JJZFL

You could be right. However, we currently have a guy most people think is strong on defense but not very good on offense, Dedmon, and he hardly gets into games. It is possible that Skiles doesn't think Dedmon is disciplined enough in his defensive schemes, I don't know about that, but it looks like Skiles may want more than just a solid defender.

Unfortunately not so easy to do. Just putting a geezer or two out there won't help, we've already seen that with Frye. It will need to someone with decent talent, and skills that compliment what the Magic have now. That's not so easy to find.

True. But that implies his strategy depended on luck.

Fair enough. You don't believe in the concept of teams developing winning or losing cultures, so that's never concerned you regarding our rebuilding process. I do believe in that concept, and so have felt differently. Others can read this and make up their own minds (or not care about the issue at all

And that scenario would in fact be a major problem from a Henny standpoint. Put out a very bad product for 3-4 years, then have little to show for it at the end of that time frame. I think if that's the way this turns out, he's gone.

So.....I'm not insane. I'm a little surprised that you, as a moderator, throw such terms around so casually in what's supposed to be a friendly discussion. But anyway....... I made two points, neither of which is directly addressed in your post: 1) Youth often but not always correlates with inexperience. In our case, our players may be young but the starters have reasonable NBA experience. Your chart above doesn't correct for that, so I don't know if the young teams listed above with bad records also had very little NBA experience. 2) Nowhere in my post did I come close to suggesting that any time a team goes from good to bad or vice versa that it's due to mental factors. There can be a hundred different reasons, and every situation is different. I was talking about our team only. The fact is that we allowed ourselves, for strategic reasons, to have the worst record in the league over the past 3 years. Most of our players have grown up in that system. They have seen loss after loss. When games are close, they have learned through experience that they usually lose. That's the "losing culture" that a number of us expressed concern about throughout this process. In the Charlotte game, for example, as things were starting to unravel, you could see the team tightening up. Everyone was playing not to be the one to cause a loss, rather than to take the game to the opponent. Those kinds of mental habits are difficult to break.

I'm getting a little tired of the "youth" excuse which it seems like we've been using for 4 years now. There's youth and then there's NBA experience. I don't think anyone would assert that a team of 28 year old rookies would somehow be good just because they aren't young. Let's look at the starting line-up we've used until the past few games: Vooch - 5 years in NBA Harris - 5 years in NBA Dipo - 3 years in NBA Payton - 2 years in NBA Frye - 100 years in NBA Now from an NBA experience standpoint, these guys are not that "young". How many years should it take before they have enough experience so that "youth" isn't an issue anymore? And what about all the talk before the season about turning young players into an asset by using their energy to swarm on defense and push the offense? Even if we think that because they are younger, they may be more inconsistent shooters, why would that also translate into being inconsistent on defense? I disagree with your earlier assessment. This team has mental issues that have nothing to do with age. When things were going well, the issues were suppressed. But when the pressure gets ratcheted up because they hit a bad patch, they've been conditioned to collapse. And that's what we're seeing.

Say what you want about Skiles but he typically has made teams respectable in his first couple of years with them. The questions about him were more about whether he could get teams beyond an early round playoff exit, but not whether he could make rapid improvements. Problem with this team is likely at least partially personnel, but also the losing mentality developed these past 3 years. Now, when the going gets tough at the end of games, these players expect to lose, because that's what they've experienced for most of their careers.

We knew that was likely going in to the season. We didn't get a good PF and our interior defense was beyond awful last year. Catman and others were talking about how it didn't matter, it's all small ball now, etc, but we can see that it really does matter.

Skiles was pretty unhappy with his defense though. Said in the presser he should have pulled him earlier.

Shhhhhhh Ruining the positive vibes from my post.

On the bright side: I'm personally guaranteeing we don't lose Thursday.

I agree. In fact we're extremely creative when it comes to mistakes.

I think it's a misquote. The second part is supposed to say "as bad as you think", not "as bad as youth".

Teach a team to lose for three years and don't be surprised when they get good at it.

I was thinking exactly the same thing. Yeah, we're ahead, but it's hard to win giving up 64 points in a half. We need to play better defense second half or I also think we'll run out of gas and lose this game.

Offense is good but how many games can we win giving up 30 points per quarter? We need better defense.

LOL +1

An excerpt, I hope I'm allowed to post this, if not moderator please take it down: "For three straight seasons, the Sixers have plainly and publicly tried to lose. Then again, the Sixers have just been more blatant about it than other teams – like, for instance, the Magic during the early years of their rebuild. Granted, it all sounds good when some young, sharp, analytical NBA general manager starts talking about acquiring assets, accumulating draft picks, obtaining cap flexibility, establishing a culture and building a young core of players who will grow up together and become champions. Fans of Orlando, Philly and other tanking teams are always told to “trust the process” when really there are no analytics that say the tanking process actually wins championships. Here’s all you need to know: Defending champion Golden State didn’t tank to get league MVP Steph Curry; they drafted him No. 7 after all the tankers passed on him. Sadly, fans have been brainwashed into accepting this misguided notion that the worse their team is today, the better it will be tomorrow. "

Double post

I agree with pretty much all of this column by Bianchi in the Orlando Sentinel. Unfortunately, you need a subscription to access: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/orlando-magic/os-philadelphia-76ers-mike-bianchi-0121-20160120-column.html

I think that lineup actually needs two more bigs in place of Mario and Appling. That way they could all lurch around the court and step on the other teams players.

Agreed. This far fetched idea has probably already received a lot more discussion than it deserved here.

The way we're losing now, and some of the teams we're losing to, are very different from the way we lost those early games. Back then we were fighting for everything and the team was fun to watch. Now, they're playing more like the JV version from last year when they were unwatchable. Can't really spin this to make it sound like everything's fine and right on schedule.

Leaves us without a backup big man off the bench unless Skiles starts to play Dedmon again. Frye as the backup center is asking for trouble.