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Justin Jaudon

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Posts posted by Justin Jaudon


  1. 12 minutes ago, Jason Funderburker said:

    I agree about the organizational issues. It’s why the 76ers, even with all that talent, aren’t really all that good. Simply adding Al Horfors can’t undue what years of tanking did.

    But Luka absolutely would have been great here, because he is great. 

    You're probably right. Luka is a generational talent. I think he's going to be top-5 all-time player if he stays healthy and they can build a good team around him. I don't actually think any amount of bad culture could kill Luka, just like the Bulls horrible culture couldn't kill Jordan. I guess I over-spoke to make a point. Still, the point stands. He's battling a Clippers team that's a legit contender starting a second-round pick PG, a mid-round pick PF on his sixth team, a second-round pick Center, two sixth man of the year candidates - neither of whom they drafted, but both of whom were second-round picks - and two stars drafted... 10th and 15th in their drafts. Sure they built that team in part on years of bad culture getting them guys like Blake Griffin, and top picks like Eric Gordon turned into Chris Paul. But that didn't mean anything until Doc Rivers - and, probably, a little bit Chris Paul - changed the culture. And they still have had to turn over the entire team - including Griffin, who came up in that bad culture - to be real contenders. The reason that series is tied now isn't just because Luka is a generational talent. That is a big part, sure. But how huge is it that Dallas never really tanked. They tanked for half a season after they realized they weren't going to make the playoffs, and they lucked into the 5th, not 1st 2nd or 3rd, pick in the draft, where they traded down with another team who over-valued another really good guard in Trey Young. Dallas already had the culture, the coach, everything ready. They just didn't have the players yet. And even Luka didn't get them to the playoffs his rookie year. There's a reason LeBron didn't make the playoffs his first two years in the league, despite being a top-5 all-time player. There's a reason he had to go to Miami to get a championship. Culture.

    Give me three more years of riding Vuc to the 8th seed before one more year of trying desperately to suck bad enough to maybe pick a guy who can get us into the big picture in a few years. If Vuc keeps getting us to the 8th seed, maybe some playoff team will trade us young talent in a couple years to get themselves over the top, like with OKC/LACLIPS. Maybe Boston will see how he's playing well against Milwaukee and think they need him to top Giannis and crew; maybe that Memphis pick comes in a deal for him, and it turns into the next Donovan Mitchell; maybe Langford comes in a package and makes a huge impact. Maybe we draft a star this draft with our own mid-round pick. Maybe Chuma is a monster. But give me those maybe's over, "maybe, if we suck bad enough, the guy we pick will be a generational talent."

    • Like 1

  2. 3 hours ago, Jason Funderburker said:

    Imagine having Luka instead of Mo

    Oh the stress of the ping pong ball game. This is why I absolutely hate 'tanking'. We tried to lose games, as an organization. But we didn't lose enough - by one game the year Luka came up - and we didn't move up in the draft during the entire process. Despite that, we drafted a star in Oladipo, and we traded him before he blossomed. We traded for a future All-Star in Tobias, and we gave him up for nothing. And neither of those things seemed completely crazy at the time, because those guys weren't supposed to be stars. You can have all the lottery luck, get the star player, but if you don't have a good culture, it doesn't matter. I question just how good Luka would be in Orlando. Surely he'd be good, but I doubt he'd be this good. The problem in Orlando has not been the players, it has been the culture of the team, created by coveting the likes of Luka in the draft, rather than trying to find Giannis or Mitchell while competing the best we can. The culture of this team IS changing, though, that's clear. I think we need a better coach, honestly, for the final change. Cliff has done a good job, but he's been basically what we expected Skiles to be years ago - the transition coach who shook off the expectation of losing. Maybe he can do better than I expect, but we'll see. I still keep hoping OKC will get stupid and fire Billy Donovan.

    My point is that I get the idea of this team being stagnant, going nowhere. But I don't think that means we should return to the 'tanking' process. The Heat were stagnant, going nowhere. Now I think Milwaukee better win a championship or Miami's going to steal Giannis. OKC was supposed to rebuild after they realized they couldn't compete in the West with Russ and Paul George. Indiana is competitive with a hurt star and a bunch of guys no one wanted - a second-round pick, a guy Phoenix gave them for cash, a guy who was traded twice in his first two years as a throw-in, and a guy who couldn't run right.

