Stock Meeting: Week Seven.

Skywise316 · December 15, 2008

This is mega long, only the hardcore need proceed.

18-6, 9 and 3 on the road, and the best part? Watching the national media begrudgingly give the Orlando Magic credit!

Except Bill Walton, but he doesn't really count. He's blinded (and deaf, and dumb, and stupid) by Greg Oden luv.

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 ##-#-# instead.

The games this Meeting covers are the first four games of our West Coast Road Trip: the L.A. Clippers, Portland, Phoenix, and Utah.

This is supposed to be a reflection of the difference between how we view the Orlando Magic after the seventh week of the regular season, as opposed to how we viewed the Magic after the first six weeks. The whole idea is take the entire week into account, not just how things are going after the Jazz game... and I'd say Magic Nation is pretty "jazzed" right now. Ha! Like what I did there!? ....... Yeah, me neither.

I'm betta than that, I know, I know.

Stock Up:

Marcin Gortat. (He pretty much has to be the highest riser, right? From nonexistent to a major factor, especially defensively. It really shouldn't take Dwight getting injured to get Gortat in the rotation though, SVG, come on now.

Gortat played 13 minutes in the second half against the Suns and he shot 3 of 4 for 8 points, 6 boards and a block. Really good for only 13 minutes played. Then he started against Utah and owned the paint. In over 30 minutes played he pulled a triple 4! LOL 4 points, 4 boards, 4 blocks, a steal, and 2 turnovers.

Dare I say it... Warlock does a better job of keeping the ball in play than Dwight when he blocks the basketball. I have full confidence in Gortat against a scatter-brained team like Golden State on Monday night.)

Free Throw Shooting. (So Week Six, the Magic only shot 61.5 percent from the charity stripe. This past week, the Magic shot a total of 74 of 99 for 74.7474747.. uh, you get the idea, percent.

A return to normalcy team-wise for the Magic in their free throw shooting. Of course not having Dwight for a game and a half may of contributed...)

Rashard Lewis. (Let us get past the standout negative first. 4 turnovers against Utah.

Yeah, I'm done already. Now the positive.

The thievery is returning a bit with a steal in each of the last three games, he shot 30 of 60 for 50 percent overall, and he shot the Three Rock for 15 of 28 for 53.6 percent. The biggest shot he hit of the week was the run-behind-the-line three pointer against Portland to set up "The Bank." Oh by the way, he also shot 15 of 17 from the free throw line. He two 18 point scoring games and two 27 point scoring games. 7 boards, 2 assists against the Clips. 9 boards, 4 assists against Portland. 8 boards, 3 assists against the Suns. 9 boards, 3 assists against Utah. He's going more and more to his excellent low post game... apparently he finally told SVG that he has one... and played strong inside against the likes of Zach Randolph, LaMarcus Aldridge, and Paul Millsap. he didn't have to play strong against Amare Stoudamire because... well, Amare doesn't play strong inside! Especially when he played against us.

Folks, this is what we paid 118 million dollars for. What does Rashard have that Hedo doesn't right now?

Aggression, aggression, aggression. Just ask Utah after he laid that game-clinching putback dunk on their heads. Or his "And 1" over Paul Millsap in the block.)

Brian Cook. (SVG's giving him minutes, and he isn't making Stan look stupid! he hit a three and had a board against the Clips, hit another three and had an assist against Portland, and hit 2 threes and had another board against the Suns. Not bad in only 6, 7 minutes per game in those three outings. Then came Utah, where he got a full 15 minutes to play. 3 of 6 from the field, 3 of 4 from Three Land to get 9 points, 2 boards and 2 steals. And all of these threes he's hitting are at just critical moments in the ballgames, none bigger than the 2 threes he hit against Utah in the beginning of the 4th quarter when they were trying to make a run while Jameer and Rashard were on the bench.

Dwight, Rashard, Battie, and Gortat are all still better and deserve to be higher on the depth chart than Cookie, but if he's our 5th big man then at least he's being a PRODUCTIVE big man for us. Plus who knows, he could be raising his previous trade value of... well, zero.)

Keith Bogans. (He started all the Magic games this week, and I thought he had a very good week, strong focus and intensity on the border of being downright mean. Unless I'm just intimidated by the Barry White tones, which is entirely possible.

