CTMagicUK

Yea we don't have a lot of flexibility at all. We can probably presume that we're not going to pay the tax in the middle of a pandemic for an 8th seed at best. So we can probably take that $133m as a hard cap for us. But we don't have to be below that until the trade deadline. And we could also pay a couple of mil in tax but cover that by taking back cash in trades. A couple of things I think this means: There's a decent chance we trade our second round pick in the same kind of deal we did last year (cash + a future second) We can't keep both MCW and Augustin at non discounted prices. (Augustin has said he wants to finish his career here so maybe he takes a discount but this could be MCW's best chance at a decent pay day so I wouldn't be surprised if he's looking for a long term commitment of like 3 year/$15m total) If we use the full MLE we couldn't bring back either of MCW and Augustin and the rest of the roster would have to be minimum guys. I think there's a chance, a very small one, that we offer Fournier a deal where he opts out of 17 and gets a 3/45 deal. That'd give us a little bit of extra wiggle room and doesn't affect Fourniers trade value really. (I'm not avocating for this I just think it might be an option) Another team could probably get Iwundu for anything more than the minimum. We'll know more about our plans there if we choose to extend the qualifying offer to him I guess. Trading down could be an option in the first round if there's a deal we like. It'd save us half a million or so in cap and get us some future assets. (If someone offers a 2021 pick I'd be all over trading down) If Ennis opts out he's probably gone unless he's just looking for an extra year for security and not a salary improvement. I'm presuming we're not picking up Melvin Frazier's team option. Short of trades happening the roster won't look much different aside from the end of bench guys and the incoming rookies.

Free agency will start on Nov 20. 2 days after the draft. It's expected that the transaction window will be opened at some point a couple days before the draft so we could see a flurry of activity straight away.

Slightly off topic but FWIW I really think Okeke is going to be a great draft pick. He's long, intelligent, he can pass, dribble and shoot. Also, it's a small thing, but he's probably the best inbounds pass defender I've ever seen. He got so many deflections and steals on those plays in college. He was the best player on the court in the tournament against North Carolina last year, a court that also included lottery picks Coby White and Cam Johnson. But to be fair if Okeke doesn't work out because of injury then fair play for criticism because we knew about that when we drafted him.

Sure but injuries are injuries nobody can control them and our execs don't have a crystal ball. If you draft one of the best defensive players on planet earth it's a good draft pick. Frank Ntilikina, Zach Collins, TJ Leaf and Malik Monk were also still available. It's incredibly easy to look back and say 'well we missed out on X player' but so did everyone else who picked earlier. Guys sometimes develop in unexpected ways that is difficult to project. Guys might not have developed the same way in different situations. Nobody should look back at the 2013 draft and says "we should have drafted Giannis at 2" like no **** with the benefit of hindsight we should have but hindsight is 20/20.

The prospects I'm talking about have skills. I could understand your reticence if I was out here advocating for a guy with no jumper who couldn't pass or handle the ball but I'm not. (In fact it's precisely because he can do all of those things and also has the mobility of a wing but is the size of a 7 footer that I think he's got a chance to be a star) And to be clear Bamba has skills also. He's a good 3 point shooter for a 7 footer and he's a great rim protector. Whether you believe Bamba is a bust or not I don't understand why you wouldn't think that combination of skill is worth betting on? On Tyler Herro. I really don't think anything has happened to suggest he's going to be a star. He was probably the worst player in the NBA finals and wouldn't have played nearly as much if Dragic had been healthy. He had a couple big playoff games, but Bobbie Gibson once scored 31 points as a rookie in the ECF and he didn't go on to stardom. The NBA has seen a bunch of guys who were labeled as a future star off a few games or a good rookie year and never got there. Brandon Knights rookie year is incredibly similar to Herro's stat wise. I really don't think SGA is the dunk you think it is there. SGA was an incredibly high upside prospect in my opinion considering his length, handle and finishing ability. He was never to my knowledge labeled as "probably just a rotation player". And 4 other teams passed on him after us also. We're also talking about the same front office who drafted Chuma Okeke an incredibly skilled player. I think people on this sub look at our drafting over the whole rebuild rather than just Weltman and Hammond who don't have nearly a large enough sample size to judge from considering one of their draft picks was great, one is a third year player who's shown flashes but has had interruptions (although I guess that's not a commonly held opinion) and one hasn't played yet.

Many said what about Herro last year?

I probably would do something like that. I'd have to think a lot about it though. Things like maybe I'd prefer a future pick to the 14th pick or who the filler was. I don't think Boston would do that though.

My whole thing with him is I'd rather spin the wheel of chance on Poku being a 7 footer who can handle, pass and shoot off movement (a quite frankly absurd combination of skills for a 7 footer) than pick someone safe like Saddiq Bey or Aaron Nesmith who are probably just rotational wing players. If we're going to build from mediocrity you've got to find ways to get massive team improvement from middling situations. Look at the Raptors, they missed on Bruno Caboclo but at least they tried to hit a home run. And if you keep swinging you're going to hit one like a Siakam. Same with Denver, they consistently swing on high upside guys like Emmanuel Mudiay, Bol Bol and MPJ. I don't think we will draft Poku but I'd be over the moon if we did. He might never be an NBA player but there's a non zero chance that he's a legitimate game breaker also and that's worth punting on at 15. He can bust and it'd still be a worthwhile pick in my opinion. (The counterpoint here would be that you can draft a safe draft pick who plays well as a rookie, retains his value and then take high upside swings with trades instead but I just think those trade opportunities are so much more rare)

