Franchise408

But people act like I'm crazy when I say that Hennigan was nothing short of awful.

Hey, why not? Having $10 mill tied up for an "ok" player is our MO of recent years.

We had our chance at one and passed.

So as I've stated before, I live in the Bay Area. Born and raised. and currently living here. But back from 2008 to 2013 I was living in Tennessee. In 2009, my parents were gonna send me to game 6 of the ECF for my b'day but couldn't get a ticket. Obviously, I missed a great game lol. So in 2010 they sent me to game 5 of the ECF against Boston. It was a dream come true because growing up in California, I was never able to go to a Magic home game. Only away games when they played the Warriors or Kings. Anyways, I was finally going to a Magic home game. I posted my story on these forums and how I was making the drive from Nashville to Orlando. Someone asked where my seats were, and i answered not thinking anything of it. Well, long story short, some cheerleaders came to my seat to meet me, told me someone with the Magic read my story, and they wanted to say thank you, and gave me a bag full of Magic merchandise and memorabilia. T-shirts, figures, posters, etc. I was floored! To this day, even tho the Magic lost the series (but won that game), even tho I was in Atlanta for the NFC Championship to watch my 49ers go to the Super Bowl, being there for Navorro Bowman's interception to close down the last 49ers game at Candlestick, the 49ers huge comeback in the wildcard against the Giants, and countless other great sports experiences that I was there for, that night remains the single greatest night of my life as a sports fan. To finally live my dream of seeing a Magic home game at the Orena, the Magic WINNING a great game in the playoffs, AND the organization itself recognizing me and thanking me for my fandom. On top of the fact that it ended up being the last game ever at the Orena. Great night.

Damn dude, that's a really touching story. Thank you for sharing that.

Well it's not roster move related, but I finally got some new Orlando Magic gear for the first time in awhile. I already had the Penny throwback, but the Gordon and the hat are new. The Penny I got last summer but this is the first new player jersey I've gotten since Dwight, and the first time I found a draft hat that I like.

I've already gone in depth as to why I wanted Isaiah and why he would be perfect here. But here's to another year of counting on Gordon and Fournier to be the top 2 scoring options, taking on more responsibility than they are capable of, and wasting away another season in obscurity because we refuse to bring in talent when we have the chance.

I mean, I love our "big 3" of young developing talent, but the closest thing any of those 3 are to an All-Star game is Aaron Gordon in the dunk contest.

It's literally as "no risk" as you can possibly get in professional sports. 1 year rental that is an improvement over what we already have, and if he's not, we're no worse roster wise than we were before signing him, with no long term cap implications, and no use of the short term cap space that we're saving by not signing him. If we needed the cap space to sign someone else this year and so we had to pass on Isaiah to do it, then you'd have a point. But they've already said they aren't signing anyone else this off-season so passing on Isaiah doesn't even allow us to use the money on something else.

First of all, I am sorry to hear about your father in law. I hope that everything is on an upswing? The 76ers are basically an outlier. You mention that you'd take only 1 championship if that's what a LeBron brought to your organization, and that's valid, but the history shows that you are not likely to get that championship with said player. And then you mention the Warriors and Durant - while he was a #2 pick, he was not -their- #2 pick. He was picked by another team, and then came over as a free agent. They did not tank to get him. And before he got there, they were doing pretty good already with 2 Finals appearances, 1 win, and the single seasons wins record. They tanked for 20+ years before luck finally favored them with Curry at #7, and then Klay and Draymond in the mid lottery and 2nd round. Those weren't picks that they purposefully had to tank for. Again, Philly is really the only team that's showing any sort of success from the tanking model, and it is yet to be determined just how much success they will actually have. As of now, it's been a single post season appearance to the 2nd round. Also, how long have they had to be employing this tanking philosophy in order to reach the 2nd round?? Adam Silver is addressing the issue, not because it's working (it's not), but because probably about 60-70% of the league that is not Golden State, Cleveland (or this coming year, Los Angeles), San Antonio, Houston, Boston, Toronto, or Philly have been tanking and it's making the game absolutely unwatchable. Even I only watched a handful of Magic games this year because honestly, it's demoralizing to watch your team when you know the powers that be are purposefully trying to lose. You have a small handful of teams that are championship contenders, and everyone else is trying to tank out. It kills any entertainment value of watching the game. That is what Adam Silver is looking to address. Not the fact that one outlier franchise actually had it work for them. And again, there's also a difference between naturally tanking because of circumstance (every team is going to have highs and lows), which actually isn't tanking. It's the natural ebb and flow of sports. And a difference between that and purposefully tanking, purposefully signing lesser players to purposefully lose more games to have a goal of a higher draft pick. The Lakers aren't purposefully tanking. A top 5 all time player retired, and they are trying to move on from that. The Mavericks aren't having success via tanking. The Suns have had no success yet, and you can't say that getting Ayton will put them over. I just look through history, and I do -not- see tanking as being a successful model to turn a team around. Instead, it far more often than not buries a team to years (or sometimes even decades) of mediocrity. You can talk about getting that 1 championship all you want, but even if it does come, odds and numbers are that it's going to take you a decade + of tanking before that player comes along. Appreciate the response. Definitely gonna disagree tho lol. The problem wasn't that we went into a "win now" philosophy. The problem was that we went into a "win now" philosophy with a horrible roster that was nowhere close to competing, and traded away our best player for a 4th option who isn't a player who has the capability of being "the guy" on his own. Ibaka was a mid tier player that we over valued because he was on the stacked OKC roster, and we traded away our best player and a 1st rounder to get him, when our roster was nowhere near competing. Who says we're gonna get him in free agency? A tanking franchise with no cap space and no legitimate stars to play alongside doesn't really have much appeal for star players in free agency.