    Minnesota had two first picks in the draft - technically three if you count Bennett. Now they have a dominant first pick Center and an All-Star Guard. And they haven't made the playoffs yet. Phoenix might finally have something, but we'll see; they still ain't made the playoffs yet, and Golden State is coming back into the picture out West, as is Memphis. And the poster-boys for the "Process" going right, the 76ers... we lasted longer in the playoffs than they did.

    See, I don't want to imagine having Luka. I'd rather imagine having the organizational mentality of the Nuggets or the Bucks or the Rockets or the Pacers or the Heat. Or, hell, the Raptors. And I actually think we're getting back there. This is already a rebuild, guys. Except we aren't rebuilding the team, we're rebuilding the culture. And if you ask me, we're doing it right. Finally.

    Go Magic!

     

     

     

    And yeah, Luka's a beast...

    • Like 1
    • Upvote 2

  3. 1 minute ago, hootie249 said:

       Something was going on between Martins,Skiles,Henny and ownership that set this team back half a decade. Henny and Skiles weren't on the same page and the year they worked together set the stage for our franchise to go backward. Even if you don't openly believe in conspiracy theory like me it's obvious The Tobias and Oladipo trades might have been killed by better management.

    So ownership isn't involved enough? Obviously something was going on between Martins/Skiles/Hennigan. That's kind of documented information. But what you seem to be saying is that the non-basketball guys (Martins and ownership) should have stepped in and overrode Hennigan on those trades? Or they shouldn't have hired Skiles? I'm of the opinion that it wasn't the Skiles/Hennigan season that was the real death knell, but the Vogel/Hennigan off-season. Skiles, from what I could see, just understood that Hennigan was garbage and wanted nothing to do with it.


  4. 1 hour ago, fan for too long 2 said:

    Vanderweide and Martins. Was who I was talking about and the hockey guy who ever that was. Then the hirings that these guys made. The latest management team was not a successful duo other than getting lucky with giannis. So I’m not impressed and the hiring of Clifford by them was again not impressive. 

    Vander Weide was incredibly successful until he cracked during a messy divorce from the owner's daughter (talk about stressful situations). Martins is - by all reports - excellent at his actual job, and he isn't doing any more than that anymore. Weisbrod, yes, was a joke, and a terrible mistake by the ownership. They also didn't let that mistake linger, making him step down after one year.


  5. 2 hours ago, fan for too long 2 said:

    I agree they are willing to spend money but they also have hired by using nepotism and non basketball people to run the team. This is where they failed. 

    There's no indication Martins has anything to do with basketball decisions anymore. I can agree that they let Martins get too involved for a few years. He's a good businessman, clearly. But they seemed to learn that it wasn't working out, thus moving to a Pres. of Basketball Ops and GM structure. We can argue that the current PBO and GM are not great, but those hires were in no way nepotism. And speaking of hiring using nepotism, this is an unreasonable assessment of our team ownership long-term, as it's hard to find any organization that doesn't have some level of Nepotism, especially outside of the major cities.

     

     Let's look at the coaching hires. Nepotism can be seen in at most 4 Coaching Hires: Brian Hill's return, Vaughn's hiring (dubious, but sure), Skiles, and Clifford (dubious). Vaughn and Clifford don't really smell like nepotism to me, all things considered. Vaughn was clearly a Hennigan hire, especially considering how they handled Skiles' hiring. Clifford as an idea fit what Orlando clearly wanted to do. Defensive coach, built good defenses around not great defensive centers in the past, etc. Call it nepotism if you like, but it looks more like fit to me. So 4 out of 13 coaches had previous ties to the team/ownership. Let's compare that to the Lakers' last 13 hires. Pat Riley, Magic Johnson, Kurt Rambis, Byron Scott, and Luke Walton all former players. huh. How 'bout the Celtics, maybe: Bill Russell and Dave Cowens were player-coaches, nepotism at its apex; Tom Heinsohn, Tom Sanders, K.C. Jones, Chris Ford, M.L. Carr were all former players; Rodgers was a former assistant. huh... holy ****, the Spurs are not exactly rampant with nepotism (aside from John Lucas), except that they had their GM fire a really successful coach to insert himself as the HC. Looks like nepotism is just a thing even really successful organizations do from time to time. Sometimes it works out great. Popovic took nepotism to its final form, but he's the GOAT coach or close to it. Riley, damn near all the Celtics coaches. hmm... maybe nepotism isn't necessarily a problem.


