors. And I actually think we're getting back there. This is already a rebuild, guys. Except we aren't rebuilding the team, we're rebuilding the culture. And if you ask me, we're doing it right. Finally. Go Magic! And yeah, Luka's a beast...

I take personal responsibility for this loss. Every time I turned the game when we were close it immediately got out of reach

This guy gets it! Another underrated trait in the NBA. That guy, the guy you don't like but makes **** happen.

We need someone with jimmy butler/pat Beverly grit immediately

I think Fultz her us.

Finally strong finish by Fultz!!!

Fournier destroys our team on both ends. Defence is very good. Offensively it is a torture to watch...especially when Evan touches the ball

Notice how almost all of their 3's are catch and shoot and the majority of ours are off the dribble. Do we not have coaches? Do the players listen to them?

Agreed. This team plays like zombies and they aren't fun to watch at all. At least the "heart and hustle" team was fun and played like there was no tomorrow even in a December regular season game. This is the playoffs. The amazing thing is they won a game lmao.

I’ll be back here in a few hours, about to fly to Great Falls, Montana for work so I can’t watch the game live, but I’m optimistic. I’m going strictly on karma, juju and mojo, so we’ll see what happens, but today is my birthday (the big 3-3!!) and my seat on the plane is 3D (no ****!) so the buckets will hopefully be falling in and maybe the refs will actually ref Giannis fairly for once (shoulder shrug emoji that I can’t put on the forum). I’m realistic in my criticism of the team and I hate what the Devos’ stand for, especially since Rich passed (looking at you Betsy) but this team is my heart and soul and I’ll never be able to get rid of it, it’s engrained in me. So let’s go boys. If you wanna give me a W on my birthday I wouldn’t be mad about it. Go Magic!

The whole 'Luka should have been the #1 pick' thing is weird to me. A lot of guys on here didn't want Luka and were happy when the Mavericks blew that up. A couple people wanted Trey Young - and he is much better than most of us thought he could be. Deandre Ayton looks to be a very good player, probably a future All-Star. There was basically no chance he wouldn't be that guy. Without the benefit of hindsight, Ayton was a good pick, and he is working out so far. It's kinda like saying Denver and Toronto were stupid for drafting Carmello and Bosh over Wade, because Wade was an All-time great and those other two were just perennial All-Stars. It's very much like '84, as someone said; but nobody thinks Houston regrets drafting Hakeem. Houston made the right call, and they got an All-time great Center out of it. They just didn't get the GOAT. But nobody thought Michael would be the GOAT. The Blazers are the ones who screwed up. Bowie was a solid player before he got hurt, but Jordan clearly should have been the #2 pick. Jordan and Clyde could totally have been just as good as Jordan and Pippen, and probably faster. Phoenix won't be kicking themselves for not drafting Luka. At least, they shouldn't be. They picked a good player. The Kings, like the Blazers, should be kicking themselves forever, though. But no one was thinking Luka at #1 on draft night. People thought maybe Ayton wasn't the guy, I don't remember anyone suggesting Luka at #1.

O'Connor updated his mock this morning and slotted Patrick Williams at 15. https://nbadraft.theringer.com/?_ga=2.237602944.1603431049.1597851816-669019946.1594458313#mock

Yeah, and add to all the questions what the Cap will look like now and be projected to look like in the future after Covid, if it ever freakin ends... a lot more questions than answers right now. For JI, if he misses all of next season, which I bet he would, I’d be extremely hesitant to pay him $14 mill coming off an ACL and a rookie contract that he only managed to be healthy for half of. Glad I’m not making these decisions!

Tankathon has us taking RJ Hampton at #15 and Grant Riller at #45. I'm not crazy about Hampton - another guard who can't shoot; but Riller at #45 would be a steal.

