jmmagicfan

I am disappointed with Okeke so far, but more from an injury and aggressiveness standpoint. I just remember him being so solid and the center of his college team, and we haven’t seen the full extent of his game yet. Maybe it’s the injuries that have made him more passive, maybe it’s been playing without a true point guard, I just feel like he’s a player that would come back and bite us if we let him go.

I'm not sure there is such a thing as a player who is unavailable for ANY trade, but here's my listing of what it would take: Franz, Paolo, Markelle, Wendell - if you want one of them you better be including a multi-time all-star under 30y.o. to even start the discussion. Isaac is about the same if he stays healthy the rest of the season. These next guys I would like to keep, but the right package of players in the 22-25y.o. range and/or draft picks could sway me. I really like Harris, but again, he needs to stay healthy the rest of the season. Moe Wagner is tough, because I think he is more valuable to us than to anyone else. I would like to give Okeke, Suggs, & Houstan more time to get healthy and/or develop, but they are negotiable. Now we are getting down to guys that I would be okay with trading, individually or in some kind of package deal. Cole is probably our most valuable, tradeable asset in terms of potential value. Unfortunately because of his rookie contract the best offers for him would have to be in conjunction with other (expiring?) players. If we could get more of the team concept into his head, he'd be worth keeping, but his strong tendency to descend into "hero ball" is concerning. It blows up into disaster as often as it results in a win. I do love his energy and enthusiasm, though. Bol is an interesting player with a lot of good things on the offensive side, but he's detrimental on defense. He doesn't have the heft to play defense (right now?). Could that change? Maybe, but he has to stay healthy and put on some weight. He has a similar body type to his father, who never really could put on weight. Same value problem as Cole, his contract is cheap, so getting equal value would probably require a multi-player trade. Bamba is one of those guys who looks so much better on paper than he does in actual games. How a guy his size can be so poor on defense and rebounding astounds me. He does enough well on the offensive end that someone might take a chance of him developing a more complete game. I hope we can turn him into other assets. Ross is my most disappointing player this year. His offense has been even more inconsistent, and he seems to be falling out of the rotation. The torch lightings have been few and far between, and we don't seem to ride them when they do happen. He expires at the end of the season, so get whatever you can get now. Maybe package him with Cole or Bol to help offset salaries on a multi-layer deal. RJ Hampton had a miserable pre-season, but I think he has actually played well when given the opportunity. I just don't have a good handle on what value to place on him. He is an expiring rookie contract - so again you would have to package him with other players to get decent value, or settle for picks. I think he would be more valuable to other teams than he is to us, but I'm not sure that anyone has seen enough to give us a decent offer. He's kind of been the lost guy this year.

The team options are actually on Harris, Bamba, and Bol, so we have some great control. The guarantee on Bol is for only $2.2M for next season.

Bamba for Seth Curry straight up? Yes please!!

I think you answered your own question about why no one has brought him up: 1) bad defender 2) doesn't get separation, has to settle for post up and short jumpers.

The problem with waiting is that Ross is an expiring contract, so once the season is done he becomes a free agent, and we get nothing. Bamba's next season is not yet guaranteed, so we have until about the end of June to either guarantee it for the $10.6M, or he becomes a free agent as well. If we trade either (or both) before the trade deadline we can potentially walk away with something.

Agreed. Agreed. Not to rain on anyone's parade, but let's not go overboard with where we are at. Yes, we beat them twice in December, and yes we beat them last night. However, they were playing without three of their normal rotation guys in Smart, R Williams, and Brogdan. I think we would have a puncher's chance against them in a best of 7, but none of our guys have real playoff experience to fall back on, so it would probably not end well for us. That doesn't mean I wouldn't like to get there, it just means we need to temper our expectations. Making the play-in game and winning it to make the "main" playoffs would be a big first step.

Infrequently he is, much more often he isn’t. Unfortunately even when his offense is on, his defense is mediocre.

So, if I'm being "semi-greedy", and settling for us just being lucky enough to get the #2 pick, my ideal draft would probably be: Scoot Henderson #2 PG Gradey Dick SF or Jett Howard SG with the Bulls pick Oscar Tshiebwe with the second round (#35?) pick. I would like to see us open up some roster space and/or bring in a veteran backup PG or backup C using Ross, Bamba, Hampton, or Cole Anthony. I still prefer to give Suggs more time to develop, and I'm hopeful Okeke will finally get healthy.

So according to mock drafts and big boards he is somewhere around 40-45, but I wouldn't mind reaching for Oscar Tsiebwe, the center from Kentucky with our second round pick. His reasons for going that late/low seem to be that he is short for a center (6'9"), he's older than most (23.2) other seniors, and he doesn't shoot the 3, ever. However, with a second round he does tick a lot of boxes for us. His 7'4" wingspan compensates for his height, he's 260 pounds of rebounding specialist, his age fits our team, and we don't need him to shoot the 3 with our second team. He's a 58% finisher from 2pt land.

