Mike1989
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Posts posted by Mike1989
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5 hours ago, All Eyes On Me said:Bleacher report’s latest Mock has us landing Green at 4 and Jalen Johnson at 8
Not particularly fond of the Jalen Johnson pick. With how Okeke is looking and Isaac coming back, do we need to be drafting another prospect for the PF spot?
If Jalen Johnson is seen as a potential all star, fair enough, but as far as I’m aware that’s not his projection. Personally I’d look at a different pick and allow Okeke and Isaac to rotate at the PF spot.
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This would be a horror scenario. Chicago Bulls win the lottery and jump to first overall and select Cade Cunningham. It would be like them winning the lottery and selecting Derrick Rose.
We drafted third and go Jalen Green. If we pick outside the top two, he would be an excellent pick for us.
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9 hours ago, CTMagicUK said:Here's an interesting piece with anonymous NBA execs on Evan Mobley:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2021/03/31/evan-mobley-nba-draft/
Here's one quote:
“I like Mobley much more than Ayton, Bagley and Wiseman” when they were coming out, an Eastern Conference executive said. “He [projects as] a much better defender. He’s better with the ball. Bagley and Wiseman were mistakes. You don’t want to make a mistake [by not taking Mobley] because you were trying to avoid someone else’s mistake.”
Just imagine being the team that drafted Bagley ahead of Doncic because apparently their GM didn’t like Luka’s father!
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31 minutes ago, hootie249 said:Gary Trent jr just scored 24 points in one of the most lopsided victories in NBA history. With the second best +/- in NBA history!
Seriously, let's all sign a petition to fire Weltham and hire a few of you guys as GM. Lol. Kudos to you on this board who watch more games and know these players.
I mean the guy was a highschool all American and went to Duke. This folks right here is why not to get too caught up in draft slots.
Remember Mitchell is the leading scorer on the team with the best record....this year! What slot was he drafted again?
It's about who you pick, not when you pick.
Agreed, two of the best players in that draft class went 13th and 14th - Mitchell and Adebayo. So sometimes a team can hit it lucky and find a star outside the top few picks like the Warriors did with Curry, Thompson and Green.
One of the things with Mitchell at the time was his size, 6’1 for a shooting guard is undersized. He’s got point guard size with the game of a shooting guard, though he’s capable of playing the point. I believe if Mitchell was nearer 6’4 or 6’5 he would have been selected much higher.
That said, if our front office does a good job they can find franchise changing and contributing talent outside those top few picks.
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38 minutes ago, hootie249 said:Honestly here is the thing. If they move down and don't get a ping pong ball we win. Never in my wildest dreams did I think we could possibly get a top 8 pick in this lottery. From any of our players... even if we traded them last year!
Heck I plan on us being better then the Bulls next year, so if doesn't convey I welcome our free lottery pick next year. I hear rumors already Donavan might go back to college and Zach might ask to be traded. Seriously I'm not kidding.
Had to edit, The Bulls got fleeced in this trade. It's what we finally asked for these last few years. I only wish we had traded for Gary Trent jr. If he signs for less the 17 million I'll be livid. Evan and Gordon's salary was just a bit too much. Oh well.
If we are lucky we’ll end up with a top four pick and another pick inside the top ten. It is amazing to think that we could come away with two top prospects (eg their pick lands at 5 and ours lands 1-4). This is the type of luck teams need at times during their rebuilds. However, it could easily go the other way and their pick lands in the top four and ours falls outside the top four. In that scenario we would not be very happy. So we’ll have to hope the ping pong balls fall our way.
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Tanking doesn’t guarantee we’ll get better lottery odds. The first four teams have a near 50-50 chance of landing inside the top four or picking outside the top four. In fact the team that finishes with the worst record has a greater chance of picking fifth than they do picking 1-4, the teams with the second and third worst record have better odds of picking fifth or sixth, and the team with the fourth worst record has better odds of picking sixth or seventh. So tanking doesn’t guarantee a better pick due to the revamped lottery odds.
For me, we would be better off letting this team continue to develop and build a positive and hardworking culture. The teams that spend the least amount of time rebuilding have a combination of finding a star (or stars) AND build the culture for success. Those teams that get stars but fail to build the culture never go anywhere (eg T-Wolves). We need to promote this play hard culture and not sit players to let the losses build up because doing so would send the wrong message and be counterproductive.
