Stock Meeting: Week Four.

[Skywise316 211]

You know, things were going so well. Then Houston came to town. Disclaimer time:

 

Just so everyone knows, if I say someone went 20-7-4, it means they had 20 points, 7 rebounds, and 4 assists. Sometimes I'm just too lazy to type that out and use ##-#-#.

 

The games this Meeting covers are Toronto, Indiana, and Houston.

 

This is supposed to be a reflection of the difference between how we view the Orlando Magic after the fourth week of the regular season, as opposed to how we viewed the Magic after the first three weeks. The whole idea is take the entire week into account, not just how things are going after the Rockets game.

 

Stock Up:

 

Jameer Nelson. (Consistency, consistency, consistency. Where was this when I tried to count on him as a fantasy sleeper the past two seasons!? Anyway, Jameer has been reminding us that even "old and grizzled" 26-year-olds can still improve. He had scoring games of 22, 22, and 21. He had 5 assists against 3 turnovers versus the Raptors, but then went on to have 15 assists against only 2 turnovers over the course of the next 2 games.

 

In a word, wow? Also Jameer's overall shooting has been much better these past two weeks of the season rather than the first two. He's shooting 26 of 47 from the field since the the Toronto game and has only missed one free throw the entire season so far.

 

Besides for the obvious being Dwight Howard, the next biggest reason that the Magic are 9-4 is clearly Meercat. I'm starting to debate the point at which I stop giving Jameer Stock Ups because he's gonna hit his head on the stock ceiling at this pace any day now.)

 

Free Throw Shooting. (It's been a bit under the radar, but have you noticed the Magic are hitting their free throws lately?? In Week 4, the Magic hit 52 of their 67 free throws. That's 77.6% and before the Toronto game I distinctly remember during the pregame show that the Magic were only shooting 70% on the season.

 

Dwight Howard hitting 17 of his 25 free throws this past week certainly helped the cause. Yeah I know I was shocked to see that myself!)

 

J.J. Redick. (Someone's Stock finally got up off the floor. 2 of the past 3 games Redick's played well. Against Indy he barely did anything in 12 minutes... he only attempted 3 shots, hit one of them, and had an assist. Marquis Daniels scored on everyone and their distant aunt on that night, so he didn't do much defensively either.

 

However, Toronto was the night where he finally got off his season long slide of 0 for 10 (0 for 11 since he missed his first shot) to finish the game with 10 points on 4 for 9 shooting, 3 boards and a steal, not to mention a few good defensive stands against Anthony Parker and Jason Kapono. It was all the more important that he played solid in that game since he inexplicably got the start for Air France. That led to him being the first man off the bench against Houston, and even though he didn't shoot well with 2 for 7, he got to the FT line over and over to shoot 8 of 10 FTs, had a board, and 3 assists including a pretty no look one to Tony Battie.

 

In short, J.J.'s Stock is now something that actually now something that has to have an eye kept on it, because at least at this moment it isn't rock bottom, which is where it was through the first 3 weeks of the season.)

 

Rashard Lewis. (Like I said last week, just a matter of time before he would go Up after appearing to pull out of his funk at the end of Week 3. Rashard had scoring games of 22, 23, and 18 although we could of used more than that "18" in a game that featured no Hedo, a foul-ridden D12, anda virtually ineffective Pietrus. He's continues to get those boards, with games of 8, 5, and 8. Also his 3 point shot seems to have come back around after shooting 12 of 21 through the whole week. However he jacked up far too many outside shots against Houston, shooting 12 3-pointers in that game alone. Also of major note, Rashard had an amazing eleven steals between the Toronto and Indy games. That could truly be a first in Rashard's career. Shard also has been picking up the defense, such as actually slowing down Chris Bosh in the first half and therby making SVG look like a complete tool for not putting him back on Bosh enough in the second half as CB went off for 40 points as well as doing an excellent job of keeping Luis Scola off the offensive boards against Houston. Not the easiest thing in the world to do.

 

Rashard's holding down the forward fort as best he can.. hopefully his back doesn't give out T-Mac style waiting for Turk to cut out the Grant Hill impression.)

