Will the Magic....

[Butterfly 3]

quote:

Originally posted by Fatih Swank:

that's good to hear. coaches are supposed to be there for their players. I feel with our new GM and his decisions on the players he has kept/traded, magic will be very dominant this year.

 

 

You said that we had a new GM. This implies that Otis Smith is gone.

[Emory889 353]

quote:

Originally posted by Fatih Swank:

Shaq did turn his back on he but we also drove him away like a lot of other players because of what happened in the finals. I lived in Orlando at that time and saw what happened. It drove Nick anderson to therapy to deal with his missing free throws, it drove penny hardaway to leave. Think of all the players that magic have had that went on to win championships. The Orlando Magic are breeding grounds, then we ship them off or drive them away. This year is the first time that city didn't turn it's back on the team.

 

This could be fun.

 

Shaq

Horace Grant

Steve Kerr

Ben Wallace

Chauncey Billups (if you would like to count him)

Trevor Ariza

 

Who am I missing?

 

*Edit* Ha, three of them won championships with the Lakers and two with the Pistons. I'm not sure if I should be intrigued by that or throw up in my mouth.

[Secretly Space Jesus 670]

Brians Shaw and Williams should both be on there, Emory. Not that Fatih has anything resembling a coherent point here.

 

Or rather, Fatih seems to not understand the difference between a correlation and causality.

[My 6th Rebuild 6]

Steve Kerr, he rode the pine behind Literial Green.

[Fatih Swank 0]

quote:

Originally posted by AQUARIUM61:

quote:

Originally posted by Fatih Swank:

that's good to hear. coaches are supposed to be there for their players. I feel with our new GM and his decisions on the players he has kept/traded, magic will be very dominant this year.

 

 

You said that we had a new GM. This implies that Otis Smith is gone.

 

I said I feel confident in our new gm and his decisions on the players he has kept/traded. I never said Otis is gone. What is this his 3rd year that's still a new GM for anyone who has followed the Magic as long as I have. He is our New GM.

[Fatih Swank 0]

quote:

Originally posted by Drunk on Mystery:

Brians Shaw and Williams should both be on there, Emory. Not that Fatih has anything resembling a coherent point here.

 

Or rather, Fatih seems to not understand the difference between a correlation and causality.

 

I know the difference between cause and effect. Because we didn't win that year and got swept, a lot of players felt the city turned their back on them. The effect was a lot of players left or were traded by our terrible GM at the time. Over the last ten or so year's, how many ex Magic players have won a championship. The Magic have been breeding grounds for future stars or hall of famers. If you don't agree then we can agree to disagree.

[Fatih Swank 0]

Otis our new Gm has been making smart choices so far and I can't wait for the season to start to see how everything plays out.

[davcivic 11]

I don't know if I had a job for 3 or 4 years and people are still calling me the new guy I would be pretty upset.

[Secretly Space Jesus 670]

quote:

Originally posted by Fatih Swank:

I know the difference between cause and effect. Because we didn't win that year and got swept, a lot of players felt the city turned their back on them. The effect was a lot of players left or were traded by our terrible GM at the time.

 

I don't have the time to explain to you the difference between correlation and causality, but the short version of this is that there is no evidence anywhere ever that anyone, except maybe Shaq, felt betrayed by the city after the Finals loss(and really, it was the following season that that Orlando Sentinel poll occurred, not the year of the sweep).

 

Seriously, who else left that team from alleged betrayal? Horace Grant left 4 years later(and he later came back), we TRADED Brian Shaw, Nick and Penny both played for several more years in Orlando, etc etc etc. Who is it that left out of feeling betrayed besides Shaq? You completely made that point up. Moving on.

 

quote:

Over the last ten or so year's, how many ex Magic players have won a championship. The Magic have been breeding grounds for future stars or hall of famers.

 

Serious answer? Four, five if you include Billups' cup of tea with the team as being bred here, which frankly, you shouldn't. It's like saying Moses Malone played for Portland.

 

But including him, we have Billups and Ben Wallace('04), Horace Grant('01), Michael Doleac('06), and Trevor Ariza('09) as players who were on the Magic in the last decade who left and then won a title. And since Horace Grant had already won 3 titles before he ever even played in Orlando, he probably shouldn't count. Of the 4 of them, only Billups and Wallace would even merit HoF discussion, and as far as I'm concerned, only Wallace gets in. Billups had, at best, 3 or 4 all-star seasons, which only gets you in the "hall of very good".

 

For fun though, I decided to go back through and pick a team at random, in this case I chose Minnesota, and see how many players who played for Minnesota in the last decade that left to win a title. Here was my list:

 

KG('08)

Sam Cassell('08)

Rasho Nesterovic('05)

Chauncey Billups ('04)

 

They also had 2 players that won titles before getting to Minnesota in Mark Madsen and Mike James.

 

So despite Orlando being a breeding ground for future stars, champions and hall of famers, we have had just one more future champion come through our team in the last decade than Minnesota, where good basketball goes to die. So we're hardly blowing people out of the water here.

 

When you consider that there are 450 roster slots available, and every year 15 of those slots will be filled by title winners, the math gets pretty easy. Assuming there will be an average of 6 player turnover per team per season, you're looking at each team having upwards of 80 different players over a course of a decade. OF COURSE they'll have players come through that go on to win titles for other teams. Logic dictates that as a mathematical likely hood. But seriously, was Michael Doleac a "star" who was bred here just because he won a title as a role player in Miami? Really?

 

The fact that there is a correlation(players play for the magic, leave the Magic, and win a title) doesn't mean there is causality(players are bred in Orlando to be champions and then we ship them off to win for someone else). Moving on:

 

quote:

If you don't agree then we can agree to disagree.

 

All I could think of was this:

 

[Live or Die Magic 383]

Well, I was all set to argue this same point, then saw that DoM had beat me to it, though he did it with a bit more of a verbal sneer than I would have had.

 

The only additional point that I would make is the factor of what happens when you get all the way to the Finals but fail. Teams handle this in several different ways. They come back stronger the next year (see 2009 Lakers); they are never heard from again (see 1999 Knicks, 2001 Sixers); they fall back with the pack, tinker a bit, then keep moving forward (see 2007 Cavaliers); or they are so crushed by it that they are never the same (see 2006 Mavericks).

 

We don't yet know which category the 2009 Magic will fall into, but I think it is pretty obvious which category the 1995 Magic fall into. We were a much better team the season after the Finals loss. It was our misfortune that we ran up against the greatest team ever (at least as far as win total), featuring the greatest player ever, at the height of his game.

 

The other unique factor here is Shaq. I don't like Shaq, I've had no problem saying that. But he is still the most dominant player to come into the league since Jordan. More importantly, he was a player that very clearly wanted to play for a specific team. So, regardless of how we fared during Shaq's four seasons here, he was a goner. My point is, we can make all the comparisons we want, but the situation with Shaq and the Magic is unique in the history of the NBA, and I truly hope that no other NBA team (ahem, Cleveland) ever has to experience what we did.

[Fatih Swank 0]

http://images.google.com/imgre...%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den

 

Very well said drunk on mystery.

[Fatih Swank 0]

Otis is still new to me until someone replaces him. Oh no I see it now, 10 more posts on me saying someone replaced Otis from this comment.