Franchise408

Right? This whole place has been "tank for draft picks" for YEARS, and now that we've done that, everyone is mad that we are filled with youth and potential.

Yea, but that's what happened the year we traded Vuc, Gordon, and Fournier also. When Fultz was healthy, we had the top record in the East. Once he got injured (and the rest of the dominoes fell), that's when everything fell apart. The team as constructed at that time was good enough, they just didn't stay healthy and we blew it up. I do agree that this roster, if healthy, has a very high ceiling. So much potential with Fultz, Suggs, Cole, Isaac, Bamba, Okeke, Wagner, and now Banchero. With other solid pieces like WCJ, Ross, Hampton, and Wagner 2, I think this team can really develop into something special.

Well let me elaborate... He's been borderline awful. I don't think that means he was a bad pick or a bust. He's just not showing anything yet. Doesn't mean he can't or won't. He's 7 games into his career. Far too early to be calling him any sort of bust.

Which is exactly why I'm anti-tanking. Building a culture of losing is far more detrimental than losing a couple positions in the draft. But its too late for that now. This is where we are at. We are young and have a long ways to go. But tonight showed that it is a *really* long ways away. I'm feeling hopeful for Cole, Bamba, and Franz at present time. Suggs has been borderline awful to this point. I love Fultz and Isaac, and they will improve us slightly, but I dont think they are good enough to be a significant upgrade upgrade this season. I hope our players develop into something special. There's loads of potential with Fuktz, Isaac, Bamba, Chuma, Cole, Suggs, and Franz. But that potential is so far down the line.

Guys, I think we are the worst team in the NBA

Did we swap our home and away jerseys? We are always wearing white on the road, black / blue at home

I did like Steele and Goukas together back in the day. Not a fan of Steele and Turner. Wasn't a fan of Goukas and Richie Audobato (mostly due to the latter). Steele does seem bored now. They spend so much time on "Is This Anything?" and ends up boring me out of my mind. Still a shame there's no more separate radio broadcast. I've developed an affinity for sports radio broadcasts. Probably helps that I'm here in the Bay Area, and I have Mike Krukow, Duane Kuiper, and Jon Miller on the radio for Giants baseball, which might be my favorite announce team in all of sports history, and even the Warriors radio team is pretty solid. Like I said, gametime for Orlando typically happens when I'm on my commute home from work, so in that instance I'd rather listen to an actual radio broadcast intended for listening, rather than hearing the audio only of a TV broadcast that assumes I'm watching. I was even able to tolerate Audobato for the brief time I'd be listening in that instance. Oh well, I guess I'll learn to make due.

Wow. That sucks. I get league pass since i'm here on the west coast, and most of the time, the games start during my commute home, so I like to listen to at least the beginning of the game on the radio when I'm driving home. Tonight was the first time I noticed that there was no unique radio broadcast, and obviously commentators for television won't be commentating with the assumption that their audience can't see what's going on. I mean, admittedly I wasn't a fan of the radio team, but I do miss having an independent radio call

Franz' effort on that backcourt to get it back up and get us a new shot clock was very strong.

Can anyone tell me why the radio broadcast is the same as the TV broadcast?

I missed the game but very happy to see a win. Looks like Cole and Ross went all the way off tonight.

Correct. So ultimately, our opinions don't matter. We can express them, but telling someone that their optimism is going to hold us back from improving is... incorrect.

Fan opinion doesn't have much bearing on whether we will improve or not. We aren't in the front office, we aren't making roster decisions. So getting upset at someone's optimism because "optimism = we won't improve" is inaccurate.

I don't think there's anything wrong with optimism. I was actually really optimistic about this team when we started making playoffs, when everyone thought playoffs = doom. We saw it at the beginning of last season before the injuries, when we had the best record in the conference and the offense was clicking both in the starting lineup and off the bench. I actually felt that injuries last year were an entirely awful reason to blow the whole thing up, because we had so much youth that was going to continue to grow and develop, and contrary to popular belief, we hadn't "topped out" with guys like Fultz and Isaac as our core. As we saw last night, guys like Fultz and Isaac still are our core, but instead of being surrounded by proven talent like Vuc, now we have the raw players like Suggs, Cole, and RJ running the show. It is what it is, and it's too late to go back now, but if the whole point was to blow it up and go full blown youth movement, then we did that, and I don't think people are wrong for feeling optimistic about the potential we have in a youth core of Fultz, Isaac, Bamba, Carter, RJ, Cole, Chuma, Suggs, and Wagner. We certainly aren't in "win now" mode.