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36 minutes ago, hootie249 said:Can't say it any better. The rest of this year is time to lose and play rookies. That's it and the 4 teams with worse records then us are doing it. However, forget about this week. I have no doubt that Weltham is in full control now. After our road trip i am 100% positive Clifford will play rotations he is "suggested" to play by management. They aren't messing around this year. If he doesn't expect a mutual parting of ways. I don't expect anything like that. Just saying.
There is only one flaw with this plan, there is a near 50-50 chance of one of the teams with top four lottery odds falling outside the top five. We currently sit fourth and we have a 51.91 chance of falling to 5-8. By odds alone our most likely pick is 6th (25.74%), followed by 7th (16.74%).
Now I’m not suggesting don’t tank, or play the youth and see what they’ve got. However, this isn’t the NFL where you can tank for guaranteed picks. The NBA’s draft lottery is designed to try and prevent that and does mean we have to be prepared for the possibility of being unlucky just as much as we do for being lucky.
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With our clean(ish) slate approaching this rebuild our front office need to ensure they don’t make the same mistakes from recent drafts. The prime example being creating a logjam at PF and C without making further moves to solve it. For example, drafting Mo Bamba when we had an all star center in Vucevic and it was clear he was in our long term plans. We can’t afford to make mistakes like that again.
In this draft I do like Moody and Green, both have the skill set and upside to become key parts of the rebuild. Suggs and Cunningham would also be very appealing players. Granted they would mean a question mark over where Fultz plays, but Suggs and Cunningham are good enough to displace Fultz as starting PG. I’m not entirely sold on the forward options, the top couple do strike me as more PF than SF which creates a conflict with Isaac and Chuma. Potentially I wouldn’t be against bringing back Porter at a reasonable cost to pair with Isaac in the front court, but we can afford to be somewhat patient in this rebuild.
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2 hours ago, TheImmortalPatBurke! said:If it was Vooch for Ayton and a filler I would do that in a heart beat. But Phoenix would laugh at us with that offer. I mean let's be real when you consider age, contract, and playing ability JI is our only true so called untouchable asset. Not saying Markelle can't become that but he needs an off season not worrying about health and just working on his game. It's time for our franchise to come to a realization that 7 or 8 years of Fournier and Vuc leading the way leads to at best mediocrity on a good day. It's like your favorite NFL team realizing there current quarterback can never get them where they want to go. And what do smart teams do at that point they make a change and go in a different direction! I know one thing at the beginning of this season the Knicks and the Magic had one thing in common and that is both of us had 0% chance of making the finals. How many times will getting our asses kicked in the first round with no room for improvement satisfy fans? Being a small market we need to move heaven and earth to find a true star first and foremost. Once we have that with a good supporting cast and cap room we can talk about adding another star and competing for titles! Does anybody on here who are fans of other leagues and sports teams thing it is okay for your team to strive for mediocrity? Wow I think I just blacked out......Lol PS. I don't want to hear how some modicum of first round success is somehow going to lead a superstar to play here. That's crap stars follow other stars and we don't have the cap room.
The difference in the NFL with quarterbacks is that some teams stick with an average or flawed quarterback because you can win with an average or flawed quarterback with the right supporting cast. The Bucs and Ravens are prime examples of teams that won the big game thanks to an elite defense and solid enough offensive supporting cast. The Giants even won a pair of Super Bowls with Eli Manning.
You can’t compensate the same way in the NBA. To win the finals a team needs at least one star if not multiple stars. Small market teams like ours are unlikely to attract those that test free agency unless we happen to have someone appealing enough to join, but we clearly don’t have that right now. We have a group who’s ceiling is the 8th seed. Grit and grind is all well and good but unless one of our young players ascends to star status, we get lucky in the draft, or land someone via a trade in a rental that decides to stay, we are unlikely to win anything under the current roster construction.
Sad, but true. So that leaves us with two choices. Continue with the current roster and try to get better even though we are unlikely to do so, or blow it up and start from the ground up. Sell Vuc, Fournier etc for whatever we can get in return and build around a young core of Fultz, Isaac and Bamba. With that said I don’t see us doing that under the current front office and coaching set up. We’ll be another Charlotte type team happy to compete for a low seed.
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8 hours ago, Fultz4thewin said:Siakam got 11 shots per game last year. Isaac is at 10.3. the main difference between the two isn't role, it's efficiency.
