CTMagicUK

The first time in years we had a competent GM lol

This Lakers team is more entertaining to me personally than any other I remember because it's so fun to watch teams like the Wizards score on them, yea they won, but it's not exactly a good win for a team that was supposed to be contending for a championship to beat the worst team in the NBA by 6. If the Wizards had had John Wall they might have won. Shaq broke down how Howard should be scoring on TNT one night and it had him finishing with 20+ points even if he only shot 50% from the field and 50% from the FT line and a big part of that break down was the fact that Howard should get at least 3 shots a quarter in the low post. The problem on offense is when they need a bucket, they let Kobe take a long two, when they could just dump it inside and let Dwight bang around and slam it in, or draw the double team and kick out to an open shooter. On defense I think Howard has exposed the secret that his defense may have just been a product of SVG's system. The fact that D'Antoni continues to harp on about Steve Nash shows how little attention he pays to the defensive end. When do the Lakers play the Thunder? I can't wait, especially if Nash is back and has to "guard" Westbrook.

In other news, the Magic beat a playoff caliber team by more points than the Lakers managed to beat the worst team in the NBA by. Happy days.

I was thinking the same thing, but at the same time, Davis learnt some things from KG that he's probably passing on to Nichs as well, I say we keep this team and move Davis in the summer. This draft isn't all that mind blowing where getting a top 3 pick will change the franchise so lets get a pick in the 8-12 range or so and let our rookies develop some more before we hand them the keys to the team.

That's to be expected though. Nicholson is 23, Moe is 19. Both of them are bringing it tonight though. Nicholson on both ends, Moe on defense predominantly.

*Double post* It's a block party out there right now! Especially for the rookies! Hark and Nicholson with 3 a piece.

Why does my League Pass say this game starts at 8 EST when everything else says 7? EDIT: Because League Pass was wrong.

Seeing as the guy who said he'd make this thread also said he'd be at the game I doubt he'll do it this late. Projected Starting Lineups Magic Nelson Afflalo Harkless Davis Vucevic Hawks Teague Harris Morrow Smith Horford Should be a great game.

I wouldn't be so hard on Moe, he's 19 years old and is still growing both physically and as a person. He also missed all of training camp due to injury. He's not bad on defense most of the time and even most of the youtube highlight reels of him in college show mainly defensive plays or offensive rebounds (which he seems to be good at in the nba to be fair) and put backs I'm confident he'll figure it out.

Every game I'm torn between wanting to win and wanting a high draft pick and yet I'm still annoyed when we lose. We played horribly last night, although it says a lot that despite a horrible performance we were still only six points behind and got jj 2 decent looks at the basket from 3.

We have Afflalo playing power forward...

This is ridiculous.

Did Ayon just airball a layup?

I take half of this back, what has most likely happened is that Moe has been making some shots in practice and has been encouraged by the coaching staff to take them in the game. His problem more than anything is lack of confidence. When he missed that first lay up you could see his confidence crumble. I don't think he'll be in the d-league though. He has all the tools defensively and just needs to work on a mid-range jumper or something, just something that means he needs to be guarded and not just left by the opposing d.

I know he's missed both 3 point tries but I think the fact that Harkless has taken 2 tells me two things, he's been improving his shooting in training and he's getting more confident in his abilities. Good signs.

;)

... well that's awkward... lol

The Lakers are apparently looking to clear a roster spot to sign Delonte West, Duhon's days may be numbered.

Love is under contract until the 2015-2016 season when he has a player option. That's a long time, if Ricky Rubio pans out the Timberwolves could have had at least a season of title contention. Regardless, he'll probably opt out if only to get a better contract. It says something when Turk is getting paid 2 million less than the best power forward in the NBA.

I can't imagine PG NOT being an area of priority in the next 2 drafts.

That's not a firm prediction. It's a computer generated set of results based on a huge number of simulations averaged out. The computer recalculates every night meaning that even though we haven't played a game since you posted this, the prediction is now 35-47 and, seeing as how it works on Hollinger's Power Rankings could change at any time. Hollinger's power rankings seem affected greatly by average scoring margin hence why the 7-13 Bobcats are predicted to finish last overall again. (Huge losses to OKC etc) And the Lakers still have nearly a 50% chance of making the playoffs. The computer currently gives us a 30% chance of making the playoffs and a 0.4% chance of making the finals which is interesting.

Loving the Cavs win over Lakers, no way they win without Kyrie Irving though, guy was beast.

As far as I'm concerned playing JJ at the point completely negates why his passing is so successful in the first place which is the fact that he is great at moving off the ball and catching the ball of screens to set up a play.

The concern I have is that the Magic trade nobody, finish around about .500 and suddenly think that by signing (or trading for) a fringe star like Brandon Jennings we can be a contender, give a guy like that a max contract and find ourselves stuck in mediocrity for 5 years or more. There are so many teams around the league who give huge contracts to guys who are borderline stars and it never seems to work out. The problem is I think GM's get hung up on job security, they never win a championship but as long as their above average team continues to make the 6th-8th seed in the playoffs they keep their jobs. I'll be really excited when the Magic make it back to the playoffs, I will soon lose that excitement if year after year we're knocked out in the first round. The goal is to win a championship, to do that you have to make tough decisions like blow up a team that you know has no chance of winning a 'ship. I'm a huge Redick fan but if we got a decent trade offer for him I wouldn't be at all disappointed. And the same goes for everybody else on the roster with the exception of maybe Nelson only because of his leadership and the fact that we have literally nobody else who can play the point and I'd only want to trade him when we have his replacement.

I can't actually count how many times I've actually heard Rob say those exact same words. It's hard to trust guys like that who are in charge and have to make tough decisions but I genuinely do. I really think Rob will mold this team into a title contender.