TreyMachine

From body language, there is something going on behind the scenes. I’m not convinced there isn’t locker room issues.

I’m also on the Fire Mosley train. We go 1-6 or 1-7 and you don’t turn back from that. Hire Mike Malone. Man is a GREAT coach and is currently unemployed.

I’ll preface by saying I didn’t watch the game (had a family conflict), but none of this is surprising to me. Mosley has had a lot of questions over the last 2-3 years about optiziming player abilities. He has a top 8 NBA team in terms of talent. If he can’t turn this around, i think his head is on the chopping block Secondly, and perhaps equally responsible, Paolo sounds like he’s playing with that mentality that he needs to “get his” in terms of points without looking for the best basketball play. He’s not a vocal leader and doesn't take responsibility when things go bad either. I was hoping for Tim Duncan leadership but Duncan was always marked by humility which I’m not sure Paolo is marked by.

The fact is that 5 years in, I think they’re both playing similar roles as scoring punches and leaders off the bench. TJ McConnell is good enough to go for 15-20 on any given night and I think Richardson will be the same. Also, $5 says you asked ChatGPT/AI to write that Analysis. Lol

Bring him to Orlando!!! He’s for a long time been seen as one of the best basketball minds behind Sam Presti. Absolutely wild but also Toronto hasn’t been producing, so I get the axe has to fall somewhere.

I’ve seen a lot of comparisons to Jase, but I wanted to throw one out there I didn’t see that we were all watching recently - TJ McConnell. He’s an undersized, high motor guard who is a good defender and a shifty shot creator. having someone like that on our team as a bench guy is super ideal. Maybe it’s not a perfect fit but when I heard the strengths and weaknesses, that’s immediately whom I thought of.

Great for the wizards. Why you’d take a head case like Poole and match him with a head case like Zion just seems like a receipt for disaster.

LETS GOOO!! Look - we gave up a lot. But here’s how I see it: The Good: - This is a 26 year old who is one of the best 3PT shooters in the league and plays stout defense while being apparently an absolute DAWG in the gym. He fits our timeline and unlike KCP, he can create offense for himself and it’s early 30’s on the decline. - Of the 4 firsts, 3 will likely be picks in the 20+ range - players whom will not play much with our current depth and “win now” mode. The only pick that is terrible to trade is that Phoenix pick, which might be a top 10 next year. - To boot, Bane is apparently also a devout Catholic who does a whole heck of a lot of charity work, which fits the type of person the Magic brass like bringing in. The Bad: - With Paolo, this will be the 4th player we have on a max contract (Suggs, Wagner, Bane, Bachero) and will really start to hamper us from keeping good team depth while being over the luxury tax very likely. - I think there wasn’t much room for Cole in the rotation and his hot-and-cold streaky shooting was annoying, but I think he was the boisterous “fun” of the locker room and a voice guys will miss having as both Franz and Paolo are soft spoken and more serious and Suggs is an intense vocal leader. You need someone to keep things light hearted and Cole was that. I think our team chemistry next year will miss him. overall, I will take this “swing for the fences” over staying put and am glad, even if we perhaps overpaid, to get someone we think pairs nicely with our core for years to come.

Here's my take: the team is decently well-constructed. Paolo and Franz just do not bring the energy to make the guys around them believe they can be better. That was lost with Mo and with Suggs, and these two injuries have been the primary catalyst for our free-fall. Paolo and Franz are both great, but neither of them inspire greatness in the other players, and neither does Mo. We have lost our on-court vocal leaders in Suggs and Mo and that has made all the difference in the world during this free-fall, not the roster construction, but the personalities that mesh together to create a cohesive unit.

Real Question: if we don't turn things around and keep losing at this clip, I feel like Mose has lost the locker room. We clearly were great just a month ago and this has been a really rough patch. If we don't turn things around before the end of the season... Is it justified for us to fire Mose? Or is he too integral for the culture or our young team for the Magic brass to make such a change? I can't imagine us doing so but if we go like 5-20 the rest of the way, I don't see how we don't fire him or someone's head rolls.

I'd like to point out one month ago the sentiments of this board were the above statement. We had one bad month. Let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater that we didn't get something completed at the trade deadline and recently bias calls for the head of both Mose and Parker. Let's see how this month goes. If we end this badly, we certainly will be having a small reset this off season.

