The Sky Is Falling..?

[Skywise316 211]

I didn't know if I should put this in the Game Thread, or the Strapped in thread, or the Jacques Vaughn thread.. then it got long-winded, so I figure, it's magic-related, why not its own thread? Interested in reactions.

 

In one case and one case only, I care about the Orlando Magic the rest of this season. Perhaps beyond.

 

February 22nd. Philly. The Magic better win that game. I'm taking the GF for a belated birthday present, our first time in Amway Center. (Thanks to YFP, I saw the Magic beat the Bulls in the ol' Amway Arena) :shard:

 

Other than that, I can't barely stand to watch the Magic, despite how great Vuc has been. My GF and I even agreed that we'd watch the Warriors and the Thunder (our fave west coast/late night teams to watch) more often b/c I've watched so much less basketball the last couple of years, between the Magic struggles and just real life asserting itself and your time as you get older. Notice I said Warriors and Thunder.. not the Magic.

 

I'm spoiled by Stan Van Gundy. That's the real problem for me. With or without Dwight Howard, I can barely stand to watch "my" Magic not really give a damn about defense. Which is just flat out true for more than half the team.

 

In Rob I still trust.. despite Channing Frye.. but I'm basically holding out until Jacques Vaughn hits the road. I'm sure he's the next Doc Rivers or something (even though Doc was a better coach, even early on), and three or four years from now he'll be coaching some other team and doing a solid-to-good job. Knowing our luck. But I don't want to watch this team to suffer anymore from his on-the-job training. He's already lost Harkless, on the verge of losing Tobias, despite what he's saying, putting more stock into Marble than Gordon, much more willing to play Frye than O'Quinn, even when Vuc needs more physical bodies down there, and so on.. and so on..

 

Vaughn's temperment is actually better, in my mind, for a veteran team. But a young team that needs direction and the ocassional kick up the rear end? No, just... ENOUGH. I'm starting to miss Brian freggin' Hill here!

 

Wish JV the best in his future endeavors. Bring in George Karl. Or just anyone that'll put defense in the game plan instead of just mentioning it here and there in the press, for that matter.

 

I've been loyal enough through the years. I'll be a paying customer in a month, willing to make that long drive halfway across the state... but if the Magic want repeat business in the long term, I need to see something from a management/coaching standpoint beyond just Rob Hennigan.

 

Go Magic. No, I mean get moving already. Blame Stan for raising my expectations. :svgsad:

[HeHateMe 697]

We all share your disappointment. The most upsetting thing to me is we're in year 3 of a rebuild and outside of three players (Vuch, Payton, Dipo) what do we really have? Harris appears on his way out, harkless has been essentially dismissed from the team, and what else is there? We have a coach that is in over his head, fry, our big free agent signing has been a big disappointment even to his standards, we just don't have much.

 

If we do not get something at the deadline or in the offseason, some sort of free agent signing, I don't think me and my dad are gonna renew next year. How do you get down 30 at home in the first couple minutes of the second quarter? It's looking like we will win a couple more games than we did last year, but that's not enough. This has been a really upsetting year.

 

We will see what happens.

[Magicman28 295]

I believe what has also hurt us this year is we've signed the wrong vets to mesh with our young guys. Frye, BG, Ridnour, are offensive guys who don't value defense.

[Atli 13]

http://grantland.com/features/2015-nba-trade-value-part-1/

 

Bill Simmons NBA trade value part one

 

"At gunpoint, I’d pick Vucevic only because we have to take every current Magic player’s career with a grain of salt — it’s unclear whether Jacque Vaughn should be managing a Costco, much less coaching an NBA team.

 

That reminds me: There’s a heated six-way race right now between Vaughn, Monty Williams, David Blatt, Byron Scott, Scott Brooks and Ty “I’m Baaaaaack!” Corbin for 2015’s coveted Vinny Del Negro Award, given annually to the bumbling NBA coach who generated the most night-to-night Twitter snark."

 

I laughed so hard but yeah, I enjoy watching the Pistons more than I enjoy watching the Magic... it's amazing how SVG can make the players on that roster better and I think he would do the same thing with the Magic's current roster. The only reason I didn't like SVG in the end is because he was playing Turkoglu minutes he should never have gotten, like in the 2011 playoffs where Turkoglu got in foul trouble and the game was easily won against the Hawks.........

[Franchero MVP 391]

Honestly I was all for giving Vaughn a chance, and it sucks because it all gets blamed on one guy, but the energy and grit we saw earlier in the season is now lost. Fournier was a stud but now looks equivalent to BG. Harris doesn't like coming off the bench and stagnates the offense because he's playing for a contract year. Oladipo is up and down but has overall improved. Vuc is a stud who gets ignored down the stretch. Aaron Gordon is coming off an injury. Frye just shoots 3s and is terrible at that. No one else gets much playing time.

 

It's clear that ontop of Vaughn we also have character issues.

 

I feel bad for Vuc because the guy is playing out of his mind and can demand far more than we are paying him, but chose to be here and to take less money. Hope he doesn't change his mind and demands to be sent somewhere else -- like other centers we all know too well. We just don't learn our lesson.

 

Not sure if firing Vaughn right now will accomplish anything but it's clear he needs to go after the season. I don't think the team respects him at this point. They don't give him 100% on either end -- and that was clear when they were giving d-leaguers wide open shots which they used to bury us into the grounds of MSG. Pitiful.

