CTMagicUK

I'm right there with you.

The Wizards have lost 15 games in a row. Their next game is against us on the second night of a road/road back to back...

Who are the non Dillingham/Sheppard guys? Those are the only two I'd pick first round I think.

Honestly if the Cavs stay at 3 and the Heat get 4 I think I might prefer to be the 6 seed than the 5.

The Miami Heat now have an easier remaining schedule than us. That's not ideal for us with them already having the tie breaker over us too.

You know, I think Yves Missi is a very interesting prospect in general but also for us specifically, especially if we don't bring back Goga. I finally got to watch him in a real game, had always kind of assumed he was a Clint Capela type shot blocking and dunks guy from what I read and highlights but he's a really fluid mover and surprisingly nimble on both ends with flashes of ball handling to score on drives and create for himself or punish slower bigs in pick and roll. The passing feel doesn't look terrible either from what I've seen. His assist and turnover stats are bad but I think there's upside for him to develop there. He's a late comer to basketball as well I gather and shows a lot of skill for his inexperience, he didn't even move to the US until 2021. If you play the percentages, worst case he's an athletic big who blocks some shots and throws down some lobs. That's still a fringe NBA player. Best case though I think is one of the best players in this draft given how good he is with limited experience in the game and how much scope for growth there could be.

The bench playing like hot garbage and allowing the Pistons to cut the 25+ point lead to 13 only for the starters to return and restore the lead in less than a minute was unbelievable really. Starting unit was awesome, Franz a little quiet again but played great defense. Bench mostly sucked except Markelle in the first half. Detroit's defense is bad bad. They had considerably more shot attempts than us and we still blew them out. Vintage Evan Fournier in Orlando, 17 points and the blow out loss. Let's keep going. Can't drop games now. We're 1 game back of the 4 seed and only 4.5 games back of the 3 seed.

Indy aren't an underdog playing the Spurs. They're 6.5 point favourites. Hoping the Cavs beat the Knicks too.

But Jaquez proved he could play good defense in college, whether or not scouts thought that would translate to the NBA that's still better than Knecht who looks bad on defense in college.

Random thought, by the time the Olympics after this coming one rolls around France might have enough talent to take on the US. They're getting at least 1 guy drafted a year lately but last year there was: Wemby, Coulibaly, Rayan Rupert, Cidy Sissoko And then this year there's: Risacher, Sarr, Salaun, Ajinca, Dadiet There are also three (at a quick glance) French players in ESPNs first 2025 mock: Nolan Traore, Noa Essengue and Zacharrie Perrin

I've thought about just throwing stuff on Substack, I don't expect anyone to read really just somewhere to actually catalogue more long form thoughts rather than spamming the forum with them and stopping actual conversations with a wall of text. Yea that's it. You can get away with 1 non shooter I think but in a perfect world you'd have 0 non shooters. Look at Denver. Aaron Gordon is their worst shooter in the starting/closing lineup but he's not a non shooter he's just a not good shooter (an important distinction). And he makes it work still because he does EVERYTHING else at a high level for an off ball wing/PF (defense, ball handling, passing, finishing).

It's a good point. And I've got an essay saved in my notes I almost posted here (it was getting stupid long lol) about how I think Suggs at PG is a viable option the Magic could take long term. Then I just tried to write a TLDR of the essay and it still somehow devolved into an essay. But the TLDR of the TLDR is that the most desirable roleplayers are high feel guys with positive positional size who can pass/dribble/shoot (the reason they're desirable is because that sounds close to a description of a star but I'm not saying they can pass like Magic, dribble like Kyrie and shoot like Steph, just that they can do enough of each for their position/role). And a 6'6 guy like that is probably just as valuable to the starting 5 if not more than a "true PG" given Paolo and Franz will have a lot of the ball anyway. There is a caveat however that this team is really devoid of pull-up 3 point shooting which could be an issue which (subconsciously) I think is why a lot of Magic fans pine after the ball handling, 30 pick and rolls a game scoring guard because they see the pull-up shot making and how unstoppable that can be which is something this team hasn't had in any real way since like Jameer Nelson.

You know I dunno why I thought this was a rough Franz game really when I'm thinking back over it. Sure there were turnovers and missed 3s but he was great defensively and still relatively efficient. Think I'm getting spoiled by all the winning.

That was a weird game. For large stretches I thought we played terribly. I don't think anybody was especially great for the full game but for stretches a lot of guys showed up and that was enough. Jalen's defense all game and shot making at the end probably the highlight but Markelle, Cole, Gary Harris, Mo and WCJ all had good periods of play and made positive impacts and obviously Paolo was cooking Taylor Hendricks down the stretch. Rough Franz game, when the shot deserts him it makes it so much harder on his driving. And Paolo's passing was awful. But who cares, we win. And not only do we win but the Knicks and the Heat both lose. Good night for us.

Yea I saw that and got a chill down my spine lol

I know I've said things about must win games before but it feels like the next 10 games starting tonight could very well decide our playoff seeding. It's 8 games against sub .500 teams and the Knicks in MSG and Pacers at Kia Center. Feels like it needs to be 8-2 minimum and those 2 can't be both the Pacers and Knicks games if we want that 4th seed. Now would be a nice time to rattle off another 9 game winning streak honestly... Or go one better and get 10 for a franchise record (the 10th would be Hornets at home EDIT: actually that'd be 11th, we've already won 1 lol).

But Jaquez was never a bad defensive player in college. He was 2 times Pac 12 all defensive team.

Players with 3 years of NBA service or less can be assigned to the G league an unlimited number of times. (I just had to look this up tbf I didn't know the rules exactly).

Jett isn't, Jett's on his rookie contract. Queen and Kevon are though. Speaking of, I liked Kevon, thought he looked a player. Wonder why we haven't seen anything of him this year?

No can do, Schofield is on a 2 way, Patty isn't eligible for a 2 way.

Disclaimer being that Knecht is bad on defense and is 23 so like... Is there room for improvement defensively or is that just who he is? And if that's just who he is is he more of a 6th man type scorer or even bench shooter? He apparently knows his defense is his weakness and wants to work at it but he's kind of a layup line at times... (This is me coming down from the initial reaction to watching him score 39 and thinking more critically)

Nah. They'd be stupid to trade Cade. They're getting another top pick this year anyway, what incentive have they got to trade Cade? So they can tank (which they're already accidentally doing) for talent that might be as good as Cade (which they can already draft with their already high pick)?

Dalton Knecht just dropped 39 points against one of the best defensive teams in college ball. That's the guy we should probably trade up for if we could. Dude is a killer.

A 4/5 matchup with the Heat would not end well for us but then again it's likely we get bounced in the first round whoever we play, maybe it'll be good to see how the Heat in particular step it up in the playoffs so our guys know for future years.

There are two things I don't really think this team should do (nor do I think they will do them) this draft and they are: Trade into the lottery Draft another PG That being said... If we traded up to draft Reed Sheppard I wouldn't be mad. Dude is so good. I get there are real size/athleticism concerns but he's so so skilled and so smart for a 19 year old and he has really good steal/block rates where you think he might be able to figure out how to stay on the floor defensively. And I think sometimes we fail to project skilled/smart guys getting even more skilled and even smarter as they get older. I learned that lesson with Tyrese Haliburton.