JJZFL

Easy to find something to feel good about. We won the 4th quarter 31-22, totally dominating them on both ends of the floor. I'm sure we can do some advanced analytics to find lineups that had fantastic stats in the 4th. The Detroit nightlife is also a factor. Once we get into less cosmopolitan and distracting cities, we might do better.

Hopefully someone will do a game thread for tonight

Careful about assessing the fourth quarter. The Heat were pretty far ahead by the star of the fourth and all they had to do was maintain the lead. I agree with you about 1st and 2nd quarters though.

How do I collect?

All the starters with around 35 minutes or more in this fairly lopsided loss. I don't think they will last the season playing those kinds of minutes.

LOL. Well done, Mauro.

Payton please get ball rolling (so to speak) by posting the first game thread tomorrow. I'm sure others will do it for future games.

Agree with all that. My only concern is about use of Ibaka. He's clearly our best player. The downside to that is that we are likely to be a lot worse in games he doesn't play. I just don't know how well he'll hold up to the pounding of the regular season if he's out there for 35+ a game. But Vogel will have a hard time taking him out in the second half of any close game. The strong temptation is going to be to keep him in there. Again, we saw that even in the preseason.

Assuming Ibaka can handle all the minutes we're apparently going to throw at him without injury. Heck we were using him 35+ per game even in preseason. Without him our defense drops quite a bit.

I guess we're in the last lull before the season starts. Not much to talk about in the six days after pre-season ends.

Good description of the game, I agreed with everything you wrote until the last sentence. David Steele is a consummate professional. It's his misfortune to be paired with a bozo like Jeff Turner, who will talk about what a great game some Magic player is having while the team is getting blown out. Turner is the worst color commentator I've ever heard in any professional sport.

Wonder if it's due to the Orlando nightlife?

They are being paid very well to concentrate on basketball. Far from being 24/7 robots, they've just had almost half a year off where they didn't even have to think about basketball. Now they're back a few weeks, are trying to develop some chemistry with multiple new players and a new coach, and we're saying they don't even have enough discipline to avoid staying out late on the handful of nights prior to the few preseason games?? Sorry but I think that's ridiculous, our expectations have to be much higher than that.

They had an entire 6 month off season to enjoy nightlife or whatever else they wanted. There are a grand total of 7 (since one was cancelled due to storm) preseason games. The games don't count in the standings but have some value in terms of getting the team ready for the season. They have a new coach who the players are presumably trying to impress and build relationships with. Are you telling me the team doesn't care enough, and can't focus enough, to avoid staying out late (and potentially getting inebriated) on the nights before one of the few preseason games? That would actually be a much bigger concern to me than any aspect of their play. These are highly paid professional basketball players we're talking about, not high schoolers.

Gotta give you an "A" for creativity in the excuse department.

No. It's on regular TV, Fox Sports, starts at 7:30.

Biyombo and Ibaka each with more than 36 minutes. Fournier at 35 minutes. No one on Atlanta came close to that amount of time, Hardaway at 30 minutes and everyone else below that. I'm assuming Vogel felt those guys needed the playing time for some reason. Even with our starters in that much we still lost.

611 pages. Heck of a long off season thread

This is a tough one because there are so many changes to the team and it's hard to know how everything fits together. The challenge could certainly be offense, because with Payton and Gordon in together you have two guys who are reluctant to shoot who the other team can sag off, making it much harder for everyone else. Bottom line: We win somewhere between 20 and 60 games this season. We either make the playoffs or we don't. How's that for going out on a limb?

Well if team cap limits jump again, as expected, the max per team will go up to 370 million. So the Magic should have about 300 million to work with. With that they should be able to sign each of the trainers to a max contract of 40 million per year, and still have enough left to go after Kareem.

Actually we need God to tell a few players to sign with us. Anyone want to propose a list? We can then try to have it forwarded upstairs......

I think your series of posts are very well stated, and a refreshing dose of reality in this forum. I've been saying for years that Rob has been getting way too much credit here, since anyone can create a terrible team, but the real test is whether it can be changed into a good team. That remains to be seen, but this "rebuild" is starting to get a little long in the tooth. Add in the risk of developing a losing culture, which Payton4thewin doesn't believe in, but Skiles certainly does, and we've got a risky situation where this team could be bad for years to come. In response to making these points, I've taken a lot of abuse in these forums, but nothing in the past few years has changed my opinion. The burden of proof is squarely on Hennigan.

No one has ever replaced any GM anywhere because a superstar would then appear out of thin air. You replace your GM if you don't think his vision will get you to a winning team and potentially a championship. So far Henny's record is not promising and as the years go by at some point there will have to be results.

Well said. The only area I might question is your comment about having enough shooting. Even with three guys who at least have to be guarded, it's still gonna be tough if the defense can sag way off the other two. We saw that last year. Thanks for your thoughtful reply.

I don't have a strong opinion about this deal either way. But unless more moves are made, I see some problems with the current roster: 1. Ibaka has apparently said he doesn't want to play as a 4. While it seems that he and Vuch might actually fit together fairly well, Vuch certainly can't play the 4. Therefore many people are assuming that Vuch is gone, which may be the case. 2. A roster of Ibaka - Gordon - Payton - X - X has 3 guys who don't shoot very well on the floor at the same time. I know Ibaka is not a terrible shooter but having him pounding away from the outside doesn't seem like anyone's vision of success. How do you win in today's NBA with 3 mediocre shooters on the floor at the same time? 3. I've agreed with a lot of HeHateMe's analyses in the past, but I think in this case, he's been completely forgetting about Oadipo's defense. Skiles, who didn't complement players all that much, was clear that he thought Oladipo was our best and most consistent defender. On the other hand, Mario often got torched on defense, and while Fournier gave it his best, he doesn't have the same physical attributes that Dipo had to keep up with faster/stronger players. 4. A lot seems to be hanging on a very raw and unproven second year player, Hezonja. Is that really what anyone wants the upcoming season to depend upon?