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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.

Two teams went to 7 games last season. One team looked at what happened, identified it's biggest weakness (coaching in the Cavs case) and then made changes. The other team looked at its biggest weakness (shooting, offense generally) and said "well we just gave 20mil to a 5th option roleplayer from a championship team who can shoot so that ought to do it." I didn't watch the whole game, about half way through the 3rd it was apparent that whenever we scraped and clawed the lead down a couple points the Cavs had immediate and easy answers. More than anything I'm just super bored with the same players, the same problems, the same story every time we run into a real contender.

This won’t be popular to post, but I’m worried about Paulo’s lack of efficiency and development this year. Yes, he was hurt, but he’s really not playing winning basketball right now.

The only team above us in the East with an easier Strength of Schedule the rest of the way is Boston. The Bucks and Pistons specifically are both in the top half of the league in how difficult their remaining schedule is. If we take care of business we can finish as the 6 seed.

It’s pathetic to watch this guy sit on his hands and do the least possible to improve this team and still keep his job. Trading second round picks for cash doesn’t count for sh**. He has proven that he can’t get a team over the top. As soon as he leaves a team they get proactive and win a championship. Wash rinse repeat. ownership do you want to win or just fill seats with whomever??? Fans of the Magic or not.

“Despite the franchise's first berth in the Eastern Conference semifinals in six seasons, the Cleveland Cavaliers dismissed coach J.B. Bickerstaff on Thursday morning. Bickerstaff, 45, ushered the Cavaliers through a rebuild, winning 99 regular-season games in the past two seasons, but the franchise now embarks on a search that it hopes will land a coach to take Cleveland deeper into the Eastern Conference playoffs… Cleveland wants a fresh approach, and president of basketball operations Koby Altman and general manager Mike Gansey will embark on a coaching search.” https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/40203249/sources-cavaliers-fire-coach-jb-bickerstaff-playoff-exit Cleveland got bold last summer and look at where they’re at right now. I personally don’t trust that Weltman and Mose can lead us to a championship. My dream? Hire Bob Myers as GM and trade for Kerr in the off-season to coach this team.

I get you Magic one. It's true....the team and fanbase know this. It shows. It shows in the crowd at the game. it shows in the message boards. We can see it and if we can it's true. What they did in the last two months has sucked the life out of this team.

Question is, why only now? medical staff really needs to go

After losing him to “back spasms” on January 5, Jalen returned on January 25 for part of game only to leave it due to a “left thigh bruise” or “left thigh contusion,” depending on the report you read. Whether this latest injury was undiagnosed from the bruise/contusion or is from his rehab isn’t clear. What is clear is that our roster has been rocked with injuries and is very imbalanced. In all seriousness, I actually do hope we move on from Weltman this summer.

The Suggs injury is awful, plain and simple. The additional piece that makes this situation bad is that Weltman didn’t make a move for a PG at the trade deadline. That’s totally unacceptable. Either the doctors missed Suggs diagnosis, and they should be held accountable, or Weltman mishandled the situation, and he should be held accountable. Relying on Cole to be our starting PG as we try to build off last year was the plan? That is shocking.

>>>>

This is awful news. I'm concerned with Suggs' style of play and injury history moving forward. Tough stuff. Given this update, I really want Mose to give AB, TDS, and Jett major minutes for the rest of the year. Time to work on their development. Cole, KCP, and Harris aren't leading us anywhere.

Biggest take away for me last night other than the Steph is incredible and KCP is not takes is that Paolo finally looked healthy and aggressive last night. He and Franz are still all-world level and we’re still a super high ceiling team, it’s crazy to think neither of them are anywhere near their prime. This season has sucked, but we gonna be ok

Alright so I looked at 5 man lineups including Gary, he's only played in 5 lineups that have played 20 or more minutes together: His most played lineup is still the start of the season Suggs with the bench lineup: Suggs- AB - Harris - JI - Mo Wagner Which has a -2.3. His second most played lineup is the recent starters but where Gary replaces Franz: Cole - KCP - Gary - Paolo - WCJ Which is a catastrophic -51.4! His third most played lineup is the starters lineup but he replaces Franz: Suggs - KCP - Gary - Paolo - WCJ Which is a +8.1 And his next two most played lineups are both immensely positive and they're possibly from that great run when Paolo was out: Suggs - Gary - Franz - TDS - Goga Which is a +28.7 And AB - Gary - Franz - Isaac - Mo Wagner (I guess this is the original "Franz with the bench" lineup) Which is +43.2 I don't know what to make of this really... But I guess that it's probably that Gary has played a lot of his minutes with Franz and Jalen who are both positive net rating guys.