Chiming in - I think we like cohesion. We care about the fact that the locker room is tight and we've clearly shown we had a deep team that can win while Paolo / Franz were out. "Let's not blow it up yet" is the feeling I would guess that they had.

Mose deserves COTY and Parker/Weltman deserve executives of the year. No one is doing more with less proven players. We're still 4th in the East without our two best players. With that being said, it probably goes to Kenny Atkinson. People had real questions about the Cavs and their future and those are really quiet as they sit 29-4 with a new head coach. Really unfortunate as I think Mose is doing an unbelievable job this season.

I don't mind the idea but I just don't think he's a chemistry fit. We play young, fun, and hungry, and he more (from my understanding) is a no-nonsense dude with a small sense of humor. I also don't think they trade Jimmy within the division. Plus he's getting paid $50M per year so one of Franz/Suggs is leaving in that deal and it's therefore a no from me for that reason.

I’m so happy we’re playing this good with Paolo out. It gives everyone else a boost of confidence before he comes back.

Not to be a Debbie-Downer, but we were 24th last year in 3P% and 15th in FG%. I think we'll make SOME improvement there, but I don't see up jumping to a top 10 true shooting team. If we can jump from 24th to like just league average (15th!), I think that's a win. Let's temper expectations on "good shooting team" here. We'll make good decisions and will make smart passes, leading to good looks that we can hopefully hit. Excited for the season to start already!!

Franz and Moe playing some great basketball against the NBA's best. We really have a special duo in them.

Full game highlight can be found here:

Pat is the biggest reason why Orlando has a major sports team. His zeal to bring a team here willed it into existence, not to mention his unmatched lottery luck brought us from nonexistence to relevance and the NBA Finals each decade for the first two decades. He was a good man and no one has anything but positive things to say about him which is all you have to know. RIP Pat Williams.

Looks like the team is becoming complacent. Would just for once like to win a Summer League Championship, even if I know it's completely meaningless.

I think Markelle is a great player and a good person. He makes the players around him better and will thrive somewhere else. My hope is that he gets a payday or a chance to shine as a potential starter - neither of which we could give here. My gut tells me he goes and joins a big-market contender (like LA or Philly) and gets notable minutes on a bunch of nationally televised games to get a payday next year. I at least hope that for him. Good kid and too talented to not do something for at least some more time in the NBA.

I still will never understand the infatuation with RJ Hampton. I get that he was long and athletic, but he was (and continued to be) and VERY bad decision maker and we traded for him, which means we were VERY high on him compared to where he was drafted. Maybe our thought was that if he was able to understand the game, he had a higher ceiling than anyone else there (common WeltHam move), but I just never saw it.

You know what’s crazier than us trading for Markelle Fultz for what everyone considered to be relatively cheap? The pick we traded away - a late playoff pick at the time from OKC (21) - became Tyrese Maxey. Just found that out. Ugh. Lol

Markelle Fultz was the consensus #1 pick. Elite explosive first step, great handles, very good jump shot, and really good vision/passing. Literally the guy just needed to add a 3 pt jumper and he would have been an All-Star had he just kept to the status quo. The issue was his confidence and jump shot both regressed, and as we saw, he essentially had then a ceiling of Elfrid Payton. A player like that becomes an all-star 60% of the time and a talented starter another 30% of the time. He was the small % that didn’t make it. You take that bet each time if the draft happens again with the same information.

I'm in sales and that's why when you go to the table you know EVERYTHING about the competition who is trying to win over your client and how they've probably pitched. If Doc says, "Hey - we never have, and it's not normal, but I'm happy to run it up the chain if it's important to you." The "I don't know let me get back to you" response would have given leadership time to think about it as Tim Duncan was seen as a generational player. Honestly, for TD's legacy, I'm happy he stayed with Pop. But as a Magic fan, I'm obviously devastated. Here's a real question: Do you trade maybe 4 years (before it implodes with Doc as coach) of TMac/Duncan/Hurt Grant Hill (remember he played almost none of 2000 and 2001) and a bunch of scrubs at the vet minimum b/c we'd have no other cap space from 2000-2004 (height of Lakers/Nets years) for our 2006-2010 run with D12/Turk/Lewis/Nelson (we never get Dwight Howard if we're not horribly bad in 2003)? We all know that we didn't end up with a championship but man were those good times.