 

Anthony Johnson. (The theory of 2 out of 3 rises again. Against Toronto, his stats weren't very good. 2 assists, 2 points, a board, a turnover... he had a block, which was surprising. However if you saw the game you would of noted that he was playing more solidly than he had of late, managing the game better.

 

Then he "exploded."

 

7 points, 3 boards, and an assist with no turnovers against Indy. Then 8 points, 5 assists, and again, no turnovers against Houston. Heck at the beginning of the 4th quarter, A.J. was the Magic's go to guy! If the starters were ready to do ANYTHING in that 4th quarter, then we would be praising A.J. for giving us that momentum. Instead the starters fumbled the ball, almost literally, and we're left with a bad taste in our mouths and A.J.'s efforts all but forgotten.

 

He's not at that memorable preseason level again yet... but he's showing flashes.)

 

Adonal Foyle. (He played! he had 4 points, 7 boards, and 3 blocks!

 

Hey... it's better than the Inactive List. And he made SVG look reeeallly smart for activating him against Yao Ming.)

 

Brian Cook. (He made a shot. No seriously, look... I mean it's progress, right? Um... it was a 25 foot shot? Does that count for anything..?)

 

Stock Down:

 

Hedo Turkoglu. (I swear, I keep almost typoing "turkoflu" every other time I type his name out...

 

Okay. Against Toronto, he had a miserable first 3 quarters. But he manages 16 points in the 5th quarter, pieces together 7 assists for the whole game, and everything is forgiven. Everything for the first 75% of the game is swept under the rug.

 

Maybe everyone should of paid closer attention.

 

Indiana. 1 for 13 shooting including 0 for 7 from 3! Ouch! Twice as many turnovers as assists, only 3 boards... in fantasy circles we call that "Teh suck~!"

 

Then as an attempt to minimize damage to Hedo's fragile ego, the Magic claim Turk was "sick" the whole time and make him sit out the Houston game to sell the "flu-like symptoms." Wink wink, nudge nudge. Alright maybe not on the conspiracy theory, but there's nothing to shine up on a DNP.

 

Everyone misses shots now and then, but of most concern is Turk's poor decision-making as of late. Take what the defense gives you, it's really not a hard concept.

 

Except maybe for our Turkish friend.)

 

Mickael Pietrus. (Starting the week off with a DNP isn't a good sign of things to come. Especially when those things to come include 5 of 16 combined shooting, 7 combined turnovers and combined foul trouble over the course of the last two games. Not to mention the occassional stepping out of bounds is alright, as a Golden State fan I feel ya, I understand. But come on dude, it's getting a tad out of control.)

 

Dwight Howard. (2 of 3... in a bad way. First the great game, which was against Indy. 24 points, 17 boards, 5 blocks, an assist and a steal. Without the efforts of Dwight, Jameer, and Rashard, there's no way in the world Orlando beats Indiana with a poor shooting Turkoglu, so that should be recognized.

 

However Dwight fouled out against Toronto with "only" 18 points and 9 boards and also got in major foul trouble throughout the Houston game into the 3rd quarter when he picked up his 4th foul. SVG left him out there and he didn't pick up another foul, but he only played 27 minutes and it showed in the total lack of a defensive presence for the Magic in the paint. Houston scoring 46 points in the paint was a big difference in the game. He took another step down against Houston, still getting 9 boards but only getting 13 points. This one hurt the most because Hedo wasn't even AROUND to help pick up the slack.

 

The silver lining though are Dwight's free throws as of late, and he's also continued to keep the turnovers down. 5 in his last 3 games, only 2 in his last 2! If he'd just cut it out with the foul trouble, he's been doing better with the 2 most glaring weaknesses in his game.)

 

Alright, that's it. The Magic finished the week 2-1 and 9-4 overall. They still lead the SE division thanks to ATL's recent slide. It's a busy week with games against Milwaukee, Philly, the Wiz, and Indy. A reasonable over/under would be a 3-1 week for Orlando, especially if Hedo could get his butt back on the floor. if D-Wade can manage 38 with the flu, Hedo should be able to do 15 points and 5 assists with a bag of Halls in his pocket.

 

*sigh* Watch out for that turkaflu out there, it can get pretty nasty. Just ask Pat Garrity, he's had it since 2003.

 

Good night and good luck.

