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No worries, The Magic have brought big joy to this Christmas! https://x.com/nba/status/1871390875173151031?s=46 This team is family! We as fans have to do a better job! I feel like we a Magic family. Ain’t no fanbase went through what we went through. So no point fighting about two ways or whatever. I have great confidence in the front office and also this team. I be posting these fan gm posting just to engage. I know it can be annoying to some. But i can’t help it, i care about this team so much, always wanting to improve. These injuries could go down in history as the best thing that could have happened to us. The other players can’t be passive, ball watching whatever Paolo and Franz does. Anyway, Merry Christmas to the Magic family

Every time Cole starts at PG a kitten dies. Orlando Magic, please take care of the kittens.

We are somehow 17-9... without our star... and now without our second star. Weltman and Co. have won my trust. I think the following moves have been savvy and unexpected: Drafting Paulo Trading Vooch for WCJ and two 1sts... Then using the first of the two picks to grab Franz Drafting AB, who has crazy two-way upside Drafting TDS, who is a a perfect glue fit Grabbing and extending Mo and Goga Drafting and being patient with JI Drafting and being patient with Jalen Signing Mose to be our coach Do I love everything Weltman has done? Of course not. But he and his crew have demonstrated an ability to identify talent, build a winning culture, and be patient in their development plan. I still believe we are a year or two away from really competing, but I remain curious as to how this group will grow as individuals and as a team. Go Magic!

If picking Jett Howard was our worst mistake in the last 5 years we're doing pretty good.

moe wagner is the type of player i would never want to let go reminds me of how i liked this high energy players like prime bo outlaw, pietrus, gortat or darrell armstrong

I'm by no means Walter Clayton Jrs biggest fan, I like him, i'd be happy with drafting him, but I'm not sold he's some star or anything. That being said, inspired by your comment I went to barttorvik to look for similar statistical profiles to him, and now granted I used arbitrary cut off points.. (if you're interested it was: Games Played ≥ 15; Assist % ≥ 20; Ast/TO Ratio ≥ 1.5; 2P FG % ≥ 0.5; 3P FG % ≥ 0.37; 3PA/100 Poss ≥ 12; Free Throw % ≥ 0.8) ..but the only drafted player that met those thresholds (that, again, I derived from Walter Clayton Jrs profile) was 2012 Damian Lillard. But, there were also a bunch of undrafted, non prospect, scoring PGs guys like Max Abmas in 2021, Steven Ashworth in 2023 etc. If you lower some of the thresholds slightly to account for an element of randomness, and filter only for draft picks (because otherwise you get a long long list of random names and filtering for draft picks is kind of short hand for filtering out guys who played in weird low conferences or never had NBA athleticism to be considered a prospect) you get names like: Coby White Jimmer Fredette Trae Young Klay Thompson Cameron Payne Isaiah Cannan Shelvin Mack Jared Butler (Just FYI I feel like we should asterix Trae Young, and to a certain extent Lillard and Thompson because they all scored on more volume than Clayton did and I think were all more clearly NBA caliber offensive creators hence why all were high draft picks) It's a weird list that I think helps to identify the difficulty in evaluating a guy like Clayton, because there have been a lot of star NCAA guards that weren't great NBA players... But he was also statistically very impressive and he lead a team to a national championship which adds sort of 'intangible' points.

It's hard for me to see posts like this, when you consider that our fascination with tanking led to about 15 years of futility. And now you want to contaminate our current roster, with lots of young players and two young stars, with the idea that winning isn't important and you can just turn it on and off. It's really hard to think of any worse idea than this.

I got to go to last nights game. It was the best performance I’ve seen by a player live. Though Paolo’s 50 point game was close. I knew when Steph hit that half court shot at half time we were in for it. He is definitely my favorite non Magic player of all time.

If this team trades Paolo for Zion we deserve to get clowned as hard as the Mavs.

0-4 vs Portland and Utah this year is impressive in all the bad ways something can be impressive

A perfect and realistic trade deadline would be adding Cam Johnson and Keon Ellis! Super underrated: Rotation: PG: Suggs, AB, Queen SG: KCP, Ellis, SF: F. Wagner, C. Johnson, C. Houstan PF: Banchero, Isaac, TDS C: Bitadze, WCJ Having Suggs, KCP, AB and Ellis causing havoc on defense would be beautiful to watch

Jalen cost us this game with his untimely turnovers and ill advised 3 point shooting in the 4th. We stopped moving the ball and went to iso basketball and jacking up 3 pointers which is always a recipe for disaster.

Just bought four tickets to take the family to the early Sunday home game against the Nets in two weeks (12/29). Wasn’t cheap but we’re all looking forward to it!

Always glad to see the lakers lose.