  6. I've said it before, I'll say it again. We need to hand the team over to Gordon and Fultz. What this team has done with Gordon this year really reminds me of what they did with Oladipo. Dipo looked inefficient in Orlando for two reasons: 1) he wasn't quite ready, 2) the offense was never really designed to his strengths. The second thing there is the problem. Dipo had the makings of a really good mid-range player who could turn that into offense in other areas, but we rarely let him operate from mid-range, because analytics said it's bad offense. Our offense back then was designed for drive-and-kicks, Vuc & THarris down low, and open 3's. Only Vuc had a green light from mid-range most of the time. That's not a bad offensive focus, except that we ignored our 2nd pick in the draft's strengths to fit a system. Gordon has shown he can take advantage of mismatches, he's great on cuts to the rim, and he's a solid passer. Yet how often do we see the design to get him mismatches. We should be letting him run pick and rolls up top to get him on a smaller guy way more often. Fultz and Gordon 2-man-game should be way more of a focus, as Fultz is good at creating chaos off of a pick which would create roll lanes for Gordon. Instead, we have Gordon coming off of screens for 3's like he's TRoss or just being the bailout guy when the offense can't get anything else. The things Gordon does well are highly efficient basketball, even if that's not often enough what he's asked to do. The things Vuc and Fournier and TRoss do well are not efficient basketball. Gordon is the only guy on the team who plays with intensity every night (and MCW, but that's another story). Gordon is the only real 2-way player on the team right now. Yet our offense is still designed around guard/center ball screens to get open 3's and hoping Vuc can abuse his man one-on-one. So Gordon is the third or fourth option at any given time. He's going to leave, and someone (probably Golden State) is going to love him like we wouldn't.

    • Upvote 4

  7. 19 minutes ago, Gordon MVP said:

    If you only knew how badly trump failed this country at the onset of this outbreak ...that’s ok you guys aren’t the ones actively fighting against this without proper PPE in areas where the virus is heavily concentrated 

    Everything thus far has been a step late and it’s costing not only lives On the front line but also prolonging  the length of these measures. 

    this guy was talking about it being a democratic hoax when he should have been preparing companies to be spitting out tests and protective equipment a month  ahead of time. 

    I'm not a Trump fan, but this seems like one of those 'hindsight is 20/20' things. Sure, he could have done that. And so could every other country. Basically no one did that. Nationally we're handling this worse than a few of countries, better than a few. It certainly hasn't been a win for Trump, and as usual his tendency to speak in nothing but hyperbole hasn't helped, but he did do some things that were good, like cutting off travel from China nice and early (which a lot of left-leaning people criticized him for, claiming it was somehow racist). Virtually everyone in the world has been a step late on this, partly because China lied and imprisoned people who were trying to warn the rest of the world about it, and partly because this is a unique situation, and partly because people make mistakes even when they have the best of intentions. I'm not saying Trump has done a great job with this. I'm saying, again, blaming Trump for this virus and what it's done to the world, even this country, is too much.

    • Upvote 2

  8. 4 hours ago, TrueMagicFanSince1987 said:

    Exactly you hit it right on the head! It’s all opinions and you asked why I thought the way I did and I explained myself. I would just like to point out he is/was the common denominator from that 2009 finals team up until now. We’ve moved on from plenty of front office personnel yet he still stays with this organization. If we continue to tread in mediocrity who else is to blame besides those who continue to be here during this long asss rebuild and continue to put out the same boring product year after year?  So we can’t blame ownership because they are willing to spend money? That’s a little absurd considering they were calling the shots on all fronts until recently. All that brought was terrible decision making and trading future All Stars for short term pieces that never ended up working out for us anyways. 

    Evidence is needed to make the claim, though, that Martins was a problem, or that ownership were 'calling the shots on all fronts'. You can have an opinion, but without any evidence I have to assume it's just blind conjecture. The team has been solid from a financial standpoint, which is Martins' job, despite a long rebuild. So... he's been doing very well at his job. Why would we have moved on from Martins, considering that? Blaming him because he's been a common denominator is absurd. So has Stuff. Is it Stuff's fault?