Yea, I'm not a huge fan of the Orlando Magic broadcast team.

There's a difference between being naturally bad (which we probably will be this year) versus fans that are actively mad when we win a game (which has been happening in here every year since Dwight left). The first one is understandable. The 2nd one is garbage.

Are we actually rooting for the team, or are we still hoping they lose for tAnKiNg?

Yes. The unvaccinated are why the virus has been allowed to continue spreading and mutating.

I low key liked Otis. He built up that 2009 team, and while his response to the Finals loss wasn't great, I loved everything he did leading up to that. He built it back up the right way.

Is it cross platform? I'm not on X-Box One, I'm on the Series S.

It's been super difficult this year lol. I always struggle with shooting, but this year seems worse than normal. I know that Orlando is bad, and with the loss of guys like Fournier, the 3 ball is even worse for them in 2K than it was last year, but 14% is just ridiculous lol. Other than that tho, I'm having fun with it. I'll probably be getting in a game or 2 tonight. I try to be positive and optimistic every year. Even if the team is bad, I understand that bad years are part of the cycle of sports. I was excited last year about how we were playing to start the season. Fultz was running the offense well, Vuc and Fournier were playing their role as supplemental pieces, and the youth of Cole, Okeke, Fultz, etc. were all getting significant minutes. I loved what I was seeing from the team, and I didn't think that injuries were a valid reason to blow the whole thing up. But what's done is done. There are still things to be optimistic about. I am excited about Fultz / Suggs / Anthony / Okeke / Isaac, and I hope there's some real pieces in there for our future to build around. I still want to see if Bamba can develop into anything with significant playing time. Our team probably won't be any good this year, but I want us to go out and try to win every single game, and I am going to cheer any and every win we get. I don't care if it lessens our draft chances or anything like that. I never root for a loss.

I think that tanking is a proven failing strategy that won't do anything beyond get you a flashy superstar that can create excitement for a few years, but it is not a winning philosophy and you'll be left right back where you started from in the end. I did an episode of my podcast where I actually break down tanking over the last 40 years, and it just simply doesn't work. In my opinion, it should never even be considered as an option. But the reason why I'm not so frequent here anymore is because I don't want to spend my spare time arguing over a losing philosophy. I left a Magic Facebook group I was in for the same reason. I'm on X-Box Series S for NBA 2K. Just started up my Orlando MyNBA. I'm only 2 games in, but the shooting has been insanely difficult for me. I'm shooting like 13% on anything that's not a dunk. That being said, my back court trio of Fultz, Suggs, and Anthony is basically carrying me right now. They have been the only things worth talking about. My coach wanted me to trade Gary Harris, so I checked the trade finder and Sacramento offered me Buddy Hield. I jumped on him, and added him to my lineup, so right now my lineup is Fultz / Suggs / Hield / Isaac / Bamba with Anthony, Ross, Okeke, Wagner, and Carter Jr. coming off the bench.

I'd participate more, but there's never much conversation going on other than "TANK!", and considering that I am 100% vehemently opposed to tanking... well... there's not much conversation for me to engage in. But it's NBA2K season, and I just started my franchise mode, so my Magic kick is beginning. I'm excited for the youth core of Fultz, Anthony, Suggs, Isaac, and Okeke, and still interested in seeing if Bamba turns into anything. I hope we can be done with the tanking now, and watch our youth go out there and try to win, and start building around them now. No more Fournier, even Vuc and Gordon are gone, and we have expiring contracts over the next year or 2 to open up space to start making moves. I want to see improvement and building from here on out. No more tank mode.

How do we not have cap space? I thought one of the major points of the Vuc trade was to clear out salary via Otto Porter's expiring contract?

All came from building teams. Shaq came as the team was an expansion team, putting players together like Nick Anderson and Dennis Scott. Penny came after the team was the model of the "mediocrity" this forum complains about - the team with the best record of all teams that missed playoffs. Dwight came when we had our franchise player in Tracy McGrady, but still had an all-time franchise bad year, didn't trade the superstar to tank the season, and tried to pair Dwight around T-Mac, but T-Mac insisted on leaving regardless. The franchise still built that same off-season they drafted Dwight by also acquiring Hedo Turkoglu and Jameer Nelson, and trading T-Mac for Steve Francis (all star caliber player), Cuttino Mobley, and Kelvin Kato, who all later turned into the pieces dealt away in the moves that would clear out our salary cap for Rashard Lewis. The franchise was attempting to build both times.