KCP’s impact on the game today is the difference

Always nice to win the ugly ones, but that was gross! 9-1 stretch without Paolo is incredible and unexpected. We’re 12-7 and 3rd in the East!! We’ve got 7 more games left until that “bye week” where we’re off from Dec 9 - 18. Most of those games are on the road, but there aren’t any world beaters in there, so if we go 4-3 or 5-2 in that stretch, we’re looking at 17-9 or 16-10 through 26 games and maybe getting Paolo back and a nice home stand through the end of the year starting on Dec 19. Sky’s the limit, Go Magic

Magic last 5 opponents: 86 PTS 90 PTS 89 PTS 94 PTS 88 PTS They are absolutely suffocating teams right now

No, they're only the reigning champions when healthy, they're not that great. There's a huge difference between always complaining and providing a different point of view from the "if we were healthy we would DESTROY them", or "if we had a good shooting game we would be 2-1". Like we're the only team having injuries, problems or bad shooting nights... seems like the others are always 100%, and we're always unlucky. I told you various time that I respect your faith in the team and the way you're a great fan, but you should avoid those "Give it a rest" and judging other fans just because they're pointing out real issues, or a different point of view. ;)

Don't agree with everything you say, but you are a GREAT fan, Jay.

Right, because the only options at point guard in the entire league are Trae Young and Cory Joseph…. Look, it’s obvious we need a better distributor that can grow with our core and bring out the best in them, I’ve been banging that drum for as long as anyone else on this board, but I’d rather it not be Trae. The foul-baiting stuff is horrible basketball and I’d rather not be in a position where I have to cheer it on.

Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner have scored 20+ points in nine straight games. That's the longest streak by a Magic duo in franchise history

Plus minus is a worthless stat. Franz was terrible last night and Paolo was great, anyone that watched the game would agree

AB really isn’t doing much on the offensive end tonight. He dribbles the ball slowly up the court, hangs around for a few seconds, then just dumps it off. He is just not the kind of quick guard who darts in and out of the opponent defense that we need.

I just thought since it’s so negative and rightfully so I’d post something positive. Paolo’s last ten games: 27.9 PTS 46.2 FG% 35.4% 78.4% FT% 6.5 REB 5 AST I think he is 100% healthy again. Those are similar numbers to his breakout playoffs last year and at the beginning of this year. He is still only 22 years old. I know we aren’t winning but I think Franz and Paolo are pretty low on the list of problems. Make moves in the off-season Weltman! Go Magic!

Wasn't going to post about that game at all because I'm kind of sick of dwelling in the negativity but you know what. ***** Paolo Banchero. Dudes been ass most of the year. Our single best stretch of the season was when he was injured and Franz carried us. Now he's sulking in press conferences and his mum is tweeting about the coaching. Is the coaching great? Right now not particularly. But MFer was happy as hell with the same coaching when he was getting All Star nominations and winning ROTY and we've had one, admittedly cursed, down year and this dude and his family are crying? How's about grow the hell up and take some accountability? Be better on defense. Don't be one of the least efficient scorers in the game. And miss me with literally any excuse you've got for Paolo. Franz Wagner is in the exact same position, with the same work load and he plays better defense and he's more efficient and he impacts the game at a higher level. He even had the same exact injury and he recovered quicker. It's quickly become apparent that all the vibes weren't legit. It's easy to pull for each other when you're out performing expectations and winning but real friends, real good teammates, they pull together when times are hard. This team looks to have given the hell up. This feels closer to the end of something than the start of something. EDIT: probably taking a break from posting now I can't be bothered with talking about this team anymore.

Breaking news. The Bulls have rescinded the Vucevic trade. I'm afraid WCJ and Franz have to get on a plane tonight.

Figured we could use a thread for all the trade deadline happenings. I know a lot of that conversation is happening in the Regular Season and Game Threads but doesn't hurt to have a specific place to discuss it. With it being upon us and deals potentially flying thick and fast it might be easier to navigate a 10 page thread than an 80 page thread if someone wants to catch up with what they've missed. Just FYI the Trade Deadline closes on Thursday Feb. 6 at 3pm Eastern time.

Where is TMF at? Lol. The thing is, at this point who would be willing to take him?

Coach after the blowout loss tonight and only scoring like 89 points.."Look it's a make or miss league. I'll just have to take a look at the film and see if those wide-open shots were makable shots. But I'm proud of the way our guys hung in there and only lost by 21"

The point guard, or lack thereof, problem that some of us argued vociferously to fix over the summer now becomes more evident. We were told in response that “positionless “ basketball was the new norm and point guards were outdated. Apparently not. Aggravating that problem is this idea that our two stars should take 80% of the shots when the starting five is on the floor. Even if we had a good PG, we’d still be in trouble if we continue down that path. Like I said before, Goga only got 1 shot in 18 minutes last night. What happened to our pick and roll? Last year, even with Joe Ingles as slow and predictable as he was, we still managed to utilize the pick and role a heck of a lot better than we are doing now with better personnel. What gives??

Same my guy but we need to stay the course. More and more fans are starting to wake up and realize this.

Jalen and Cole back, Goga out for at least one more. First time Jalen, Franz and P have played together since October 30… I could cry! Let’s go!

I know my response to your post is a week late. I don't claim to be a photoshop wizard, but I thought I would take a whack at it--play around. I know that some of the Magic players' pictures I used in this graphics were probably off the injured list by the time I completed this. Also, when I was doing the game thread starters, I posted a lot of pictures. Since toward the end of last season I have been getting messages that I have used all of the attachment space I am allowed. So, the graphic I designed might be deleted. Source: Designed by TMF Source: Original Movie

Controversial comment above. I will say this, though: our three-point shooting has been poor all year without regard to injuries. In 2025, I don’t see any team going deep into the playoffs if they are last in the league in three-point shooting.

