JJZFL

It's always interesting to see how we look when the games really count and both teams are trying hard to win. Also to find out which predictions were accurate and which weren't. Having said that, my expectations are very low going into the season. I will be pleased if we're more fun to watch than last year, and that's a very low bar.

Unless it's an open fracture or has some other serious complication, you stabilize it and then you have some time. It's not the kind of surgery you normally do as an emergency in the middle of the night. As long as he doesn't put any weight on it, sitting on a plane is not really different from sitting at home or sitting in a hospital.

Payton has never shown in the past that he can make the players around him better. There is absolutely no reason to expect that to change this year.

Not if the team wants to move quickly. He walks the ball up the court and makes his first pass with 14 seconds left on the shot clock. I'm also not buying predictions about us making the playoffs. I still think the over/under of 33.5 is about right, and I would not predict more than 35 wins for this team at the most. Team is somewhat unbalanced, with a logjam at SG and center, and not much depth at the forward positions. I recall the general consensus after we added Afflalo being that another move had to be coming because we had too many SG's, and Afflalo might never get to play as things stood. However, nothing happened to change that.

Don't forget the new uniforms. That's even more important than all the things you mentioned.

Totally agree. Second game of a preseason back to back is hardly worth losing sleep for.

Kaspersky the friendly ghostsky

Agreed. Also, the outcome may not mean anything, but when it's starters vs. starters, you can get some idea of how they're playing.

Hezonja not in the top 10 of the Magic rotation in this preseason game, apparently. Even though we're shooting like 2 for 20 from 3-point range. Vogel must feel he's too much of a defensive liability.

Isaac and Simmons bringing some life to the Magic. Gordon also looking good offensively

We were essentially playing a development level team on Thursday. Dallas kept their top 7 players out.

Our starting five looks like the same crappy bunch this third quarter. Three turnovers and a three point air ball from Elfrid.

I'm pretty sure that we have one too. I don't think they're a good idea for anyone

Well, we don't want to draw too many conclusions from the first preseason game where the Magic played 16 players and almost no one got more than 20 minutes. That being said, at some point there needs to be some 3-point shooting or it will be another long season.

So I looked at the schedule and counted 13 back to backs, not including one in the preseason. I could be off by one or two, wasn't being super careful, but I thought the idea was to get rid of most of them for this season?