JJZFL

I think this is a great and underrecognized point. If we're not winning a lot of games, at least lets be exciting and with some hope for the future. Worst of both worlds is to be losing with players who have no potential for getting better.

Add: “Weak shooting skills a plus”

At the end of the game, when the pressure is on, we just stop moving the ball

Nah. He does this for a few games and then looks lethargic again. Was that way before Covid also. I keep hoping it will change.

What do you know? Second unit can play ok without Ross taking half the shots.

I think we should keep every single player we have now until they're in their 40's with no changes. That will give the team time to mesh.

Amen to that

Let us hope this is for external consumption as a negotiating ploy. You obviously don’t want to let potential trade partners know that you really want to make a deal. However, having watched this front office over the past few years, they probably really mean it, unfortunately.

I think we need some more grizzled veterans on the cusp of retirement :)

All of that is true but the one thing Bamba can control without any help from anybody else is his intensity and effort. I saw a little of that from him a few weeks ago but it seems to have waned again. Without consistent effort, I doubt any team would give him much playing time.

It’s funny in hindsight to look at some of the responses to your post from around the same time.

My answers with half the season behind us. I know, I’m cheating: No Unclear due to a new unexpected injury Look promising but too early to tell. Okeke in particular inhibited by his teammates who don’t pass him the ball. Regarding the last question, partly but not only due to injuries, it’s hard to get excited about watching Magic games at this point. Not enough teamwork.

Our lack of ball movement is really glaringly obvious to everyone except our announcers. You have two guys out there at any given time who take most of the shots. We practically never move the ball from one side of the court to the other. When you watch our dribble based offense with one to three guys touching the ball on each offensive possession, and compare it to the other team it just jumps out at you.

I don't agree with the bolded part, any more than I think Ross should take contested off balance shots rather than pass to an open teammate. Bacon, Ennis, and even Aminu have all shown they can score when they get an open look. When Vuch and Fournier play 2 v 5 on offense, everyone else's offense suffers, they never get in rhythm, and the other team makes Fournier take difficult shots that he's more likely to miss. It's a lose-lose approach. The other night Ennis got like 11 points in a few minutes when they finally started passing to him for open shots.

Sorry didn't see this thread. I will start looking for them going forward. Very nicely done TMF.

I’ve always liked Steele. Turner on the other hand is a disaster, and I think he’s gradually rubbing off on Steele.

+1 from me. It’s a team game. Playing selfishly makes all the other players worse. Never liked this “torch” business. Encourages everyone to rely on one person.

So tired of the announcers making a big deal out of one basket when we're getting our you know what's kicked. It's not about one individual or how many points they get, or a nice dunk. It's about W's. Instead of raving about occasional good plays, there ought to be more analysis about the things this team is doing wrong. There is no shortage of material to work with.

Can’t blame you for any of those. However, there were better players later in the draft than the ones we took in the two cases you mentioned, so there was more to it than just our record.

We had 15 losses in those 20 games though. My point is that bringing back Vuch didn’t hurt our chances at getting a high draft pick. Actually the opposite, at that time we were playing better before he came back.

What was our record in those 20 games, though? As I recall, we played our best basketball of the year during the 5 or so weeks Vuch was out, winning almost half of them. When Vuch came back we promptly lost 6 games in a row and were actually a lot worse.

Was about to say the same thing. His trade value would be going down based on his recent play. He had a stretch of a few games where he looked ready to play, and played with some intensity. Remember when he played an entire fourth quarter and looked really good? People were rightly criticizing Clifford for not capitalizing on that by playing Mo more. But then for whatever combination of reasons it didn’t last. Very disappointing!

On the bright side he wouldn’t try to injure our players anymore. I say go for it!

Hahaha.

You’re right but it doesn’t have to be that way. Clifford just needs to get a few guys (hint: the ones you mentioned) to pass more.