I agree that tank again is not the solution. We probably overvalue our young talent too, but it's the team that doesn't work as a whole. I think that it's not a matter or blowing it out and bottom out, but just to be proactive. We've discussed a lot of teams that are very good again without even picking a top 5 player. And if you want to get a good example of being proactive, just look at Dallas: - they have two great players and also cap space in the near future if I remember correctly. - they've worked their way into both of those players, and not waited for luck... Porzingis trade was risky, and still depends on his health. Luka looks like an MVP now, but before the draft, there were a lot of questions about him even if everyone forgets it now (adapting, physicality, speed, etc) and they traded to get him while others passed on him. - their coach is not young by any means, but it's a great one that is able to change his style and adapt to the players he has, not the other way. He maximizes their qualities (and their trade value too). He's not afraid of taking risky decisions. - How many undrafted or little know players are into their rotation now? Or were traded as value to get other players? All of them having a bigger role than their salaries. Roles are clear and who plays hard will find his space. They maximize their talent and their trade value. We can say the same of our team? How many boxes we check? How many players underperforming their salary? How many not used correctly? Tank is not the solution, but accept mediocrity like the FO has done in all their decisions isn't either. Making moves obviously has a big % of risk too, but proactive means that you're at least trying and eventually accepting the consequences. And unfortunately, I don't envision any big change in the future, given the info we have now.

The bubble playoffs have brought two major things to light: 1) There is a ton of young talent in the league that are ready to bring on an exciting next generation of amazing basketball right now. 2) The Orlando Magic haven’t managed to get their hands on any of said generational talent in their decade long rebuild.

You're probably right. Luka is a generational talent. I think he's going to be top-5 all-time player if he stays healthy and they can build a good team around him. I don't actually think any amount of bad culture could kill Luka, just like the Bulls horrible culture couldn't kill Jordan. I guess I over-spoke to make a point. Still, the point stands. He's battling a Clippers team that's a legit contender starting a second-round pick PG, a mid-round pick PF on his sixth team, a second-round pick Center, two sixth man of the year candidates - neither of whom they drafted, but both of whom were second-round picks - and two stars drafted... 10th and 15th in their drafts. Sure they built that team in part on years of bad culture getting them guys like Blake Griffin, and top picks like Eric Gordon turned into Chris Paul. But that didn't mean anything until Doc Rivers - and, probably, a little bit Chris Paul - changed the culture. And they still have had to turn over the entire team - including Griffin, who came up in that bad culture - to be real contenders. The reason that series is tied now isn't just because Luka is a generational talent. That is a big part, sure. But how huge is it that Dallas never really tanked. They tanked for half a season after they realized they weren't going to make the playoffs, and they lucked into the 5th, not 1st 2nd or 3rd, pick in the draft, where they traded down with another team who over-valued another really good guard in Trey Young. Dallas already had the culture, the coach, everything ready. They just didn't have the players yet. And even Luka didn't get them to the playoffs his rookie year. There's a reason LeBron didn't make the playoffs his first two years in the league, despite being a top-5 all-time player. There's a reason he had to go to Miami to get a championship. Culture. Give me three more years of riding Vuc to the 8th seed before one more year of trying desperately to suck bad enough to maybe pick a guy who can get us into the big picture in a few years. If Vuc keeps getting us to the 8th seed, maybe some playoff team will trade us young talent in a couple years to get themselves over the top, like with OKC/LACLIPS. Maybe Boston will see how he's playing well against Milwaukee and think they need him to top Giannis and crew; maybe that Memphis pick comes in a deal for him, and it turns into the next Donovan Mitchell; maybe Langford comes in a package and makes a huge impact. Maybe we draft a star this draft with our own mid-round pick. Maybe Chuma is a monster. But give me those maybe's over, "maybe, if we suck bad enough, the guy we pick will be a generational talent."

A sore hamstring where ag is running and jumping in practice come on dude take off the rose colored glasses on our mngt. And Mo’s struggle with, well. I call bs on that. Let the downvoting commence

Fultz has disappointed me the most since the break. He looks like he has not worked on his body or game. In fact regressed. He looks slow and bad technique on defense and ball handling. Yesterday’s game he also looked uninterested on the bench. When we made a 15-3 run, guys were up cheering and he looked like he was falling asleep. I don’t think he is our future guys.

Luka would have played with AGs injury...

Luka sucks

When Jimmy Butler demanded a trade from the Bulls, got traded to the Timberwolves then demanded a trade again

If any of you give up on this team at halftime, you all should leave the board and root for the Heat, real fans do not give up on our team at halftime! Let’s get this win!

If they bring a star here, he is going to demand to be traded to another team or sit out the season because this team is not championship material right now