He didn't shoot well against Portland with 2 for 8, which kinda hurts the point I'm trying to make. But he shot 13 of 27 for the week, and if he would of shot one more time and made it, that'd be 50 percent from the field, which is always impressive. Just like Rashard he's also had a steal in each of his last three games. Other highlights include 4 assists against Portland, 5 boards against Utah, and only 2 turnovers for the whole week, both coming against Phoenix.

We all know it comes down to defense for Bogans, so let's look at that. let's just say SVG should of played Bogans against Baron Davis instead of Jameer, mostly just due to Kebo's strength. Probably would of been an easier game, but as it was he and Jet Lee kept Eric Gordan down to 4 of 12 shooting. It's impossible to hold down Brandon Roy in the last five minutes of a game for any single player in this league. But Bogans and C-Lee did a good job of holding Roy down for three and a half quarters, not to mention Rudy Fernandez who only shot 3 of 9 from the field himself. For Phoenix, J-Rich shot 50 percent but got hot late. Also, Matt Barnes had 3 turnovers which was a team effort, but spear-headed by Bogans. My only defensive complaint about Bogans came against Utah, where I thought his and Jameer's rotations were "teh suck~!" against Almond and Miles, particularly in the first half.)

Jameer Nelson. (Do we win any of these games without Jameer offensively? He had scoring games of 15, 21, 16, and 17. He had 23 assists against 12 turnovers. He's had two 2 rebound games, and two 4 board games. Very quietly he's had 2 steals against the Clips, 3 steals against Portland, and 3 steals against Utah.

He may not of hit game winners but he continues to be the leader in these 4th quarter rallies that give us a chance to win late in the game, 3rd quarter when it came to Utah. And 3 out of 4 times, the Magic pulled it off, all on the road.

His play and stats have been outstanding for about a month (not counting injury time) now, but it's the Leadership that gets the Stock Up. Meer's not just talking the talk anymore, he's walking the walk.)

Three Point Shooting. (We were 10 of 26 for 38 percent against the Clippers. That's okay. Against Phoenix we were 13 of 30 for 43.3 percent. That's very good.

The Stock Up comes for our three point efforts against Portland and Utah, the two toughest teams on the trip. Against both teams we shot exactly 14 of 27 for 52 percent. Odd coincidence, but awesome shooting, especially against Utah when there was Dwight to respect on the inside.)

Jeff Hardy. (New WWE Champion! YEAH!!!

Sorry.)

Stock In The Middle:

Seems to be more SITMs when there's 4 games in a week instead of 3.

Dwight Howard. (So he did play for two and a half games this week before SoreKneeGate, and he was up and down.

He was excellent against the Clippers. 22 points, 23 boards, 6 blocks, 4 assists. But he was poor against Portland, due to mostly to his now-forgotten strained love handle, but if he's healthy enough to be out there, you would want more than 14 points, 7 boards, a steal, an assist, and no blocks. Not to mention only 40 percent from the line.

He was having one of those all time games against the Suns before he got hurt and left though, with 19 points, 7 boards, a block, and even 3 for 3 from the FT line in only 22 minutes of play. He may of been on his way to a 40-15 if he had played the full game, especially if he could keep the stroke up from the line.

Perhaps most promising was that in his last 60 minutes of play, Dwight had only had 2 turnovers. Obviously we can gather from all this that once Dwight shakes off the bumps and bruises and steps back on the court, I expect a monster for the next few-to-several games once he gets back.

A well-rested D12? Frightening.)

Hedo Turkoglu. (All over the place, with an exception. That exception is the Portland game.

His shooting has been horrendous. 4 of 15 against the Clips, 4 of 18 (ugh!) against the Suns without Dwight for half the game, and 6 of 15 against Utah without Dwight at all. And I'd bet almost every single one of those makes were off catch-and-shoot situations, or off two dribbles or less, where he seems to be much more effective. At least against Utah he shot 3 of 5 from Three Land. Meanwhile, turnovers are also out of hand. 5 against the Clips and 3 each against the Suns and Jazz.

Now the good stuff overall. 18 boards for the whole week and 19 assists for the whole week. He also had 3 steals against the Jazz, and a block against the Suns. You don't see Hedo blocking every day. He also got to the line a lot and made a high majority in his last three games, especially his lat outing against Utah where he went 8 of 9. Much better than only shooting one free throw against L.A.