    My opinion is that the largest part of this team's troubles during the rebuild can be laid at Hennigan's feet, but even that is a largest part where there is plenty of blame to go around. It's a cluster of bad situations, really. From the start, Hennigan didn't hire the right coach for a rebuild. The evidence would be Vaughn's obvious lack of direction and player expectations while he was here. We saw this in interviews. Oladipo talked about the culture in Orlando, how it was aimless and just a bunch of talented guys with no leadership. When they brought in leadership (Skiles), it so clashed with the laissez faire management style that Skiles lost it. Now I do think Martins miscalculated here, and he can take some of the blame. It seems fairly clear the organization liked Skiles for his tough-guy leadership style, and pushed that hiring through, with Hennigan at best being 'okay' with it. But Skiles and Hennigan were never going to be able to co-exist, and that hiring is partly on Martins. But it should be noted that Orlando improved by 10 games that year; and when Hennigan was once again able to hire 'his guy' in Vogel, the team fell apart even worse than before. It became clear during the Hennigan/Vogel year (right away, with the Oladipo trade, and the Biyombo signing) that Hennigan was terrible when the pressure was on to actually improve. I don't think this pressure was impatience from management. Orlando had the talent to start getting better, obviously, considering there were at least three future All-Star guys on the team when they started putting the pressure on for improvement. Harris got better almost the moment he left Orlando's terrible culture, and Oladipo exploded the moment he was given another real opportunity. It wasn't that they needed more time, but rather they needed to be on a team with direction.

    Direction as a basketball team wasn't and has never been Martins' job. That was Hennigan's job, and it was clear by the end he was terrible at it. Blaming the culture of the team at that point on Martins would be insane, even during Martins' most hands-on period, as the only mistake he can solidly be blamed for would be when he tried unsuccessfully to improve the terrible culture by injecting Skiles. It wasn't the right move, but it's hard to make the argument that letting Hennigan continue to have his way would have gone better, considering how the team fell apart under Vogel, the guy who basically embodied Hennigan's laid back/no expectations/no consequences style. At this point, Martins was clearly happy to step back and let Jeff Weltman take over setting the tone, which was absolutely the right call. It's fairly clear the culture of the team has improved the last two-and-a-half seasons, despite the players being mostly the same. Two playoff-level teams after a year of evaluation shows that, among other things.

    But you see how that blame goes a lot of places during the bad years that are still haunting us. Hennigan was the catalyst, sure. But Vaughn was too lax, Skiles gave up, and Vogel was not a leader at all. All of those guys had the opportunity to fix the rebuild, from a coaching standpoint. Skiles probably could have, if he'd been willing to put up with fighting Hennigan for the culture of the team. Bad luck had a lot of impact. What if we'd gotten the 3rd pick in '14, or the 4th pick in '15? Or a top three in '17 or '18? Would we be considerably better? Hard to know, but it's a good bet. I don't see how poor luck can be thrown on Martins or ownership. Martins can have some blame for the Skiles hiring (though, again, it's hard to say this really hurt the team), but it seems the move to a Pres. of Ops management style is the sensible option to remedy that failing, considering that Martins was still doing a good job at the business side of things. If I hire an IT guy to build a web-site, then ask him to help me write my novel, should I fire him from his IT position if he can't write?

    Lastly, sure, in the end the state of the franchise rests on ownership, because they're signing the checks. But i would point this out: of the 7 teams that have expanded the league in the last 35 years, we are one of 3 with a championship appearance, one of only two with multiple championship appearances, and the only team from a smaller market to get to the big series. We are one of only 4 smaller market teams with multiple championship appearances since the merger (the others being Cleveland, San Antonio, Portland, and Utah). Orlando hasn't changed ownership. We aren't San Antonio. We've been much more consistent than Cleveland, who basically owes all their multiple championship appearances to one guy. We're on par, from an organizational success standpoint, with Portland and Utah since entering the league. Historically, we're probably the fourth or fifth-best smaller-market team in league history, and a single championship would likely move us to second-place on that list, considering Cleveland's history without Lebron and and how long it's been since Portland won anything. We are in a better situation for the foreseeable future than any of those teams except Utah. That is the state of the franchise, and the ownership should be commended for that.

    • Upvote 2

  9. 3 hours ago, TrueMagicFanSince1987 said:

    In all honesty if we could fire the owners that would be ideal because they have tried too hard to dictate the day to day basketball operations from back when Otis was still our GM. I’m glad they finally realized they had no clue to what they were doing and finally hired a President of basketball operations. Now in reference to Martins, if he were employed anywhere else and did the things he was allowed to do he would have been fired more than once already. We blamed other people for his clear short comings (Stan Van Gundy, Frank Vogel, and Rob Hennigan to name a few) and used them as the scape goat when he was always the problem. When we cleaned house in our front office he should have been the first to go but apparently the owners have some sort of foolishly blind loyalty towards him and I’m not entirely sure why. 

    Okay...

    We have terrific team ownership in Orlando. We're barely a mid-market team and we have never seen any inkling that ownership wasn't willing to spend money to put a good team on the floor. That's a rarity.

