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At this point, Hennigan hasn't proved anything yet, beyond being able to build a very young team that doesn't win many games. IF the team starts to show development and improvement, and it turns out Hennigan created the foundation for long-term success, he will deserve a ton of credit. Until then, I don't think he's "proven" very much.

We'll see. Magic have been young and athletic for the past two years and it hasn't translated into great (or even good) defense.

So much for getting rid of all the veterans and watching the "young guns" develop. Given the age of the player involved here, this one reminds me a little bit of Rashard Lewis. It's true that the money won't affect us this year, but that $8M may limit our options 2-3 years down the line. Hope it works out ok.

LOL. I was thinking exactly the same thing.

I'm not certain there will be that much interest in him.

Ummm, we did have among the worst record in the league these past two years. People stating that aren't negative voices, they're just stating a fact that everyone acknowledges. The differences of opinion are about where we're going in the future, and what the timeline is. Prior to last season, most people were saying we would start to turn it around after this past draft. Now I'm hearing it's a four year plan before we get better. If the team starts showing improvement and it looks like they're developing some type of character, some identity, then I think people will be patient. If we have another year like the last two, I think people will be wondering what the Magic are doing, and the fan base will continue to wither.

Magic often went small last year, partly because we didn't have a true back up center, so we used O'Quinn when we took out Vuc. It didn't usually work out very well defensively, we were beaten badly off the boards when using small lineups. It looks right now like we could have the same problem this year.

Not well at all.

Otis was a GM. There are 30 of them. Some are a lot better than others. I don't know where Hennigan fits in right now. I was one of the few last summer willing to post in this forum that I had some doubts about the strategy of allowing the team to become terrible for an unknown period of time. I got totally blasted, with everyone else saying that it was the only possible strategy that made sense, and that we'd have a dramatic turnaround after we got some great players during the totally loaded draft this year. I'm still reserving judgment on Hennigan. I think he's getting way too much credit in this forum for being some kind of a genius. Maybe he will turn out to be, but he hasn't proved it so far. It's not like he had a track record as a GM before he came here.

Usually you look to your stars and veterans for leadership. This will be difficult for the Magic since they don't really have either. They have brought in two older players but neither has any history with the team. The rest are all young, and no one has shown star ability yet. No one is going to want to be "led" by rookies, even if they've only been in the league a year or two (could occasionally make an exception for an acknowledged outstanding talent like Lebron, but again that's not our situation). A lot of it may fall on the coach, who's not that far removed from his playing days. JV has shown great rapport with his players. Whether or not he's a good coach, however, is still very much an open question as far as I'm concerned.

Leaving aside the discussion about whether the team is profitable or not, I think the assumption that the fan loss is temporary is questionable, at best. As I've said before, this is not NY or LA or Boston, where support of their professional franchises is a given, no matter how bad they get. The rapid loss of TV audience and season ticket holders I mentioned in my earlier post emphasizes that point. Getting those casual fans back once they "tune out" the Magic won't be so easy, and will be more difficult the longer the Magic stay bad. In the meantime, sooner or later low levels of fan support have to impact on profitability.

Problem here is that is doesn't matter what the few die-hard fans who frequent this board think. Sure, blast the OP for not being enough of a fan. But when you've lost 20% of your season ticket holders and 60% of your TV audience in just two years, the OP has a lot of company. I posted multiple times last summer, and got blasted for it on this board, that allowing ourselves to become this bad for a prolonged period of time is a risky strategy, and that as far as I was concerned, neither our coach nor our GM had yet earned the kind of credit they are being given here. I can only hope we get better soon, but I don't have any confidence that we will.

That's the key issue. And I don't agree with that assessment. I don't see us a rookie or two away from becoming a good team. We could be bad for quite a long time.

I don't know about the particular phrase under discussion. But there is no question that Turner is the worst color announcer I've ever heard. I hope he's only in that role temporarily.

I'm not sure we made a single substitution in the second half, so we were apparently showcasing all five of them. We're going to get outrebounded every night when we play 3 guards, one small forward, and one power forward. Give the Magic credit for playing hard, but the team is too small to win, even if they play well otherwise. I guess O'Quinn must be in the doghouse or something.

Wow. Anything less than blind faith in an untested GM and coach apparently don't play well on this forum. My comment speaks for itself. We succeeded in creating a team that had the worst record in basketball last year. That is a matter of record. Obviously it was done with a purpose in mind, as part of a rebuilding strategy. But it hasn't worked yet. Until it does, I will withhold judgment on Henningan. I live in Daytona. I've been following the Magic since 1989. I've seen plenty of different plans. Some were better than others. None have yet gotten us to a championship.

