jmmagicfan

Or a naughty limerick! ;-)

Merry Christmas to you as well!

Is Overtime Elite the new Globetrotters, without the comedy?

I’m not saying he did a good job, or that he deserved to keep the job, he definitely did not; but I think he looked worse than he actually was because of the interference from Martins.

I think Hennigan was a mediocre GM, but I think the Ibaka trade was Martins’ call, not his. Also, we were never going to get value for Howard - like Shaq he wasn’t coming back. I actually think he did as well as possible there. His coaching hires were bad. The Nicholson pick was terrible, but most of the NBA writers and analysts were on board with Hezonja, so Hezonja fooled almost everyone. Biyombo was the wrong guy at the wrong time. Tobias or Gordon had to go, and Oladipo or Fournier had to go - he chose wrong both times, but who knows if either would have developed the same if they were here. Probably not.

Unfortunately I agree. We can only hope that he becomes Olympic’s Carmelo instead of NBA Melo.

Like a black hole in space, no light escapes; in Cole’s case the basketball goes to him and rarely comes back out as anything but a shot. He doesn’t like to pass the ball to anyone else.

Bulls pick is top-4 protected.

I partly agree with you that no one guy (WCJ) should be that important to our defense, but let’s also look at what else has changed. We had Fultz for the first game all year, Cole back from a long absence, Moe Wagner playing a lot of minutes in only his 4th game of the season and not in rhythm. G Harris just getting back into rhythm and goes down, again. No WCJ, Bamba, Chuma, still no Isaac; and completely different rotations from the last month of games. I think our coach is a good development guy, but a poor game coach. He needs to pull Banchero (and anyone else) not showing effort on defense, to get the message across.

I’m very unhappy with his effort on that end of the court. He’s a bit of a black hole on the offensive end as well. I think Ross plays harder on defense.

I’ve broken my “pinkie” toe that way several times and my sister has done it so many times we’ve lost count; but usually you just tape it to the next toe, rest it for a couple days and go on with life. I would expect it to be longer for an athlete who is dependent on running and jumping, but 8+ weeks does seem excessive.

Thanks for the starter, you rock!

I understood it at the beginning of the season, as he looked even worse in summer league than ever before, like just plain bad. However, as he has gotten minutes during the season, he has actually looked like he has really progressed. As you said, I don't know why he isn't getting more time now, especially with our issues at the guard spots. It makes no sense, unless he is in Mosely's dog house for stuff we aren't seeing, or unless the FO doesn't want him playing for some reason. I would say maybe a trade, but it has just been too long for that to be the reason, and there doesn't seem to be any disciplinary issues, so who knows what's going on with RJ. A "nagging" injury they don't want to talk about?

I am in the middle, I am still a little ticked about picking Horton-Tucker and selling him to the Lakers.

Except that if we had gone after Mitchell a little harder, we might not have Banchero. I'm sure that pick would had to have been included in the "package". (We might have been able to "protect" it top-3, but who knows)

LOL!

The problem with that is that we can't take a 2 for 1 without first waiving someone to open a roster spot. It has to be open for the trade to take place.

If the numbers work I am 100% on board with this! I wanted us to sign him several years ago when he was a free agent!

Especially if Fultz is close, picking up a true PG on a couple of 10-day contracts would possibly help us a lot. I'm surprised the FO didn't go this route while we were on the 7-game home stand. It would have given us more time/opportunity to work someone in, not having travel days.

Not according to the Trade Machine (https://fanspo.com/nba/trade-machine) it doesn't. Bamba makes about $1M too much for a straight-up trade, which means we would have to include other players from both teams; or include another player from Chicago to match salary, and waive someone to open up a slot to complete the trade. White and Williams for Bamba and Houstan does work after Dec 15th, though. Not sure if Chicago would bite on that though, even if White and Williams have both fallen down their rotation.

I tend to agree that there isn't enough information yet. I think if he is back by Christmas and plays the rest of the year, you roll the dice on next year and keep him. If he isn't back before then, or if he is out for another extended period (more than 3-4 games) after he comes back, then I think you let him walk. I hate to say that, because I love his game, and I think he makes everyone on the floor with him so much better; but he can't do that if he's not on the floor. Also, I hate to say that because, being the Magic, if we let him walk, he will finally get healthy and go on to become an All-Star and have career nights against us.

I think we are better than our current record, and this team does remind me a bit of the Darrell Armstrong led, heart & hustle team. I do think we need a true backup PG. With Anthony, Suggs, and Hampton we have too many combo guards that are not suited to step into a starting PG if/when Fultz is out. Any of them are okay running with a true point, and playing some point with the second unit, but they just aren't up to the challenge of full-time PG. They've all shown flashes, and I'm even warming to RJ a little - after an awful summer league, he actually is playing pretty well in limited minutes. I just think we needed a veteran PG this year to work with these guys and to step in with Fultz out.

You'd have to throw in TRoss as well to make the salaries a closer match, but I actually don't hate this. Maybe make our 2023 pick top-4 protected, but other than that I would go for it. The only trouble is, I'm not sure that OKC would.

The problem is that the difference in salaries makes this trade impossible, and GS doesn't have any non-rotation players to throw in to make the numbers work.

We've had a mix of good and bad in the past couple years. Bad luck - injuries and Toronto taking Scottie Barnes. Good luck - winning the #1 pick I don't consider these as luck. Picking F Wagner last year was a great move by our F.O. (though I do wonder if we would have taken him if we had gotten Barnes instead of Suggs?), picking Banchero also seems to be a really good move (time will tell if it was the BEST pick). The trade of Vuch for Carter Jr, the pick that became F Wagner, and another 1st (top-4 protected) is turning out to be a really great move as well. I don't want Chicago to be too bad this year, as I would hate to see them jump into the Top-4 in the lottery and the pick move to 2024. I would rather see us get something in the 8-14 range with their pick! It is promising that Banchero and/or Gary Harris may be back for us in the next game, but disappointing that Fultz, M Wagner, and some of the other guys aren't close enough to coming back to travel with us on this 3 game road trip.