Captain Hi-Top

We already established, prior to the season, that his salary is a non issue based on our overall salary and his contract length. While I agree that his overall level of play needs to pick up, I also suspect that it will as he continues to adjust to his new team. However, that's not what was being addressed. What I was addressing was the complaints that he needs to "start shooting better". Again, I ask, what are realistic expectations regarding his shooting?

Last season he attempted 5.3 and made 2 three pointers per game. So far this season, he's attempted 4.9 and made 2 per game, for a slightly better shooting percentage from behind the arc. Maybe we need to adjust our expectations. True, his FG% is slightly lower, but not by much and he's taking fewer overall shots per game as well. What are you guys expecting?

You can see him swing his elbow back right to his face. No foul? ***** that, someone better make that right.

I think they did earn a bit of credibility with the Ray Rice thing.

Because THAT"S how you get ants!

It's kind of funny when you step back from it.

I always wondered if Otis had an account here...

The third year of a massive rebuild where we jettisoned arguable one of the best players in the league. I believe SVG and BH came in to "slightly" different situations, and if you think these three situations are the same, then you have bigger problems. I thought we all kind of assumed we ran Dipo at the point last year to help him advance his ball handling skills and drive him more toward a D. Wade type role down the road, not to be our long term solution at point guard. The fact that we then went out and drafted a PG is not a "stop the bus" moment, it's a natural progression for building this team long term. Part of the rebuild process was a focus on acquiring talent, not fleshing out a complete and viable long term roster. That's what's been going on, but now, with this season, you should start to see a change. A focus more on identifying those long term assets to the team, and the short term assets that could net us proper pieces when we're ready. These are things that you shouldn't have to be reminded of, being here long term and suffering through this rebuild with the rest of us. Drop the panic attack, settle down and strap in.

I edited his post to remove the original phrase he used and replace it with something mundane and nonsensical. It seems I neglected to hit the "edited by" button to show this.

There are some established, active people who have sold their tickets from time to time, and I've dealt with a couple of them. The one that caused a problem was a "long time" member that was inactive and decided to try to cash in on the friendly nature of this board. Lucky for me, I had enough info to point the cops in the right direction and was able to get my money back after a small bit of hassle. Just out of curiosity though, have you checked Stub Hub or Ticketmaster? At the very least, you should check them out to see what the going rate is for fan-sold tickets to that game.

Right, and look at how long it's taken for his shot to develop! I'm kidding, of course, and look at JJ, he certainly needed off court time to develop as well. Off court development can be good for a player, and I might go so far as to say that on court development, if a player isn't ready for that step, could even be detrimental to their development. That being said, I still kind of agree. I think Payton is ready for, and needs more of those minutes unless he absolutely implodes, especially getting him playing with Dipo so they can start developing on court chemistry.

If he learned to play defense, I'd be on the pay Harris boat too.

Gordon hasn't really helped his own cause. Maybe he will pick it up enough to make a little splash before Dipo gets back, but I doubt it. He'll probably turn into a "break glass in case of injury" role.

Consider these points: One of, if not our best defender is still out of the lineup. We don't have another option at SG that defends anywhere near as well as 'Dipo. Points per game that our defense gives up does not adjust for pace. There are only ten teams that currently play at a faster pace than Orlando. Defensive Rating (points given up per 100 posessions) has us above Detroit, OKC, LA Clippers, New Orleans, Philly, Denver, Boston, Dallas, NY, Utah, Cleveland and the Lakers. Offensive Rating has us in the back of the pack with only Philly, OKC, Milwaukee and Detroit behind us. With this set of facts, I'd suggest our offense needs more work than our defense.

You can't force a nickname, you have to wait for it to present itself. If you remember how "The Warlock" came about, you know exactly what I mean.

Are you saying Payton is going to be diagnosed with seizures, get behind the wheel and kill someone in a nasty crash, then get sentenced to actual prison time?

Now you're just being silly. Anyone could have had more rebounds had they simply grabbed more rebounds. First you said we'd lose and wouldn't be able to rebound over Noel. Then you followed that up by defending Noel's sub-par rebounding stats so far, and yet, even though we shot a chilling 15% from 3-pt range, you know what, I'm done. You were wrong, and it came off as ridiculous. Deal with it.

Next time you strut anywhere using the VM Power Walk strut, we need a video. Also, Wroten was 2 assists and a turnover away from a triple double!

Rebounds 51 - 38. I think we did just fine, even though we had ot contend with the "amazing" Noel.

This was a joke, right?

Wouldn't be a bad idea to start that research anyway.

Stan made a noticeable change to the pace the Magic played: 06-07: 108.1 (86.3) 07-08: 109.3 (94.9) 08-09: 94.6 (107.2) 09-10: 94.2 (109.5) Stan also turned the Magic into one of the most efficient offenses in the league (the numbers in parenthesis above). There is nothing I've found to indicate Rafer pushing the ball and the team playing at a faster pace. I don't recall this being the case at the time either. So, I have no personal anecdotal evidence to support this, and no actual evidence either. Here is something I did notice for the first time. Jameer and Rafer had almost identical assist and turnover numbers. Jameer had 6.2 assists to 2.3 turnovers per game, while Rafer had 6.2 assists to 2.2 turnovers.

I think a big part of AA being traded was to make room for younger guys to start. I don't think Fournier is our starter (obviously), and we likely weren't getting significant offers back for AA. Also "all-star caliber" is being a little nice in his case I think.

Too bad we didn't keep that stability when we had Stan. I would have loved to see him still here as our coach. That being said, while I agree stability is important, you also have to build the foundation of that stability with solid pieces. I'm not convinced our current coach meets that requirement at this point, but I'm also not convinced he can't grow into it. The real question is, can we afford to wait around and find out? If the right coach, the right long term, proven prospect is available, I'm not so sure we can.

If an agreement is not reached by the end of the month, Tobias will become a Restricted Free Agent next summer. This means he can test the market, sign an offer sheet from another team, and the Magic will have a set period of time to decide if they wish to match that offer. If he was a Free Agent after the end of the season, the Magic would not have the ability to match an offer and keep him once he signed with another team.