    As for Martins, your view of him seems to boil down to, "anything bad that has happened, it's his fault, and this doesn't need to be verified with any evidence." I can't argue with that. It's entirely opinion, and since I'm not part of the organization, I don't know how to say you're definitely wrong. Sure, Martins told Otis to trade most of the team for his former buddies. Sure, Martins told Hennigan trade Oladipo and Sabonis for Serge.

    The only negative we have any evidence of where Martins is concerned is that he helped hire Skiles, which, to be fair, worked from a purely basketball standpoint. Not sure how we can blame Martins for Skiles' meltdown. Maybe he should have just fired Hennigan before Skiles got to that point. Hard to say.


  10. 1 hour ago, TrueMagicFanSince1987 said:

    Because he was part of the problem for many years and he deserved to be fired a long time ago because of those things. 

    I guess I just can't think why a guy should be fired for not being good at something that isn't his job. Aside from the couple of years when he was clearly being asked to do more, which he was apparently quite happy to step away from, he's done a great job for this team. Aside from probably being too hands-on during the Hennigan years, how was he "part of the problem?"


  11. 41 minutes ago, TrueMagicFanSince1987 said:

    Don’t mess with me... If this is true it’s fantastic news! 

    I'm not sure why this is fantastic news. I get that for a short time he was probably too involved in the basketball side of things; but that seems to no longer have been the case, since the organization went to the President of Basketball Ops and GM format. And no one can argue that Martins wasn't fantastic at his actual job.


  12. On 3/2/2020 at 1:06 PM, Magicpassion said:

    As I’ve said before, if AG hits his 3s at a good clip 36%+ it’s a game changer, otherwise it hurts us. I had a certain dissertation from a person that remains nameless about AG is a perfect compliment to JI which is ridiculous when both forward spots are shooting subpar from 3; (pretty much everyone but Evan), but he criticizes everyone; no big deal. When AG is shooting  28/30% like he has all season it makes life harder on everyone and he was shooting back to his mean last game; it doesn’t work against good teams.  It’s very obvious we need people that can shoot, otherwise  the game plan for other teams is a lot easier. 

    It looks very much like Gordon is going to be up near 33% or higher by the end of the season, unless he's out for an extended period, which is an utter shock considering his start. He did the same thing last year, where he started out struggling, but pulled it together late season, and he seems on his way to that again with a 39% February. If you look at his month-to-month numbers by year, it's clear he's getting more consistent from outside, if not as quickly as we'd all like. There's every reason to believe he can be that 36% guy. But he'll be the 36% guy who shoots 30% one month and 40% the next. Gordon's shooting is not really a problem for this team, long-term, so long as he maintains the same level of improvement over the next couple seasons, which is reasonable to bank on. Jonathan Isaac is just 22, and his shot looks good. It's hard to say what his % would be if he was healthy this year. Were November and December down months? He certainly shot better after the All-Star break last year, though he still wasn't consistent yet. But good NBA minds and shot-coaches seem to think he can be a very good 3-point shooter with his stroke in time, so it's reasonable to bank on that.

     

    The point with Gordon/Isaac is how well their DEVELOPED games complement each other. Gordon is already almost there, really. He needs to get more consistent, but he's already able to put together months of consistently good shooting. Just needs to get those couple of 27% months up to 30%, and we're golden. He absolutely can do that, and he seems serious about it. Isaac is really in the same boat, but younger, so it may take time, or it may just click; hard to say. But the rest of their games complement each other so well it has to be looked at. Defensively, Gordon is the perfect fit next to Isaac, especially so long as we're saddled with Vuc and Fournier, guys who struggle switching. Isaac was looking like a future DPOY when he went down, swatting shots and getting in the passing lanes, and Gordon is a very good player to have against an opposing team's best scorer; but beyond that, it's the things that don't show up in the box score that make these two fit so well. Take the Spurs game recently. Lyles put up a ton of points, because Gordon was too busy having to keep one eye on having to rotate to the basket if Vuc/Fournier got torched. With Isaac in the game, not only does Gordon not have to worry about covering the basket (because of Isaac's elite rotating and swatting skills), but he can be the guy who guards DeRozan in the first place, while Isaac's length allows him to do what Gordon was trying to do without losing Lyles. With no Gordon, Isaac can't afford to play as free defensively, because Gordon's incredible ability to switch onto everyone won't cover for him chasing a block. Now add a fully realized Bamba into the mix, and you see the potential. a Defense anchored around Isaac/Gordon is scary good.