Another factor is desire to be “the guy”. Siakam looks and sounds like someone that wants to be their main player and go to scorer. Does Isaac? I’m not convinced. In college he.could and arguably should have done more, but he didn’t look to be the number one option and go to scorer. Same here. He seems to be better suited to an important role at both ends, but from an offensive stand point I don’t think he’s shown the desire to be our go to option. Maybe that’s a lack of opportunities and not having his number called, but from my point of view Isaac seems best suited to a complementary role on the offensive end and an important and decisive role on the defensive end.
There’s nothing wrong with that style of game. All we need to do is add a go to scoring option. If we added a 20+ a night guy to pair with Fournier’s near 20 a night, then having Isaac with limited scoring is not a big deal because he’ll save us points and make up for it at the other end.
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10 hours ago, Magicman28 said:You can not build a team around role players. You get a star and build around star. It’s been about a decade since we had one.
Sometimes it comes down to how lucky you are in the draft. Some teams land those stars in the draft while others have to draft players and bet on them reaching their upside. Unfortunately post-Dwight we have had to bet on upside and to date none of our prospects have developed into stars here. Oladipo has become an all star with Indiana but neither us nor OKC believed that was happening.
In a sense I am not really jealous of the teams that drafted stars above us. The ones that bug me more are when teams like Milwaukee get Giannis, Utah get Mitchell and Phoenix get Booker (etc). When teams land star talent after we've drafted it does make me question why we didn't take a punt on them or why other teams didn't do it either, but that's the beauty of the draft.
It is going to be interesting to see how we move forwards as a team. Are we likely to become more than an 8th seed with this core of players? Unlikely. We'll likely need to sign or acquire someone to give us a chance of that next level and even that's not a guarantee. In someways it wouldn't surprise me if we start another rebuild in the near future or at least reboot the team.
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2 hours ago, Natesroom said:I think Chuma, Isaac we're good calls so far... Still out on Bamba, but not as down on him as last year. Hezonja... uggh... but to be fair we were screwed in that draft. Plus theres only like 1 Star after him but at least 5-7 Good Strong Roleplayers, who have all dropped buckets on us.
What i hate is the Management doing the same thing for the last 5 years Trading down our pick, Selling for cash considerations, Saying theres nothing to really draft after our first pick... etc.
If memory serves the only player that fell in the 2015 draft was Justise Winslow and the Celtics tried to trade up for him with Charlotte but they turned down the big offer (I bet they regret that one in hindsight!). I don't remember us being linked with Devin Booker or Myles Turner. Most mocks had us drafting Hezonja, WCS, Winslow or Mudiay. Should we in hindsight have drafted one of them instead of Hezonja? Maybe, but none of them have become franchise changing talents.
In 2018 pretty much every mock had us selecting Bamba or the occasional one had us picking Collin Sexton or had Trae Young falling to us. Should we have drafted someone else? Carter Jr is average, Sexton is flawed, Knox is average and Mikal Bridges game hasn't translated as hoped. Ok Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is showing star potential with OKC (after being traded by the Clippers) but I don't think he was realistically in consideration.
So in those two drafts, much like the others, we didn't get lucky and had to do our best in a difficult situation. We bet on upside and those players with tremendous upside come with the risk that they may never reach that upside. Most generally don't. Fingers crossed Isaac and Bamba can keep getting better and become big parts of this team's future but it's debatable whether they will ever reach their upside and become stars.
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2 hours ago, hootie249 said:I'm all in on the first round pick. Look at the Magic's pick history the last 25 years and tell me how much picks are worth again? Morris is the glue veteran every up and coming team needs, maybe he sticks around after this year. What if we hit on rehabilitating a former 8th pick. Isn't that worth trading a mid round pick for? What makes it work is we might look like a lottery team in two weeks, which is when to make this trade. Our record might be not so hot because of all the good teams we play.It makes the pick seem more valuable. Make that trade and get vooch healthy and i bet we can really take off.
I’m not against trading picks, however I would only trade for a rental player if they gave us a legitimate shot at a title. For example, I am more than happy for us to take a one year rental like Toronto did (or OKC before them with Paul George) and gamble on winning a title. If it works like it did for Toronto we’ll have a banner hanging from the ceiling. Sure it would suck to see that player then walk away and sign elsewhere, but we’d have a banner and a championship. Even if we traded for someone and failed, I could understand that because at least we’ve then tried to take that step towards title contention rather than accept mediocrity.
