Mid-Summer Power Rankings from NBA.com

[Captain Hi-Top 791]

The thing about Ben Gordon is the Magic think he can recover his old from. That's why they took the gamble. Pelton says they could have gotten anybody. Well Rob disagrees. He wanted a vet shooter who is not so old that he can't have a resurgence. If he doesn't do it, whatever.

 

If he does- you are looking at a backcourt of him and Fournier off the bench, and that could be very fun to watch. Im guessing our bench lineup is Gordon/Fournier/Gordon/Harris/Oquinn. Plenty of shooting to allow Aaron Gordon some space to develop his offensive game.

 

Also, I would disagree that "anybody" would be willing to take a two year contract with the second being a team option. Again, even if he is useless as a player, his contract is very trade friendly.

[jec 427]

Because St. Pete isn't as close to Tampa as most think, nor is it convenient to get to from Tampa. If the Rays actually played in Tampa, they'd kill it.

 

Tampa is a really good sports town, unlike Miami.

[ball junkie 277]

Mr. High-Top and Emory, your posts and admitting some things on the previous page were solid....I'm cool with it now and we are on the same page.

 

Also, Mr. High-Top, did you think the Jim guy in the Coon chat was me, lol ???.....I figured you'd get my hint earlier, lol.....I got no problem fessing up on a chat question but not only do I hate salary cap discussions I think it's boring.....Don't think I've spent more than 10 minutes of my life reading Larry Coon stuff, lol.

 

I know Otis Smith gets bashed a lot on this Forum but was reading some old stuff about the Magic and even John Hollinger had some nice things to say about him before Dwight (and Otis) turned our team South....This is from when Hollinger used to do his Future Power Rankings....

 

In the front office, the Magic have several strengths -- one of the league's premier coaches in Stan Van Gundy, the committed ownership of the DeVos family and an underrated general manager in Otis Smith. That pushed Orlando to a fourth-best finish in this category.

 

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/insider/news/story?page=FuturePowerRankings-1-091110

 

And this.......

 

Orlando is a small market, but the team is well into the luxury tax and probably will remain that way for a while unless ownership demands a budget slashing. For now, it hasn't, and with that, solid personnel moves under GM Otis Smith and the exacting coaching of Stan Van Gundy, the Magic get good marks for management.

 

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?page=FuturePowerRankings-2-100805

 

I know Scott Anez of ESPN radio was talking about Otis a few weeks back and said Otis had some solid moves and gave examples like the Rafer Alston signing.....I remember Hollinger had a 2 page article after Otis fleeced Mark Cuban one summer and was praising Otis like I've never seen him do other GM's.

 

Anez did acknowledge that at the back end of Otis's career here he panicked with the moves he made.

 

Lastly, since this thread is about Power Rankings here's another one ranking the Eastern Conference....

 

14. Orlando Magic

The bottom three teams in the conference here are going to be not just bad but borderline unwatchable and awful. The Magic traded away arguably their best player in Arron Afflalo to the Denver Nuggets and then attempted to replace / meet the salary cap floor by signing the aging Ben Gordon and then over-paying for the one dimensional Channing Frye. The Magic drafted Aaron Gordon and then acquired Elfrid Payton in a draft day trade. Both players project to be solid players, but neither will be of much help this season. Head coach Jacque Vaughn has his work cut out for him, but it seems as though management has confidence in Vaughn as he did receive a contract extension to help see the Magic through these tough times.

 

http://edraft.com/nba/news/article/?id=7493

[The Neighborhood Bully 266]

Mr. High-Top and Emory, your posts and admitting some things on the previous page were solid....I'm cool with it now and we are on the same page.

 

Also, Mr. High-Top, did you think the Jim guy in the Coon chat was me, lol ???.....I figured you'd get my hint earlier, lol.....I got no problem fessing up on a chat question but not only do I hate salary cap discussions I think it's boring.....Don't think I've spent more than 10 minutes of my life reading Larry Coon stuff, lol.

 

I know Otis Smith gets bashed a lot on this Forum but was reading some old stuff about the Magic and even John Hollinger had some nice things to say about him before Dwight (and Otis) turned our team South....This is from when Hollinger used to do his Future Power Rankings....