[Skywise316 211]

You know, things were going so well. Then Houston came to town. Disclaimer time:

 

Just so everyone knows, if I say someone went 20-7-4, it means they had 20 points, 7 rebounds, and 4 assists. Sometimes I'm just too lazy to type that out and use ##-#-#.

 

The games this Meeting covers are Toronto, Indiana, and Houston.

 

This is supposed to be a reflection of the difference between how we view the Orlando Magic after the fourth week of the regular season, as opposed to how we viewed the Magic after the first three weeks. The whole idea is take the entire week into account, not just how things are going after the Rockets game.

 

Stock Up:

 

Jameer Nelson. (Consistency, consistency, consistency. Where was this when I tried to count on him as a fantasy sleeper the past two seasons!? Anyway, Jameer has been reminding us that even "old and grizzled" 26-year-olds can still improve. He had scoring games of 22, 22, and 21. He had 5 assists against 3 turnovers versus the Raptors, but then went on to have 15 assists against only 2 turnovers over the course of the next 2 games.

 

In a word, wow? Also Jameer's overall shooting has been much better these past two weeks of the season rather than the first two. He's shooting 26 of 47 from the field since the the Toronto game and has only missed one free throw the entire season so far.

 

Besides for the obvious being Dwight Howard, the next biggest reason that the Magic are 9-4 is clearly Meercat. I'm starting to debate the point at which I stop giving Jameer Stock Ups because he's gonna hit his head on the stock ceiling at this pace any day now.)

 

Free Throw Shooting. (It's been a bit under the radar, but have you noticed the Magic are hitting their free throws lately?? In Week 4, the Magic hit 52 of their 67 free throws. That's 77.6% and before the Toronto game I distinctly remember during the pregame show that the Magic were only shooting 70% on the season.

 

Dwight Howard hitting 17 of his 25 free throws this past week certainly helped the cause. Yeah I know I was shocked to see that myself!)

 

J.J. Redick. (Someone's Stock finally got up off the floor. 2 of the past 3 games Redick's played well. Against Indy he barely did anything in 12 minutes... he only attempted 3 shots, hit one of them, and had an assist. Marquis Daniels scored on everyone and their distant aunt on that night, so he didn't do much defensively either.

 

However, Toronto was the night where he finally got off his season long slide of 0 for 10 (0 for 11 since he missed his first shot) to finish the game with 10 points on 4 for 9 shooting, 3 boards and a steal, not to mention a few good defensive stands against Anthony Parker and Jason Kapono. It was all the more important that he played solid in that game since he inexplicably got the start for Air France. That led to him being the first man off the bench against Houston, and even though he didn't shoot well with 2 for 7, he got to the FT line over and over to shoot 8 of 10 FTs, had a board, and 3 assists including a pretty no look one to Tony Battie.

 

In short, J.J.'s Stock is now something that actually now something that has to have an eye kept on it, because at least at this moment it isn't rock bottom, which is where it was through the first 3 weeks of the season.)

 

Rashard Lewis. (Like I said last week, just a matter of time before he would go Up after appearing to pull out of his funk at the end of Week 3. Rashard had scoring games of 22, 23, and 18 although we could of used more than that "18" in a game that featured no Hedo, a foul-ridden D12, anda virtually ineffective Pietrus. He's continues to get those boards, with games of 8, 5, and 8. Also his 3 point shot seems to have come back around after shooting 12 of 21 through the whole week. However he jacked up far too many outside shots against Houston, shooting 12 3-pointers in that game alone. Also of major note, Rashard had an amazing eleven steals between the Toronto and Indy games. That could truly be a first in Rashard's career. Shard also has been picking up the defense, such as actually slowing down Chris Bosh in the first half and therby making SVG look like a complete tool for not putting him back on Bosh enough in the second half as CB went off for 40 points as well as doing an excellent job of keeping Luis Scola off the offensive boards against Houston. Not the easiest thing in the world to do.

 

Rashard's holding down the forward fort as best he can.. hopefully his back doesn't give out T-Mac style waiting for Turk to cut out the Grant Hill impression.)

 

Anthony Johnson. (The theory of 2 out of 3 rises again. Against Toronto, his stats weren't very good. 2 assists, 2 points, a board, a turnover... he had a block, which was surprising. However if you saw the game you would of noted that he was playing more solidly than he had of late, managing the game better.