It is so wild that I don't ever see it happening, and I'm not sure everyone would go for it, but it is interesting.

I'm not sure that an expiring Ross, McDermott, and a rookie pick in 2025 qualifies as an upgrade to their shooters. I wouldn't do it if I were their GM. Okoro and Osman are both already a part of their rotation, and Rubio has starter experience. That just feels lop-sided to me, but who knows.

The last two we used/kept were Wes Iwundu and Melvin Frazier, Jr., so I mostly agree with CT (except for my post above).

Though I usually would agree with you on this, I think we actually made at least one error trading them. We traded Jarred Vanderbilt and Talen Horton-Tucker after picking them in consecutive years, and both have turned out to be rotation-level players. I was especially high on THT, so was p.o.'d when we sent him to the frickin' Lakers of all places.

I can see why the Magic and the Spurs might do this trade, but I think the Cavs shoot it down. Don't really see why the Cavs would do this.

He was up last year for a while but couldn’t stick. I think he’s improving though.

I’m actually more inclined to agree with ball junkie. It’s hard to argue with the results if you are looking at team success as the criteria. Fultz really is the engine that drives the train. Banchero is the better scorer, but I think Franz is the better all-around player. I like Dell’s game a lot too. He’s a strong glue guy. 1 Fultz 2 Franz 3 Banchero 4 Carter I think this is the core you build around. I like quite a few of our other pieces, and I think Moe Wagner’s impact is much more than we see on the court.

LOL. Just dozing, not sleeping just yet. ;-)

Jumping the gun a bit, I'll admit, but if Isaac is back and looking like his old self (hopefully a lot more sturdy), what does our new rotation look like? I have two ideas, one more traditional smaller ball; one more super-length. I'm not including K Harris and Schofield, as they need to go to Lakeland sometime. Traditional Fultz/Anthony Harris/Suggs/Hampton F Wagner/Ross/Houstan Banchero/Bol/Okeke Isaac/Carter/M Wagner This pretty much leaves Bamba as the odd man out. Super-length starting lineup/defense Fultz/Anthony/Suggs F Wagner/Harris/Hampton Banchero/Ross/Houstan Isaac/Bol/Okeke Carter/M Wagner/Bamba The disadvantage of this is the 2nd group has no real defensive presence. Obviously, when(!?!) Isaac comes back he will probably be on a strict minutes restriction to begin with, and will probably play a lot more with the 2nd unit.

Not to mention the bush-league reporting by ESPN where they call out Moe for committing the "bush-league" foul, but don't call out Hayes for the felony battery of striking him in the back of the head and knocking him unconscious from behind while someone else was holding him; nor mentioning the fact that Moe was unconscious and surrounded by Detroit players at their bench, which is why so many Magic players left the Magic bench area. Way to go mentioning half the story ESPN!

I agree with back to the Magic. I don’t think we will see JI in a game for a few more weeks, if ever.

1) The vaccine doesn’t prevent everyone from getting sick, but it is far from “proven”; ,in point of fact, there is evidence that they have dramatically reduced the number of cases. 2) The vaccines also significantly reduces the virulence of the disease in people who are infected, leading to fewer people on ventilators, milder infections, and fewer deaths. 3) The worst flu year in the past 40 years killed about 80 thousand people. Covid killed about 800 thousand in the first year, just in the US. That’s what is known as a FALSE equivalency. Not anywhere near the same. 4) The Covid health and safety protocols are for the protection of both the player, and those around him. It hopefully prevents him from passing it to others, and also protects him from being exposed to secondary infections while Covid is weakening his immune system. I’m actually very glad that the NBA is still taking it seriously. 5) We don’t know why Bol is in Health and Safety, it could be something other than Covid. I only said I haven’t heard anything to indicate it was for concussion protocol, but we don’t know. I lost a number of friends to Covid, both before and after vaccines were available. One of them died after vaccines were available, at least in part because some dumb ass doctor in Tennessee told him that since he was under 40, and had no underlying health conditions, he didn’t need to get the vaccine. He left behind an infant son, less than six months old. Both his wife and infant son got lucky, as they only got mild cases.

Very much so, but people are so burnt out on Covid news that we may end up having another wave. I hope we don’t, and I think it has now crossed from pandemic into endemic, with less deadly versions coming in yearly cycles.

Since I haven’t seen anything about him having suffered a head injury/concussion, I would guess he tested positive for Covid.

Mo Wagner is a journeyman making the league minimum - now if Hayes had sucker-punched an All-Star to the back of the head, it would have been 8-10 games. That's how this league works for those type of suspensions. If it had been Lebron, Hayes would be out for the rest of the year!