The East is kinda good, which means the Orlando Magic can't count on running back this group and coasting to the Brown Participation Ribbon Junior Varsity No. 7/8 Playoff Spot -- which might really just be No. 8 unless one of Milwaukee, Miami, Boston, Toronto, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, and Indiana disappoints. Per usual, teams who have talked with the Magic have a hard time parsing their intentions. The wager here is they would be fine with Evan Fournier opting into the final year on his contract, and playing things out. If so, they should investigate what they might get for him in a trade. The leaguewide interest level in Aaron Gordon is murkier. Brooklyn discussed chasing him in prior years, but that is probably moot now. He makes sense in Portland, though NBA Twitter's beloved Gordon-for-CJ McCollum swap has never been discussed in any serious way, sources say. Could Portland pry Gordon away without surrendering McCollum? Does Zach Collins appeal to a team with Nikola Vucevic, Mo Bamba, and Jonathan Isaac? What about Anfernee Simons? Isaac could miss the season because of a knee injury; does that make Orlando less likely to move Gordon or Vucevic? Does the franchise have the stomach to take a step back? - Zach Lowe's little snippet on the Magic in his latest column which doesn't tell us much of anything and asks questions we've all been asking already. (Forgive me I'm too dumb to figure out how to put that in a quote box lol)

They've said they would lose half a billion if they don't start by Christmas. Rumours so far are: 72 game season Some kind of play in tournament like the Memphis/Portland thing this season Season ending before the Olympics in the summer Presumably starting in stadiums but without fans and probably staying that way although I guess the league would hope they can get fans back in at some point (seems unlikely). That's everything I remember reading. But yea the entire off-season of free agency and trades is potentially about to get crammed into 2 weeks. That should be fun.

It seems like today or tomorrow we might get the news that the league starts on Dec 22nd and Dec 1st will be the start of training camp. Which means the two ish weeks from the draft on Nov 18th to the start of training camp are going to be wild.

Trading for Westbrook would be the most insane thing (I don't think there's any chance we do it) because it'd be both really terrible and chaotically exciting.

He's a combo guard. Not really big enough to be called a 2 (although he has a decent wingspan) and not really good enough with his handle and passing to be a 1. He fits quite well with Fultz though if his 3 point jumper falls because on offense hes better off ball either spotting up or attacking a scrambling defense and on defense hes a good point of attack defender which could free Fultz up to be a pest off ball with his length. It really all depends on his jumper. It didn't go in as much as you'd like in college but small sample size and he has a bunch of positive indicators that suggest it'll be better.

Kevin O Connor's mock at The Ringer got updated today. In it we pick Maxey at #15 but in his little blurb he does say: "League sources say the Magic are attempting to move up into the lottery"

Naji Marshall is another guy to look out for in the second round for us I think. 6'7 wing with a 7'1 ish wingspan. Can't shoot (lol) but he's actually a really interesting player who I think could contribute regardless but who could be a steal if his jumper develops.

Teams are only permitted 10 in person workouts with prospects this year so I can imagine any prospect you hear about us working out there is some real interest in. Interestingly Kira has also worked out for a bunch of lottery teams (Pistons, Knicks etc) so we might be hoping he falls more than expecting him to be there.

I'm not sure I buy any of these "combine" measurements. Some of the stuff coming out is insane. Udoka Azubuike is 7 feet tall with a 7'7 wingspan and a 41 inch max vert apparently. I don't know what to make of that...

No idea.

My 2020 draft crush Mason Jones has apparently now got a 36 inch vert. I will literally lose my **** if we draft him at 45.

[Windhorst] (Lakers) There’s a deal out there for them for another guard. That would be interesting. I’ll see if they actually go forward with it. It’s a guard on the last year of his contract who was great last year for his team and that team may be looking to move him. That would be interesting. Could be Fournier?

Fact check what? You asked a question and I answered it. The thing you have to remember is we're not talking about pick 15 Vs pick 2 in a random draft. Obviously knowing nothing about the draft class I would never say "pick 15 can get you a comparable player to pick 2" but given I know a lot about the draft class I feel comfortable saying that.

Daryl Morey to Philly. Feels like we're not far away from F5 season..

We worked out Kira Lewis Jr. this past week per Wasserman.

Rumours that training camp will start Dec 1. That's a crazy short turn around from the draft on Nov 18. We don't even have dates for free agency yet.

Here's every draft I could find since 2000 where pick 2 wasn't noticeably a better player than pick 15: 2004 you already mentioned 2008 - Pick 2 was Michael Beasley, pick 15 was Robin Lopez 2009 - Pick 2 was Hasheem Thabeet, Pick 15 was Austin Daye 2011 - Pick 2 was Derrick Williams, Pick 15 was Kawhi Leonard 2012 - Pick 2 was Michael Kidd Gilchrist, Pick 15 was Maurice Harkless 2013 - Pick 2 was Victor Oladipo, Pick 15 was Giannis Antetokounmpo 6 out of 20 years, that's a fair chance of it happening. Not to mention there were a few occasions where guys taken 16-18 were better than guys picked 2. (I ultimately didn't include them here because it's dishonest to compare guys 15-18 to 2 and not to 2-5 or whatever). I'm aware of the idea that the best prospects get drafted earlier. But I'm saying the drop off from the top 5 to the teens in this draft isn't nearly as big as it is in previous drafts in my opinion. Especially considering the cost of moving into the top 5 from this far out is usual quite steep.