 

Then he "exploded."

 

7 points, 3 boards, and an assist with no turnovers against Indy. Then 8 points, 5 assists, and again, no turnovers against Houston. Heck at the beginning of the 4th quarter, A.J. was the Magic's go to guy! If the starters were ready to do ANYTHING in that 4th quarter, then we would be praising A.J. for giving us that momentum. Instead the starters fumbled the ball, almost literally, and we're left with a bad taste in our mouths and A.J.'s efforts all but forgotten.

 

He's not at that memorable preseason level again yet... but he's showing flashes.)

 

Adonal Foyle. (He played! he had 4 points, 7 boards, and 3 blocks!

 

Hey... it's better than the Inactive List. And he made SVG look reeeallly smart for activating him against Yao Ming.)

 

Brian Cook. (He made a shot. No seriously, look... I mean it's progress, right? Um... it was a 25 foot shot? Does that count for anything..?)

 

Stock Down:

 

Hedo Turkoglu. (I swear, I keep almost typoing "turkoflu" every other time I type his name out...

 

Okay. Against Toronto, he had a miserable first 3 quarters. But he manages 16 points in the 5th quarter, pieces together 7 assists for the whole game, and everything is forgiven. Everything for the first 75% of the game is swept under the rug.

 

Maybe everyone should of paid closer attention.

 

Indiana. 1 for 13 shooting including 0 for 7 from 3! Ouch! Twice as many turnovers as assists, only 3 boards... in fantasy circles we call that "Teh suck~!"

 

Then as an attempt to minimize damage to Hedo's fragile ego, the Magic claim Turk was "sick" the whole time and make him sit out the Houston game to sell the "flu-like symptoms." Wink wink, nudge nudge. Alright maybe not on the conspiracy theory, but there's nothing to shine up on a DNP.

 

Everyone misses shots now and then, but of most concern is Turk's poor decision-making as of late. Take what the defense gives you, it's really not a hard concept.

 

Except maybe for our Turkish friend.)

 

Mickael Pietrus. (Starting the week off with a DNP isn't a good sign of things to come. Especially when those things to come include 5 of 16 combined shooting, 7 combined turnovers and combined foul trouble over the course of the last two games. Not to mention the occassional stepping out of bounds is alright, as a Golden State fan I feel ya, I understand. But come on dude, it's getting a tad out of control.)

 

Dwight Howard. (2 of 3... in a bad way. First the great game, which was against Indy. 24 points, 17 boards, 5 blocks, an assist and a steal. Without the efforts of Dwight, Jameer, and Rashard, there's no way in the world Orlando beats Indiana with a poor shooting Turkoglu, so that should be recognized.

 

However Dwight fouled out against Toronto with "only" 18 points and 9 boards and also got in major foul trouble throughout the Houston game into the 3rd quarter when he picked up his 4th foul. SVG left him out there and he didn't pick up another foul, but he only played 27 minutes and it showed in the total lack of a defensive presence for the Magic in the paint. Houston scoring 46 points in the paint was a big difference in the game. He took another step down against Houston, still getting 9 boards but only getting 13 points. This one hurt the most because Hedo wasn't even AROUND to help pick up the slack.

 

The silver lining though are Dwight's free throws as of late, and he's also continued to keep the turnovers down. 5 in his last 3 games, only 2 in his last 2! If he'd just cut it out with the foul trouble, he's been doing better with the 2 most glaring weaknesses in his game.)

 

Alright, that's it. The Magic finished the week 2-1 and 9-4 overall. They still lead the SE division thanks to ATL's recent slide. It's a busy week with games against Milwaukee, Philly, the Wiz, and Indy. A reasonable over/under would be a 3-1 week for Orlando, especially if Hedo could get his butt back on the floor. if D-Wade can manage 38 with the flu, Hedo should be able to do 15 points and 5 assists with a bag of Halls in his pocket.

 

*sigh* Watch out for that turkaflu out there, it can get pretty nasty. Just ask Pat Garrity, he's had it since 2003.

 

Good night and good luck.

[gporter 5]

Overall you had to feel dissappointed but not worried after the Houston loss.