The problem with this deal is the rental we would be taking is a glue guy. I like the idea of Morris coming here but he’s not an all star that can take us from 8th seed to one of the top seeds. He’d probably help us solidify our position as the 7th or 8th seed. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think we should be sending picks for guys like Morris when we are in the position we are in. If we were one of the top seeds looking for a veteran to complete their starting unit, or wanting to boost our bench production, then fair enough I can understand taking a rental. But in our case I think we need to value the draft picks because even mid first round picks can turn into contributors.
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On 12/8/2019 at 4:06 PM, hootie249 said:Iv'e got one how about Aminu and Dj for Morris and Niilikina? We give them a pick too.
I don't think i need to explain Morris so ill talk about the guards.Frank has not worked out with the Knicks but he is big and his free throw percentage is around 85%.Just going by that i think we have a chance to fix his shot. Dj has been much better lately and he obviously can get hot from 3. However, he is still shooting 37% from the field for the season and is a huge liability defensively most games.
What do you think?
Ntilikina would be a useful guard off the bench. He’s a good defensive player and when he’s switched on he can make plays offensively, his issue to date has been inconsistency his desire to attack. When he does it he shows why the Knicks drafted him as high as they did, but when he doesn’t want it he’s just a defensive guard that doesn’t offer much offensively or play making wise since he’s being too tentative.
As for Morris, he’s a useful player but his numbers have been boosted because he’s the number one option on a bad team. Put him here and those numbers would arguably look like his career numbers. Not a bad thing especially if he can keep hitting threes at a better rate than his career average, but I wouldn’t want to be giving up too much pick wise to acquire a rental.
Would this deal make us better? Of course it would, but I’m not convinced the Knicks would sell for what is on offer. They would want a first round pick to help their rebuild.
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9 hours ago, Gordon MVP said:We have to get rid of one of Fournier or Vuc.
I suspect Vuc could be the one to make way as long as the team can be efficient with Birch and Bamba as the rotation at Center. We might even see Gordon make way at some point as well.
For me Fournier could work well next to Fultz as a backcourt partnership. So I’d hold onto him for the time being.
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2 hours ago, Fultz4thewin said:Many. Many people were. He was can't miss with a floor of a better hedo and a ceiling of whatever you want it to be.
There was hype and talk of a high ceiling. A lot said he was one of the best to come out of Europe. But did anyone realistically think he would take the league by storm like he has done? His numbers beat pretty much anyone’s at this point in his career. His rise has been insane and even his most avid supporters would probably say this rise has been insane and unexpected at this stage of his career.
Anyway my main point is back then it would have been unlikely to have gained 100% approval of our fan base pre-draft. After his rookie season and certainly now it would but that’s using hindsight.
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12 hours ago, Gordon MVP said:Unforgivable not to trade anyone they wanted and every pick we had for doncic
In hindsight knowing what we do now it is, however at the time how many people were saying Doncic will be an MVP caliber player?
I don’t remember anyone pre-draft coming out with that prediction, and even if they did, I don’t think anyone expected Doncic to be this good in year two. So although it would have been great to have found a way to acquire him, I suspect a lot of that desire is based on what we’ve seen to date rather than what we knew about him before he stepped foot on an NBA court because I suspect had we given up the farm for him it might not have been universally popular at the time. Now obviously if he did for us what he’s done for Dallas then those doubters and critics would soon be on board; however, the deal was never likely when Dallas got involved.
At least we are not the Sacramento Kings because they had the pick to take Doncic without giving anything up and they went for Marvin Bagley, apparently because their GM had some issue with Doncic’s father. Now that’s a real low blow for their fans because Doncic should have been the pick for them rather than Bagley who didn’t really fit what they needed.
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On 8/23/2019 at 10:46 PM, ~O~ said:What a miracle. The Lakers signed Dwight! They're going to be terrible. Woot.
Only way I see them being terrible is if LeBron and Davis get injured. Those two players, when healthy, are good enough to carry a team to .500 or better.
Is Dwight a poor signing? We'll see. He's certainly well past his best. But he does fit a need for them because Davis doesn't want to play center, he wants to play power forward. So if he gets his wish, the Lakers will need someone to play center and a combination of McGee and Dwight is the best they can do with their budget.