[JJZFL 623]

The kind of comments I see now don't really surprise me given the expectations people expressed over the summer. Basically, the consensus was that our strategy was to create a very young team that will lose a lot of games, get good draft picks, and then with some careful player management we would become a contender. The 2014 draft was felt to be especially loaded and could by itself be a ticket for making a team a playoff contender. Our team of "young guns", even though it might experience some problems on offense, would be a tough minded, athletic defensive team that other teams wouldn't want to play, even if they were able to beat us. By this season, we would be far enough along to compete for a playoff spot, especially since we were kind of tanking on purpose the last two years but this year we wouldn't do that anymore. Last summer, it was felt we were being badly under-rated by the so-called experts, and would win a lot more games than they predicted. The team was clearly getting better under Jacque Vaughn, and our exciting young talent meant you were blind if you didn't see how well this team was developing. Hennigan is clearly a great GM and every move he made is more proof of that, including the Frye signing.

 

Despite almost every part of the above narrative turning out to be wrong, anyone who offered a dissenting opinion was blasted. See, for example:

 

http://truebluenation.com/forum/index.php?/topic/254148-goodbye/page__view__findpost__p__984920

 

http://truebluenation.com/forum/index.php?/topic/254181-is-really-good-good-enough/page__view__findpost__p__989278

 

http://truebluenation.com/forum/index.php?/topic/254168-magic-fanbase-needs-legitimate-playoff-hopes-bleacher-report/page__view__findpost__p__989260

 

And there are many many more examples.

I'm not angry or unhappy currently like many of the other regulars who are posting threads like this because I didn't buy into the assertions listed above to begin with. My concerns have been all along:

 

1. 
    
   
2. Creating a really bad young team is no guarantee of having that team become good just because the players get older and get more experience.
    
   
3. We have an unproven young GM and an unproven young coach. Neither one deserves much credit for anything yet.
    
   
4. There should be milestones to be met even in unsuccessful years to show that the team is at least moving in the right direction. I didn't see any. This idea that we were losing games on purpose for a couple of seasons but that we would turn that off this year always struck me as ridiculous.
    
   
5. There are risks in allowing ourselves to become very bad for an unknown number of years. This is not NY or LA, and the fan base is already shrinking (see season ticket numbers and tv ratings).
    
   
6. Depending on getting great draft picks is a low probability strategy. We were lucky a few times, and now that seems to be evening out in the last few years.
   

 

So far, I'm not seeing the team develop any kind of identity or specific character. Are we an offensive team? Defensive team? Fast paced? Slow paced? Who are the starting 5? Do we see them moving towards some goal in a coherent way? Are they better now than they were 2 months ago?

 

So while I'm not surprised about where we are right now, I am disappointed. I can only hope that things start to look up for us. Tomorrow would be a good start, since I'm taking my son to the game.

[Soul Bro 1,421]

My concerns have been all along:

1. Creating a really bad young team is no guarantee of having that team become good just because the players get older and get more experience.
2. We have an unproven young GM and an unproven young coach. Neither one deserves much credit for anything yet.

So far, I'm not seeing the team develop any kind of identity or specific character. Are we an offensive team? Defensive team? Fast paced? Slow paced? Who are the starting 5? Do we see them moving towards some goal in a coherent way? Are they better now than they were 2 months ago?

A good, thoughtful post.

 

My hope coming into this year was for the young guns to develop. Interestingly, I think that is actually happening. Payton, Dipo, Gordon, Harris and Vooch look very promising. For that reason and several other moves, I think Henny has done an excellent job, so we disagree on his job rating.

 

However, to your overall point, the team has yet to become a consistent and successful team. In fact, like you, I can't see a clear identity or character. In my view, I put the responsibility for this predicament squarely on Vaughn. Watching Kidd have success in Milwaukee, and watching SVG do the same in Detroit, shows me Vaughn is trying but failing. I truly believe a Mark Jackson or Skiles would immediately make this crew of guys a dynamic team. I hope the Magic have the fortitude to make such a move.

[Catalina Maria 64]

The team that started out with so much promise the beginning of the season has regressed significantly. I think when Payton took the credit for the limited time only resurgence of this team, it caused more rift between the team and JV. Also, perhaps it is indeed Tobias that hampers this team's ability to play consistent team ball. Regardless, it's disappointing. The season is pointless already, so let's go for more losses so we can get a better pick and try to get a new coach that can develop this team. I do feel this team is A LOT more talented than what the record shows. This team has been hampered by lack of identity and poor coaching.

[Catalina Maria 64]

A good, thoughtful post.

 

My hope coming into this year was for the young guns to develop. Interestingly, I think that is actually happening. Payton, Dipo, Gordon, Harris and Vooch look very promising. For that reason and several other moves, I think Henny has done an excellent job, so we disagree on his job rating.

 

However, to your overall point, the team has yet to become a consistent and successful team. In fact, like you, I can't see a clear identity or character. In my view, I put the responsibility for this predicament squarely on Vaughn. Watching Kidd have success in Milwaukee, and watching SVG do the same in Detroit, shows me Vaughn is trying but failing. I truly believe a Mark Jackson or Skiles would immediately make this crew of guys a dynamic team. I hope the Magic have the fortitude to make such a move.

 

Skiles would be a popular move IMHO so worth a shot.

[HeHateMe 697]

Skiles would be a popular move IMHO so worth a shot.

 

Skiles isn't a good coach though.

[Franchero MVP 391]

Skiles would be a popular move IMHO so worth a shot.

 

no

 

i say hire mark jackson to give these kids a pep talk and then fire him when someone better comes along. thats probably the best we can do at this point.

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

no

 

i say hire mark jackson to give these kids a pep talk and then fire him when someone better comes along. thats probably the best we can do at this point.

 

Mark Jackson is a horrible coach