 

There were so many things to be happy about that outweighed the bad, like the turkoflu and Supermans foul trouble, and SVG's inability to play Pietrus in the fourth quarter, which was where we threw the game away.

 

No, he would rather play Bogans at SF, and Redick at SG, and this is also when Artest started going off.

 

The point is, when Bogans was introduced as a starter, I said there was no way we win this game, then we had a halftime lead and barely lost in the end. The five point difference doesn't quite indicate how close we were to winning this game.

[magic berto 0]

You're right Sky. If Jameer continues his stellar play, there's no other way to go but down.

 

I know it's still early in the season, but I'm glad he's probably one of our more consistent guys out there. Should shut up a lot of people who want to get another PG in his place... for the mean time.

 

Props for giving JJ credit even though I still see him as a trade bait right now. A lot of people here on the boards never give credit to some of our players no matter what they do, can't think of a better board contributor to do these Stock threads other than you. Thanks.

[MP_20 2]

quote:

Mickael Pietrus. (Starting the week off with a DNP isn't a good sign of things to come. Especially when those things to come include 5 of 16 combined shooting, 7 combined turnovers and combined foul trouble over the course of the last two games. Not to mention the occassional stepping out of bounds is alright, as a Golden State fan I feel ya, I understand. But come on dude, it's getting a tad out of control.)

 

I hate to keep sounding like a apologist and also to keep asking the same question, but how come no one's asking if MP is 100% after the rib injury? An injury that he could still be recovering from. Doesn't it seem like his numbers are a bit off post-injury? Also, of those 7 TOs I would guess over half were offensive fouls/interference? I could be wrong, but I remember him trying to make something happen while the team was struggling to make shots. Something, imo, he really shouldn't be asked to do with either Jameer/Shard/Hedo/Dwight on the floor. Especially as the one newbie minus CLee. But he did step out of bounds a couple times ..... but one of those was after a blocked shot or deflection by Granger. And, just to note, he was never in foul trouble all week. He had 2 vs Houston while keeping Artest to 4 pts and 3 vs Ind all in different quarters. Not to mention that was in 30 and 29 minutes of play. He's going to have his boneheaded plays, admittedly, but just wanted to add my .02 on what I saw from him this week.

[Luke_FfS 251]

Great job as always Sky.

 

Cook also get 2 rebounds, so this is defenitely a stock up!!!

 

 

One question: why so few "Stock in the Middle" in those 4 weeks?

[Skywise316 211]

gporter, I totally agree. I didn't like that Bogans-Redick lineup at all, especially not going down the stretch of the fourth quarter!

 

Artest starts going off. You can blame Bogans, but also the team's weak side defense and rotations, which had been good for most of the night, started to become non existent when we needed it the most.

 

A SG/SF combo of either Pietrus/Bogans or Pietrus/Redick would of been much more effective than.. Bogans and Redick? We were were already down Hedo, why take ANOTHER starter out of the fold down the stretch!? SVG needs to get called out on this, but of course our beat reporters are too short sighted to even notice this, let alone ask him about it.

 

Look, Pietrus has to play in the last 6 minutes of the game. The risk of him committing a silly foul isn't enough to take out what's been our best 3-point shooter so far, his willingness to drive to the basket, not to mention effectively, which you almost never get with Bogans and you still have to cross your fingers when Redick does it. Even if Pietrus doesn't get that key deflection or steal, his length defensively is crucial, ESPECIALLY at small forward against guys who are 6 foot 6 or 7!

 

Not to mention... would a lineup of Dwight-Battie-Lewis-[insert SG here]-Jameer really be that horrific to at least try? One time?? Particularly if Turk isn't playing, I mean c'mon.

 

berto, hopefully we won't be hearing about needing a new starting PG as long as Jameer keeps up anything relatively close to what he's doing. I think the discussion will shift to us needing a true backup PG. We're gonna need one sooner or not too much later regardless, because it's not like A.J.'s a spring chicken anyway.

 

Thanks for the props on objectivity.. I try. Last year I was up on Carlos and down on Dooling, while I've been high on Jameer throughout, at least on his potential if nothing else. I've pretty much always been more down on Bogans than up. And I would consider myself a "J.J. optimist" since he was drafted.