Not going to respond to your entire rant but I will make a couple of points: Your quote about "everyone agrees and is super nice about everything" being the definition of a civil discussion. Who are you quoting, and who's definition is that? Your own? Talk about setting up straw men. In 2 of your recent rants (I won't call them posts) you use the words "stupid", "ignorant", "insane", "lying", some of them multiple times. Step back for a minute: don't you think that kind of language is excessive in a forum discussing a basketball team? That's what I'm referring to when I say you're incapable of a civil discussion. It's an incredible shame that I have to explain this to you. As far as your comment about my lying: When I made my original comment in this thread, my point was exactly what I've said it was a number of times. I'm saying it's too early to judge Hennigan. Period. You can decide to bring up a four month old topic if you like, but I had no intention of doing so. To accuse me of lying based on something like that is so absurd that it makes me question your grasp on reality.

Never said he was doing an awful job. Said it was too early to praise him for doing a great job. Jury is still out on that. There is a difference.

Everything you said is true. But still, there should be some expectation of progress every year. Some sign that the young players and the team are developing and improving. To me, that should be a key milestone for this season. We have a young and athletic team. I don't think it's unreasonable to have an expectation that their defense, for example, will be better this year than it was last year. Even with a bad team, there have to be some standards of performance that you can hold the coach to. I also was surprised about how upbeat JV was after the last loss during the post-game. I'm not sure that sends the right message to his young team. He doesn't have to be critical to be disappointed. He could say something like: "I was really pleased with our effort, but a loss is a loss, and I won't be satisfied until we win, so we have to work harder and keep getting better".

As usual, distorting what I said in order to take some cheap shots. Why can't you have a civil discussion? At any rate, my first post in this thread was mainly in response to someone who called Hennigan a "genius". My main point all along has been that it's premature to call anyone a "genius" or to designate anything as a success. Despite what you said, acquiring young players, draft picks and CAP flexibility are only means to an end, and not ends in themselves. If they don't lead to a good team in a finite period of time, then the GM and coach haven't been successful, no matter how many young players they've acquired. The heart and hustle team was competitive, fun to watch, and against all expectations nearly made the playoffs. Last year's team wasn't too much fun to watch. Too early to say about this year's.

As I said in my post, discussing this issue is pointless, since it's rehashing stuff that's already done. Keep firing away if you like, but it will be a one person discussion. Again, my main point is that creating a bad team is not the objective. It's supposed to be the means by which the team becomes good or great in a finite period of time. Success should and will be measured by how successfully that goal is achieved, or not achieved.

Sorry you don't like my comment. Your "TrustInHenny" moniker suggests that you may not be totally objective about this stuff, though. To answer DOM's question, there are of course other potential rebuilding models aside from becoming the worst team in the league. The Boston Celtics added some great players in 2007 and went from nowhere to NBA champion. And the 1999-2000 Magic were in a rebuilding mode and yet were able to field the "heart and hustle" team who were competitive and entertaining to watch. Of course, the current Magic situation is not exactly the same as either of those two examples. Otis did leave a big mess. And no two situations are ever going to be exactly the same. But there is usually more than one approach. This discussion, however, is of no value. The Magic have chosen their route to rebuild. What's done is done. Let's stipulate for the sake of discussion that this was the best choice they had. So let's look at what they've got now. They have a very young and untested GM, a young coach who had never been a head coach before last season, and a young team that right now isn't very good. That's all we've got to judge them by. Will they become good or even great in the next 2-3 years? That's the gamble in all of this. If they succeed, then I'll agree that Henny deserves our trust. But until then, it's way premature to designate anyone as a genius, or even a success. Just because they're young and new doesn't mean they'll succeed.

Does make you wonder about the coaching, doesn't it? JV said he planned only to use Nicholson when a certain Indiana player was playing (Scola). So he essentially delegated decisions about which of his players would play to the opposing coach. Given the way Nicholson was playing, I wouldn't have put Scola in either.

So you create the "worst team in basketball", and that makes you a genius? Sign me up. I'm sure there are a lot of people here who could put together a team that wouldn't win a single game.

A little early to start with congratulations. Team is 1-4 in preseason, granted the games don't count, but why would we be giving anyone a medal? Real test is whether team shows reasonable signs of progress this season and next season. If they do, I'll be as much in favor of awards as anyone. Youth and potential by themselves don't mean much. There have to be results at some point.