    Offensively, they complement each other very well also. Gordon has shown himself to be a terrific cutter since Markelle arrived. Isaac has that ability as well. Gordon is becoming a terrific passer as well, both to cutters and to spot-up shooters off the drive. Isaac benefits from Gordon's ability to crash and get Isaac open outside shots over smaller guys (because Gordon's proficiency around the basket and power getting to the basket mean you have to put the smaller forward on Isaac), and also his vision when Isaac cuts. Without Gordon, or someone who can do what he does, the only time Isaac is going to get shots - aside from on the break - is from Markelle collapsing the lane. He doesn't move particularly well along the perimeter to get shots off of Vuc passing from the paint, and he's not likely to be a pull-up shooter off of screens or an iso scorer. Gordon and Isaac are also both scary on the break, especially together.

    Yes, we need shooters. Whatever SG we go with moving forward has to be an elite shooter, because the rest of these guys are not going to be great, most likely (still a chance for Isaac - and Bamba, really; just don't see much room for GREAT with Gordon/Fultz). Whatever our long-term plans at C are, the guy has to be able to shoot (hopefully that's Bamba). But pretending that Gordon and Isaac can't play together is absurd. They're a nightmare together defensively, and both can be serviceable shooters offensively. We need them to be decent shooters, but that's all. And they both should get there.

    • Upvote 2

  13. I got it, guys. We've been going about this all wrong. We all want to get away from Euroball. But what if we lean in?

     

    Trade Gordon for Bertans

    Isaac for Bogdan Bogdanovic 

    Fultz for Satoransky

    DJ for JJ Barrea

    Ross for Joe Ingles (I know, not technically Euroball, but I think we can allow it)

    MCW for Ntilikina

    Bamba for Maxi Kleber

    Ennis for Rodions Kurucs

    Iwundu for bringing back Hezonja

    Aminu for Isaac Banga

    Birch for Dragan Bender

    Clark for Dzanan Musa

    Frazier for Thanasis Antetokounmpo (very important)

    Think of all the fundamentals and shooting! Then, after seeing all those Euro guys, and his brother already here, Giannis demands a trade to Orlando.fool proof!

    Make it happen WeltHam!!!

    • Like 1

  14. I'm a Gordon fan. I've said before he's very valuable beside Isaac. He also seems to be starting to thrive off of Fultz. I'm very glad we didn't trade him, because I want to see how he and Fultz and Isaac progress together for a while longer before I would let him go. If Chuma is really good, maybe you have to cash in that chip eventually and use Gordon to improve. But we don't know yet if we even can afford to lose Gordon, in my opinion, considering how well he plays off of the two best future pieces we have. To me - and I think most of the board agrees - the main goal moving forward should be getting away from Evan and Vuc running the offense. I don't even think we have to get rid of both of them to do that. I like a lot of what I see from our offense when just Vuc is out, and the same when just Evan is out. One of those guys alone isn't enough to freeze out Gordon and Fultz; but, together, they are too comfortable with running the same inefficient two-man game they have for years, especially in important end of game situations. I much prefer the way we've seen a few times when Fultz and Gordon take control at the end of games. I really think Gordon and Fultz together can be special, if we let them figure it out together. But that requires the training wheels (Vuc/Evan offense) to come off.

    • Upvote 5

  15. Not making a statement about whether he should be fired. I think he's got his positives and negatives: he's consistent, and coaches good defense; but his offense is too rigid and predictable. He's like a sane version of Skiles, in that way, though certainly they run very different systems. But I honestly think the idea of him as a coach is similar to what it was with Skiles, for this team. I'm just of two minds on whether his rigidity on offense is helping our young guys learn to settle into an offense or just hindering their figuring things out. It's a long-term game we're playing with letting him hinder the young guys, hoping that once they get used to playing within the rules of his offense they'll figure out how to play around the edges of his system when they're more comfortable. But is his offense a safety blanket, or a straight jacket? Hard to tell at this point.

    What I'm wondering is whether he WILL be fired (or at least be on the hot seat) if such a collapse happened. Understand, I think it's entirely likely my prediction of 34 wins gets us into the playoffs. Missing the playoffs would, I think, require us to continue to look this bad for the rest of the year. Lose multiple games to teams below us and not pick up any games from those above us. Home losses to the Bulls, Hornets, Cavs, Hawks. That's the kind of collapse I'm talking about. Because at this point, it's not out of the realm of possibility, considering how lost and disinterested this team looks.

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