 

But when it comes to analysis, I've got no problem giving Bogans props or trashing Redick when he does something dumb. Same for Hedo. I don't think we should trade Hedo for peanuts (and by peanuts I mean Nick Collison) but I'm more than willing to give him a verbal thwap when he screws up.

 

No matter what my rooting interests are, first thing first is they are all Magic players. We should root for them ALL to succeed. It's the other 29 NBA teams that are the "enemy." Also, the facts on the ground are the facts on the ground, so to speak. I hate when people ignore things that happen on the court because it doesn't fit whatever they're rooting for, or whatever their agenda is.

 

In short, if you start at just wanting the TEAM to succeed... then you'll have no problem trashing or hyping players based on whether they're helping or hurting the Orlando Magic.

 

MP_20 that's true that he could still be hurting, but I'm not running a "Warrior of the week" stand over here. His production's dropped off somewhat and against Houston without Hedo in the lineup, him basically disappearing hurt the team's chances just as much as Dwight getting into foul trouble did.

 

About his foul trouble, that doesn't mean he had five fouls and he's in danger of getting DQed out of the game necessarily. It's also getting 2 quick fouls in the first quarter... basically, whenever you have to come out of the game at an unnatural time because of fouls, or can't get back in because of fouls, then that's "foul trouble."

 

Also just to be clear, SVG holding Pietrus out of the end of games is Van Gundy being a bonehead, not foul trouble.

 

And Luke, I thought about doing a Stock In The Middle for Bogans this week, but isn't this the kind of week he always has? Just enough good stuff given to stay in the rotation, but just enough STUPID plays in the 4th quarter to endanger us (and sometimes cost us) in games. So its like, whatever.

 

Plus unless there's huge changes for a player or team category, both up and down, I'd rather be more definitive than SITM more often than not. It's just for some reason I've had to use it a lot so far this season in postgame SU/SDs.

[magic berto 0]

quote:

Originally posted by Skywise316:

No matter what my rooting interests are, first thing first is they are all Magic players. We should root for them ALL to succeed. It's the other 29 NBA teams that are the "enemy." Also, the facts on the ground are the facts on the ground, so to speak. I hate when people ignore things that happen on the court because it doesn't fit whatever they're rooting for, or whatever their agenda is.

 

In short, if you start at just wanting the TEAM to succeed... then you'll have no problem trashing or hyping players based on whether they're helping or hurting the Orlando Magic.

 

Man, if only some people would get this stuck in their heads. You're doing a great job, keep it up. Looking forward to future Stock Meetings.

[MP_20 2]

ohhhhh. I see where you're headed with it now Sky. My bad. Hopefully the loss to Houston will serve as encouragement for the guys to focus and play better.

[Osprey 199]

Good analysis Sky. Agree with almost everything, I would put Shard's stock at a "Don't Buy or Risky" because of his recent shooting percentage.

[Luke_FfS 251]

quote:

Originally posted by magic berto:

Man, if only some people would get this stuck in their heads. You're doing a great job, keep it up. Looking forward to future Stock Meetings.

 

Magic Berto is always writing the same that I think.

 

That's why I really like your Stocks Up and Down, you have your preferences like everyone, but you can see it straight too.

 

 

BTW

quote:

Not to mention... would a lineup of Dwight-Battie-Lewis-[insert SG here]-Jameer really be that horrific to at least try? One time?? Particularly if Turk isn't playing, I mean c'mon.

 

I'm rooting for that since the start of the season, but if we don't play them against Yao-Scola (and no-Turk), I doubt that we'll ever do.

SVG surely knows better than us why we're always playing small.

[magic berto 0]

I also like giving Marcin Gortat some burn on the floor. I like what Tony brings to the table, he's doing incredible given his injury recovery, age, and whatnot. But as almost everybody knows, he's not getting any younger.

 

Marcin has shown a lot of promise and I can't see why it can be a problem giving him at least 10mpg. I mean come on, not even against opposing bench scrubs? We should be thinking about long-term fixes after all the short-term fixes that we've botched these past years.

 

Now that I thought about it, this really doesn't have a lot to do with Sky's Stock Meeting thread but I'm just throwing my thoughts out there lol