CTMagicUK

When AB hits the open jumpers his value and fit on this team as an off ball guard is so clear. He's shooting 42% from 3 in his last 10 (not including Cavs game) too. Lots of big contributions from the non Paolo/Franz guys in this. Big win.

4d chess from Paolo and Franz making Cory Joseph of all people look competent as a starter (bit unfair tbh Cory was good) can roll out the old "if we play this well with Cory Joseph at PG imagine how we'll play with an actually good PG".

I honestly think we've reached "everything that can be said about this team has been said about this team" territory. We all know what we need. We all know what we'd have liked at the deadline. We all know injuries suck. We all know who we'd like to move on from (there's some debate between folks on this but most of those conversations have happened already and minds likely won't be changed). We all know this season has sucked. We all know Mose's flaws. We all know Weltman's flaws. We all know that this season likely ends with us in the play in game and then a first round out. I'm begging for us to make moves this summer just so there are new things to talk about.

Agree. Big fan.

I think if this season hadn't been such a disaster AB's development would be getting talked about a lot more positively than it has been. He kind of just gets lumped into the "Weltman sucks" conversation but I think he's shown real skill development year on year as a ball handler and downhill driver and it's allowed him to use his passing a lot more. His defense is generally excellent too even if he still commits dumb fouls too often.

Y'all remember when we used to be a good defensive team? What happened.

Seems like a joke to me.

Dan Hurley allegedly turned down a $70m contract to coach the Lakers last summer. He's not leaving UCONN.

When you're down you're really down bad. Some miracle stuff for the Raptors to win that game that I don't even think they were trying to win with a G league team playing in crunch time. I don't really care this season is spent for me but I just came to say that's the Paolo I want to see. I don't care about the shot making, which was obviously awesome, but that'll come and go. I just want him to attack guys who can't guard him like he means it and I want him to trust his team mates and pass the ball. I'd be more understanding if he was frustrated after that game than the last one. At least this one he gave it everything and we fell short. Felt like the previous game he floated through the game rather than imposing himself on it.

There's a tremendous piece in The Ringer about the Magic by Rob Mahoney. https://www.theringer.com/2025/03/04/nba/orlando-magic-paolo-banchero-franz-wagner It warmed my heart, my heart that had been frosted over by such a disheartening season lol Sometimes when you've got everything under the microscope it's easy to be critical. But when you step back and look at things from 50,000 feet you can see that there's still a lot here worth believing in and sticking with.

You're right. And a lot of people have made thoughtful responses to other areas of my post as well which wasn't at all thoughtful and was just throwing down a bunch of words from my gut. I wanted to revisit something you said in your initial response to me about driving Paolo off. I don't want to do that either. My post wasn't so much a "***** Paolo Banchero I'm done with him" and more of a "***** Paolo Banchero I need him to be better." Feels like things are sliding off the deep end right now from "up and coming team on the path to contention" to "remember that one year the Magic won 47 games?".

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.

I don't think one team doing something insane should reset our expectations about what is and isn't likely. Especially because we're talking about our front office needing to be aggressive in this case.

I might have a new favourite prospect for us: Sergio de Larrea. 6'6 PG, shoots 40% from 3, awesome vision as a passer. Very turnover prone currently but he's young (just turned 19) playing in a men's league so to be expected somewhat from a PG. And I think his stock is a little low currently because he's on the bench of a deep team in Spain so he's not getting a lot of playing time. Need to see more from him to see if he's not a turnstile on defense etc but he's exciting.

Yea Draymond Green is top 2 in the league in getting away with moving screens (Sabonis is the other guy).