Now the excellent. Against Portland he partied like it was 2007. He shot 8 of 16 overall, 2 of 5 from Three, and 6 of 6 from the line for 24 points. He had 2 boards, 5 assists, and only 1 turnover! Most importantly of course, he is the author of "The Bank," and obviously we don't beat Portland without that shot. Also he had a chance to be a double hero with his last shot against the Suns, but it left too much time on the clock so Grant Hill could tear our hearts out again.

Where is THIS Hedo Turkoglu?? This is the Hedo that demands something beyond Mehmet Okur, Lamarcus Aldridge, or Ak-47 in return, not just Nick Collison or Chris Wilcox.

Efficency is the key for Turk. Efficency is everything.)

Turnovers. (Two bad, two good. 16 TOs against the Clips, 18 against Utah. But we had only 7 against Portland, which is incredible, and 11 against Phoenix. As stats go turnovers is far and away the reason we stuck around against Portland so we could win, and only 11 gave us a chance against Phoenix without Dwight. And even though that 18 against Utah is disappointing, Utah's far more disappointed with their 22 turnover effort against us, I guarantee ya.)

Three Point Defense. (Two bad, two good. The Clips and Blazers shot a combined 10 of 44 from Three land. Very impressive, especially against the Blazers. However Phoenix and Utah shot a combined 18 of 37 for 48.6 percent.

Not very impressive. Especially not against Utah. I mean you can forgive Kyle Korver shooting threes on you when that's all he does, but everyone else on that team? Not so much in the forgiveness thing.)

Stock Down:

Anthony Johnson. (The only player/category that was pretty bad throughout the whole week, except Phoenix. And even then...

Clippers. 0 for 2 shooting. No points. 1 board, 1 assists, 1 turnover, 1 steal. Portland. No points, no shots. 3 assists, 1 turnover. It's pretty bad when I'm happy with that line from A.J. Phoenix. 1 of 3 shooting. 4 points, 6 assists, no turnovers, 2 steals. Okay, I'll take that and run! Utah. 1 of 4 shooting. 2 points. 1 board. 1 assist. 2 turnovers. 1 steal.

Don't let the steal numbers fool you. The only thing worse than A.J.'s Week Seven defense may of been his Week Six defense. That Mike Taylor kid ran circles, literally, around A.J. in the Clips game, Sergio Rodriguez had 14 points and 7 assists primarily against Johnson, he couldn't do a thing against Nash or Barbosa, Brevin Knight had 6 assists and 1 turnover against him...

I feel vindicated in my first reaction to the news that we had signed Anthony Johnson. Which was, "Oh, we have our third point guard now."

I'm just sayin'.)

DeAngelo Williams. (Okay, you're really starting to get on my fantasy nerves. Seriously.)

Okay I've been writing this for nearly 2 hours, so please don't get mad at me if I left something off. Courtney Lee's still really good, Battie's been very solid and gave us some lifts off the bench this week, Redick was non-existent but still okay for the few minutes he was actually on the court, I still love SVG and yet he still makes the occasional decision that drives me bat s*** crazy, yadda yadda yadda.

The Magic went 3-1 this past week... yep, just how I predicted. Didn't really see a loss to PHOENIX, but that's okay. They are now 18-6 with a 3.5 game lead over ATL in the Southeast Division... and you were never believe this if you watched ESPN, but we're only 2 games behind the mighty Cleveland Cavaliers. Not so mighty without Boobie and Big Z, apparently.

Week Eight consists of a road game against Golden State to complete the West Coast Swing, and home games against San Antonio and the Los Angeles Lakers. This'll be the first of two straight Monday night games against the Warriors, time to get yo' stats up. And also the Magic are finally getting national attention, most of all from NBA TV. But national respect? The Spurs and Lakers provide a golden opportunity to get that and I'd rather face both teams now than a month from now, by which time they'll probably work out most of their kinks, few as they are.

I think we're going 2-1. Warriors definitely, still thinking about the other one... if we do split the Spurs and Lakers I give better odds on beating the Lakers, oddly enough. I think we match up better against them and Ginobli just loves to throttle us.

Get well Superman, we're gonna need you come Thursday....

Good night and good luck.

Skywise316 · December 15, 2008