Just a regular Magic fan

Yup! I am excited about Flores.

It’s funny you mentioned watching our bench. I usually save the game and watch it around 0400 when I get up for work. Since I am pinched for time I fast forward through our bench time ( nothing exciting to see right now) to make up for it. Now, I am going to have to slow down, lol.

Cool! Thanks for taking the time to explain what happened.

Just curious, does anyone know if Fultz or AG should have stayed with Fox on his last drive? Both guys went out to the perimeter to guard Bjelica and left Fox wide open for an easy drive to the hoop. Should Fultz stay with Fox, or should they have switched and let the taller AG defend the basket?

Take care, dude.

Is it Vooch who didn't know what to do, or is it his teammates? Others, like Fultz, found themselves in similar situations.

LOL! No doubt. He just seems to be getting better and better. :-)

Maybe Weltman is thinking about it, but I am not the one saying they can't play together. I think we should hold off on any trade including AG, JI, or Fultz. Going forward, I just don't know how we are going to turn the corner. We need to get lucky somehow and find a diamond in the rough or something, LOL!

Now that it has been mentioned, it does seem like it. If JI is going to be our cutter then what type of skill set are they looking for to replace AG so there isn't duplication? Any thoughts on who? It seems like it would be a buyers market for AG. Maybe we should hold off and not force it.

Nice! Great to read about Fultz. Now I have something to look forward to when I watch the game tonight after I get home from work!

I am beginning to wonder if we are going even make a trade. Part of me wants to let things ride as they are because a trade might get my hopes up, but not really improve things in the end.

I agree. Weltman shouldn't overreact. Stick with the plan. If we don't make the playoffs, so be it. This had been a bad year for injuries. Let Fultz, AG, etc. continue to play and get better and next year we can regroup when we have more flexibility.

Hopefully, we get good news regarding JI's knee today because I think he will make great strides with his offense after an off-season of working on it this upcoming summer. I think the natural ability is there; he just has to hone it.

isn’t he hurt all the time?

No doubt this was a tough one to lose. This team becomes more baffling by the game.

On the surface, it seems, Iwundu and the others at the end of the bench seem to have regressed under this coaching staff. I am not sure if it is because they have plateaued or if it is just poor coaching, however.

How do you feel about Weltman? Is he someone who can help us be contenders again?

Is Weltman still hamstrung by our cap situation, or does he have the flexibility to do something? I realize he inherited some issues, but I probably need to temper my expectations on whether he is the right guy to turn our franchise around.

Just skimmed through the game. It looked to me like last year's offense with Vooch in the post either playing inside out or trying to score. The nice thing though is we have added Fultz to the mix and he is driving and dishing back out. He turned the ball over a bit, but Chicago has guys with quick hands and that's not something he can't clean up anyway. Overall, it was a nice game and it seems this is who we are. I liked Coach Cliffs closing rotations. He kept DJ and AG on the bench and brought in AG after he was nice and rested. Unless, someone really steps up and emerges or until we start playing better team basketball then we probably won't get anywhere if we make the playoffs.

I think the big question for me is can our so-called top of the roster guys get it done? If the answer is no, then maybe we should trade away who we can and regroup. I really enjoyed watching the Magic when we had some young up and comers. However, that doesn't mean they will eventually put it all together. We kept AG and traded away Oladipo. One guy turned the corner, and the other guy regressed. That said, I am going to try and be patient and see if we can get on a roll again this year. If I wake up and check the message board and see that we made a trade, I am not going to be upset about that either unless it involves Fultz or JI. I can certainly see it both ways. I see the need to be patient and I can also see that our team will never be more than a round 1 playoff team. We need to set the bar higher.

IMO, we are a team that plays decent at home and not so good on the road. Purgatory might be a perfect definition. Based on how bad other teams are, we are just good enough to probably miss the draft lottery, but bad enough to not make much noise if we do make the playoffs. We are stuck in mediocrity. All I can hope for is Weltman knows what the heck he is doing. However, I am beginning to have doubts. How can an organization have a philosophy where their player prototype is long players who play good defense and not have a very good program in place to teach these guys how to shoot? JI is shooting bricks. AG is shooting bricks. Vooch is shooting bricks. MCW is shooting bricks. Birch is shooting bricks, Aminu was shooting bricks before he got hurt. IMO, these guys are bricklayers, and the foundation for this team is built on sand with everything crumbling down around them. Other teams are shooting lights out because one glaring weakness we have is defending the pick and roll. Not that it's easy to guard against, but with our inconsistent offense we can't keep up. I am trying to be patient, but this team is frustrating as hell right now!

The key for me is, Fultz is going to feed them, so they need to finish when they get an opportunity. He can't do it all. These guys fight the easy stuff and make scoring harder on themselves than they have too.

It's weird. I mean, practice is practice and even if AG wasn't working on the things Coach Cliff wanted him too, he should have gotten better at some of the things he worked on, right? As you have pointed out, AG's strength is as a cutter, which thankfully means he doesn't have to dribble much. I can see him wanting to expand his game, but if I would suggest a guy to work with on building his dribbling skills it would be Oladipo. I am not saying that with his height that he will ever be as good as a shorter/ smaller guy but he can still improve as time goes on. IMO, AG needs to get back to basics and stick to his strengths as a cutter and 3 and D guy during our games and work on his ball-handling skills as sort of a side project. Oladipo Dribbling Drills

All of them. I want players who make an impact and provide a spark when their number is called. None of them can shoot.

Just a guess, but late in the game when he was waiting for an inbound pass, it looked to me like AG's lower back was hurting him. It wasn't like he was trying to catch his breath, but more like he had a hard time straightening up. I have the same problem when my lower back acts up. Maybe he is trying to play through it, and since it is affecting his shot, he is deferring to others and letting them make plays. Of course, I could be totally wrong. They held out JI for a tight hammy, so if AG's back is tightening up, they probably would have held him out, too.