They've changed Franz injury designation from the injury to "Return to competition reconditioning" so he's probably a week or two away. I am so ready to have Paolo and Franz back man.

Yeah, I'm in the group that strongly believe that we need to make moves and not falling in love with the internal development thing, but at the same time Zion doesn't make sense at all. For his position/role and style of play, will not solve the 3p% issue at all, and that's without even entering the number of games he misses and the bad character issues. With Franz and Paolo we're obviously set at 3/4, we have a lot of C options, and even more guards. For me is pretty evident, has always been, that we need a PG, smart, good assistmen, above average from 3, not needing always the ball in his hands... basically the next Jrue (even if maybe there's only one Jrue), would be perfect. Boston had a similar SF/PF situation with a lot of talent, but they decided that internal growth wasn't enough, and made multiple moves to finally win the ring. Holiday was the most needed and important one, but White and Porz were acquired through trades too.

It will obviously be great to have him back. I just hope we keep up the team play that we've seen (at times, anyway) while the stars have been out. I don't want to go back to having everyone else either: A. Throw the ball to Paulo and then stand around watching. B. Decide it's their turn to shine, go one vs 2-3 and put up a forced shot. These behaviors were particularly prevalent towards the end of close games. I hope we'll continue to improve our teamwork going forward, even as the stars return.

Merry xmas

This didn’t age well.

I very much dislike the personality of pretty much this entire Knicks team. Bunch of guys that need their asses kicked. I look forward to playing them when we’re healthy

This organisation selected and developed Franz Wagner. Scouts said he might be a 3/4 tweener and as a rookie we played him at PG and SG at times (partly due to injuries) to develop his ball handling. The idea that we lucked into him when literally nobody was saying he was this good is wild. We also brought in his brother for free off the scrap heap in a move that is one of the more underrated moves they've made because it likely helped Franz settle to have his brother around and Mo Wagner became one of our important bench pieces at the exact same time. I think Mo Wagner was actually a culture setting move too. A guy who was almost out of the league who scrapped and clawed his way into being a legitimate NBA player. Everyone crying we can't trade WCJ because we have Goga but they ignore that Indiana literally gave up on Goga and this organisation brought him in and developed him so much so that he literally said this summer he wanted to stay because this organisation saved his career. Nobody wants to give any credit to the decision makers for that? A few years ago Rob Hennigan traded Oladipo and Sabonis for the corpse of Serge Ibaka, now we've got an actually good front office (not perfect by any stretch, nobody is) and people still want to complain about it when they've built the best team we've had in a long time. The people who want to trade WCJ, Jett and Cole for some random scoring guard who plays no defense are the same people who'd have traded Vuc for a packet of chips before he had his all star years and became valuable enough to net us the pick that became Franz. Fans aren't patient. But this front office is and usually it's proven to be worthwhile for them to be patient. Tyus Jones being the big point of contention for people is absolutely mind blowing. He's the starting PG on a team with a worse record than us who we just beat without our two best players.

Two torn oblique injuries has nothing to do with bad luck or coincidence. It has more likely than not, something to do with their training routines, workouts or whatever. They have to evaluate what is going on. But i do say this. It’s rare that both of your star players have the same unusual injury. That’s kinda bad luck.

We need a third scorer. Suggs is too inconsistent to fill that role, especially if the 3 ball isn't falling. He become a bull in a China shop when his shot isn't falling.

Sometimes teams get all the bounces. We just need to make sure we don’t lose by 30 at this point

Actually we only have that week off if we don't clinch a spot in the Cup's Quarter Finals. And we are in a good position to do it!

That was one of the worst games of basketball I've ever seen. We were terrible on offense and Charlotte were somehow worse. A win is a win though. Tough night for Tristan. They dared him to beat them and when he missed a few in a row he got hesitant and then they could sag all the way off him. Similar thing happened with Black. And they were selective with it too, they ran KCP and Jett off the line all night. It bit them a little bit because Jonathan Isaac just kept shooting them and eventually got a couple to go. Smart defense from the Hornets though really, they seem well coached on that end, if they weren't so incredibly loose with the ball they'd have likely won that game but they had like 500 turnovers. Against these not great teams our defense is often enough but still you'd like to not be totally inept on offense.

OH MY *****ING WORD!!!!!!! IM IN TEARS!!! MY DOGS ARE BARKING COZ I SMASHED MY CUP OF TEA HAHAHA FRANZ I *****ING LOVE YOU!!!

That's cool. But your anecdotal story of one person, yourself a non-pro player, isn't going to convince me that a guy who's been in the NBA for 7 seasons and has never been a good defender will suddenly become one. Chauncey Billlups, whatever you think of him as a coach or a man, was a part of some of the best defenses of all time. I find it hard to believe he doesn't expect his players to play good defense.

Boston last year..

I am here at Kia Center!! Welcome back TBN!!