There was literally -no- risk for us to take a chance on him. We have no starting caliber PG. He would have been an instant upgrade. If his injuries were too much and he wouldn't be able to play, or his performance was bad, it would have been a 1 year contract at the minimum, we'd be in the same position we are now, with no long term cap ramifications. But if he was able to return to form and have success, we'd be better off with him. There was literally no negative and only positives to signing Isaiah Thomas. And considering we aren't going to use this year's cap space on anything anyways, it's not like we had to pass on Thomas so that we could sign someone else. Sorry, there's no convincing me that not signing him was a good move. Even if he was injured and didn't play a single game, or sucked when he did play, we would literally be no worse off than we are right now. This was a bad move on the part of the front office. And I don't care about "length". There's more important things that go into a good basketball player than "length". Sounds like Al Davis and the Raiders with his "speed". *sigh*

Wait, IT got the minimum and we passed on him?? fml

Thanks, Henny.

But they really aren't. And I just showed examples to show that it's true. The odds at least aren't better enough to warrant intentionally driving your franchise into the dirt to get a slightly higher pick. Agreed, and it's one reason why I'm less of a frequent poster than I used to be. It's not intellectually dishonest, I already explained (and you avoided) that I misread and thought you included 2017 and 2018 in your posts. I was reading and posting while I was at work, and in reading quickly, I misread dates being used in your data. Instead of simply correcting me and responding to my mention of Fultz and Ayton with "I didn't include them in my data, because I didn't count the 2017 and 2018 drafts", you automatically went to the "intellectually dishonest" card. Simply because I disagree with your argument. There was no adjusted sample size. By including Fultz and Ayton, that actually made for examples 21 and 22, not 19 and 20, meaning by removing them, we are working with the same sample size. I.E. a "counting error" P.S.: I've never changed the goalposts. I have elaborated on my use of the term "bust" (something you again have avoided), and I have explained both 1.) my argument and the criteria for it and 2.) elaborated on my usage of terms to show that I have moved no goalposts. And in response to the Golden State example that was brought up earlier - yes, I know how many winning seasons Golden State has had before the Curry era. I live in the Bay Area. Current success aside (which was NOT built off of high lottery picks), Golden State is a perfect example of why tanking doesn't work. That franchise was a crap ball for decades before luck finally favored them (at the #7 pick, NOT a top lottery pick - and for the response that "#7 isn't that low" - it's certainly low enough that the fanbase blames this franchise for poor management when we win an additional game that drops us from 3 to 4, sooooo.....). They had to wait decades before they found their fortune. Again, not exactly a viable team building strategy.

First of all, Brand was drafted by the Bulls, not the Clippers. So the fact that you're even talking about the Clippers proves my point about #1 overall picks rarely changing the fortunes of the franchise that drafted them. Secondly, Elton Brand was a good player, no doubt. But 20 / 10 is hardly franchise changing, and hardly worth setting your organization back for years with a tank philosophy to get him.