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Put aside the athletic debate for a minute. The real question here is does the addition of Westbrook make us a title contender, or does it merely keep us in a play off spot but not much more?
For me, I suspect it would be the latter rather than the former. Ok if we are at the dance we have a chance to win, but realistically we aren't winning with the addition of Westbrook. I can see the appeal of adding Westbrook and pinning our hopes on his production combined with our lengthy defensive players and their gritty defense, but like I said, we aren't winning with that. Hell, we might even have to sacrifice some of those players to get Westbrook because in doubt they'd want Augustin, Fournier and Vuc.
I could understand going for Westbrook if we were in the Clippers position. For instance we are trading for him to pair with another all star to secure their addition. However, that's not the case so while I like Westbrook, I'd prefer to see us stay out of it and let someone like Miami take him on and watch how Westbrook and Butler get on as a duo...
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2 hours ago, Mauro Pedrosa said:I'd love Ntilikina here. His defense is insane. Offense is trash but at least he has something we can work with
Realistically that's his selling point at the minute because the rest of his game doesn't have much going for it. He's a streaky shooter, drifts in and out of games offensively, and at times doesn't look like he has the fire at the offensive end. In two years with the Knicks he has never really been able to carve out duties as a lead guard despite opportunity to do so.
Ok, if the buying price for us is nominal - fair enough. However, I don't see Ntilikina being more than a defensively minded 2-guard with limited offensive ability. Unless he finds that fire to want it offensively and starts knocking down shots consistently, but I doubt that happens and that's likely why the Knicks want to move on.
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3 minutes ago, Originalticketholder said:My year includes the playoffs. Vuc, the fake All Star=final grade of an F. Raptors flew by Vuc. 4 year $100 million for a dinosaur is not prudent.
It makes sense for the team to try and build on their play off appearance. Sure we could try and revamp the team a little bit by moving on from Vuc to Bamba, but if holding onto Vuc and Ross gives us a chance to appear in the play offs again then that's a good thing for this team and its young players. We can always make future moves to revamp the roster as teams like the Raptors have shown, or the Pacers for that matter who have gone from a PG13 based team to an Oladipo based team.
Signing Vuc and Ross makes sense unless you want to revamp the team and how it plays.
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41 minutes ago, TrueMagicFan07 said:KD should've stayed with Golden State. Who knows how long it will be before he is able to play again. And Kyrie is injury prone. So, good luck with that, KD.
I'd tend to agree, but maybe he wants a move back to the east coast since that's where he's from? Or perhaps he wants to prove he can win a title outside of the Warriors?
The easy route for him would have been to re-sign with the Warriors because whether he returns to KD level play or regresses, he would have three all stars alongside him and would be on one of the best teams. So had he stayed he could have taken it easy in a sense, but by going to the Nets he's going to be "the guy" again when he's back and taking on a new challenge.
I can see the appeal of both options. Had I been him I would have stayed with the Warriors, but that's because I prefer Cal to NYC.
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Just now, All Eyes On Me said:Every source is saying the Lakers are the current Kawhi favorite
On the one hand I’d prefer to see him stay with the Raptors or go to the Clippers rather than going to form a big three with the Lakers, but on the other it’s a totally understandable move because it should take a lot of pressure off him. He’s struggled with injuries in recent years and sat twenty odd games this season, joining the Lakers should take the do it all burden off him (same goes with LeBron and AD), and perhaps that will help keep them fresher for the season.
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1 minute ago, TreyMachine said:Knicks just struck out hard in their hopes of revitalizing their fan base. They must have distinction out the wazoo for players to avoid there for often despite its obvious media market.
With an owner like James Dolan I don’t blame players for wanting to stay away. Their fans are passionate and they do play in one of the great arenas in a huge market, but with the level of dysfunction they have within their front office and ownership, they aren’t really an appealing team to play for at this time. Maybe they’ll be more appealing if Dolan sells up and they get a new owner and they shake things up?
2021 NBA Draft Thread
in Orlando Magic Forum
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In an ideal world that will be the case, but our team does have a tendency to acquire players that take those minutes away.
My only concern with a front court of Isaac, Okeke and Bamba is can they keep up offensively?
Their defensive potential is excellent, but the offensive end is questionable.