Too bad Junkie isn't there anymore telling us how great Shaedon Sharpe is! :P

A lot of my preseason/early season optimism was predicated on guys being as good a shooters as they were last season. I.e. KCP being a 38% shooter, JI being a 37% shooter (and just generally not bad), WCJ being a 37% shooter (and again just not bad, though i think he's been better post all star break), Gary Harris being a 37% shooter, Jalen Suggs' being a 39% shooter (and being healthy). Plus the addition of TDS who I thought would be a good shooter (and I still think will be but hasn't really been this season yet - although you could argue he's been the best shooter on the team this year accounting for volume), plus the assumed growth of AB and Jett (both have grown in my opinion, just not nearly enough to bridge the gap of the entire roster forgetting how to shoot). I don't necessarily think I, or anybody, was wrong to be optimistic given the vibes, the season we had, the additions we made. And even with my optimism I still didn't necessarily think we'd have enough shooting, enough creation etc to be a great team without Paolo and Franz taking big leaps in that area. (Neither has taken a leap as a shooter, you could probably argue Franz has taken a leap as an off the dribble scorer though). Now I have new information, and that information is, somehow, bewilderingly, every player on this team is a worse shooter than we thought. Either that or this team is going through the single worst collective shooting slump... Possibly of all time. So, unsurprisingly, I've changed my opinion.

That's completely true, but a lot of us, maybe even you :), were pretty happy about our offseason and future, and still very happy in december, only two months ago. A few others were pointing out that you always need to improve more for a ring. We obviously weren't going to fire the coach as they did, but how many times we asked why we don't have a top offensive coach, or a great shooting one? Then Cle re-upped even if they're first by a wide margin in the conference, they feel it wasn't enough still, and completed a great deadline move that also take them under the apron. What a difference makes a proactive FO, instead of a evaluating one. If players are not fully motivated in a home game against the team that eliminated them last playoffs, I don't know what can motivate them. At this point there's also a problem in chemestry, that was mentioned a lot of times as our best strenght.

I think we’re both partly right. The supporting cast needs to be better. But even if it was better, it’s not going to translate into wins if Franz and Paulo continue to monopolize the ball, just as in Cleveland’s case having Mitchell monopolize the offense, great as he is, did not lead to Cleveland reaching their potential. A good point guard would definitely help address this problem.

And to think we played this same Cleveland team almost even in the playoffs last year. What a difference a year makes. Our team is virtually unchanged from last year but they are no longer competitive.

Juwan Howard must have had an affair with Mosleys wife or something. At this point he’s obviously trolling Jett. Gary remains first off the bench and Caleb got the call before Jett. Why is this situation not addressed by the media? Gary isn’t providing anything and Jett can’t get consistent minutes for no particular reason.

I respect that Jay even though it may cloud your judgement at times you’re definitely one of those people you’d want to be stuck in the trenches with. However a lot of people on this board are tired of the same excuses and results. This roster is clearly flawed and we need to fix it if we are ever going to win a championship. You look at any team that has recently won and they made improvements to their roster before they could win it all and we’re no exception. So while we may not see eye to eye on certain things it doesn’t make any of us less of a Magic fan don’t forget that.

Let’s see how he plays in The Playoffs this year Soul. He was significantly better than Franz last year in every possible way. Paolo 27 Pts 8.6 Rebs 4 AST 45.6% FG 40% 3 P% Franz 18.9 Pts 6.9 Rebs 4.4 AST 40.8% FG 26.5% 3 P% I am rooting for both equally as we will only go as far as both of them take us. It seems like other posters (not you) want to crap on Paolo to make Franz look better which is annoying as a MAGIC FAN. Just a little perspective that won’t be popular either. The pitch forks are out for our 22 year old today after last night lol

As much as I like Mosley, I have to believe that the lack of ball movement in the late stretches of close games is a coaching issue. I’m not sure it would matter if we had some different players.

According to statmuse it has happened 16 times believe it or not. I think quite a few of them took place when teams weren't shooting so many 3's.

We still need a Guard. Somebody who can bring playmaking and scoring. Dennis Smith Jr ain’t happy in Europe. He wants back. Call him! Or Bones Hyland.