 

 

 

http://insider.espn....nkings-1-091110

 

And this.......

 

 

 

http://insider.espn....nkings-2-100805

 

I know Scott Anez of ESPN radio was talking about Otis a few weeks back and said Otis had some solid moves and gave examples like the Rafer Alston signing.....I remember Hollinger had a 2 page article after Otis fleeced Mark Cuban one summer and was praising Otis like I've never seen him do other GM's.

 

Anez did acknowledge that at the back end of Otis's career here he panicked with the moves he made.

 

Lastly, since this thread is about Power Rankings here's another one ranking the Eastern Conference....

 

 

 

http://edraft.com/nb...rticle/?id=7493

[Catman 380]

WTF site is Edraft? And then who would even go there in July for preseason ranking and actually think they mean anything?

 

Oh....

[Captain Hi-Top 791]

Now I'm confused. What did I "admit to" on the previous page? I didn't say anything I haven't been saying all along. The problem is, certain people see justification and a rational explanation for this summer's FA moves and puke up a "OMG YOU GUYS THINK ROB WALKS ON WATER" reaction.

 

As far as Otis. well, most of us had good things to say about him at that point. He made some good moves and put together a team that made it to the finals. He also made a series of questionable and even horrible moves that Rob has done a fine job of cleaning up after the fact.

 

What's your point?

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

Now I'm confused. What did I "admit to" on the previous page? I didn't say anything I haven't been saying all along. The problem is, certain people see justification and a rational explanation for this summer's FA moves and puke up a "OMG YOU GUYS THINK ROB WALKS ON WATER" reaction.

 

As far as Otis. well, most of us had good things to say about him at that point. He made some good moves and put together a team that made it to the finals. He also made a series of questionable and even horrible moves that Rob has done a fine job of cleaning up after the fact.

 

What's your point?

 

Yup. Otis made a series of good moves (with some questionable ones) that helped get us to the finals. Then he undid those moves by selling out the future in order to keep our window open.

[Catman 380]

Junkie has devolved into crazy man tactics. Denying he is Jim E even though he has already posted question (pre draft) under that same name and admitting to it.

 

Now his last post doesn't even make sense. There is nothing he says there that is even really on topic.

[Miller4Prez66 545]

Even by building our team that went to the Finals, Otis had planted the seeds of failure with the horrific Rashard Lewis contract. I loved Rashard, one of my favorite Magic players of all time but holy cow he was overpaid. 6 years and 118 million for a guy who was never even close to being a top NBA player. He ended up being a perfect compliment to Dwight and props to Otis for seeing that, but the contract killed us in the long term. He then managed to end up trading Lewis for the one guy in the NBA with a worse contract than him. We got bailed out by the amnesty clause in the new CBA. He compounded the issue in the years after Shard by constantly spending the full MLE on mediocre role players to fill out the roster and we had tons of luxury tax to pay with no trophy to show for it. I give him credit for having balls and going all in for a title, but Hennigan had to spend most of his time early on clearing out the mess he left behind. Only now do we finally have every player from the Otis era cleared.

[Captain Hi-Top 791]

We overpaid, particularly by extended it for that final year, but no Lewis, no finals. That man played through that entire run like he was on something...

 

Seriously though, the Lewis contract by itself wasn't the killer. We could have amnestied him and been okay.

[~O~ 565]

............................

 

Well...............

 

 

Erm. Yeah. Junkie needs psychiatric aid whether if its serious or if he's a trolling. Trolls find time to waste on the internet because they lack direction or are just angry at the world; American History X. This may be a case of severe repudiation.

 

For all I know, Junkie was kicked into Leonidas' pit crashing into a mound of bodies. There he awoke at dusk. Gathering his senses, he turned his head towards a fire. A discharge of smoldering flesh.

 

There he found two hooded figures crouched around a fire near the walls within the darkness. Revealing their faces; the reanimated corpses of Mike Bianchi and and Brian Schmitz feeding off the.....perineum of Jon Barry????

-------

 

Well, to end this thread, these power rankings won't mean anything till the Magic start playing ball. These power rankings are a fabrication of an unknown and distant future.

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

Also, consider we were the third worst team last season. We're starting from a point of #28 and didn't sign a potential hall of famer so we aren't going to jump much.