Murphy13 185 Report post Posted July 18, 2015 Catman That title has certainly been flushed away now. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ball junkie 277 Report post Posted July 18, 2015 Eric (Orlando ) Do you think the Magic with a top draft pick could jump into contention next year? Kevin Pelton For the playoffs? Possibly, since basically any 30-win team in the East is in playoff contention. But Orlando was still substantially behind the East's also-rans in terms of point differential, even after the coaching change. There's a lot of work still to be done. 1 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Franchero MVP 391 Report post Posted July 18, 2015 Can I make a new thread about questions people ask me? I can give vague answers to questions too. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Catman 380 Report post Posted July 18, 2015 That title has certainly been flushed away now. In your angry little world of delusion, it surely has. At some point you will let go of the anger and be happy again. Based on your knowledge of how the salary cap works, I still feel very much like an expert in comparison. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ball junkie 277 Report post Posted July 19, 2015 How Skiles Fits Orlando The Magic are probably the closest match tor the Chicago team that Skiles took over at the end of November 2003. By that point, the Bulls were five years into what had been a fruitless rebuild. Chicago had one of the league's youngest cores and was mired in the bottom 10 at both ends of the court -- not unlike Orlando, which finished 27th in offensive rating and 25th on defense a year ago. The Magic are unlikely to enjoy the same talent infusion as the Bulls. Besides Deng and Gordon, they also added rookies Chris Duhon and Andres Nocioni, both Skiles favorites. Despite Gordon's high scoring off the bench, Chicago didn't get any better offensively -- the Bulls still ranked 26th in offensive rating in 2004-05, and never finished any better than 20th under Skiles. Yet Chicago still won 47 games thanks to an elite defense. While the situation isn't quite as comparable, the better guide to expectations is Skiles' tenure in Milwaukee. He inherited a team that had been last in the league defensively in 2007-08 and won just 26 games -- similar to last season's Magic, who won 25 games. The Bucks improved by eight games in Skiles' first season, then 12 more in Year 2, when the "Fear the Deer" Milwaukee team made a late-season run that ended in a seven-game first-round loss. It's not inconceivable to imagine Orlando making the playoffs next season in the Eastern Conference. More likely, however, it will take a year for Skiles to sort through the talent on hand and figure out which players fit his system. With the likes of Elfrid Payton, Victor Oladipo and Aaron Gordon drafted in the lottery the past two seasons, there are plenty of athletes who can succeed defensively if they commit under Skiles, even without a true rim protector in center Nikola Vucevic. The question is how high the Magic can get under Skiles. His turnarounds have tended to have a ceiling. The best team of Skiles' career, the 1999-00 Suns, won 53 games, and he has won just two playoff series in his career -- never advancing past the conference semifinals. There's a longtime sacrifice to the short-term benefit of adding Skiles, and that's why I suspect the Magic will ultimately regret this hire. As satisfying as competing will be after Orlando has been the league's worst team since the Dwight Howard trade in 2012, the Magic didn't stockpile lottery picks to top out in the second round. For the record, I was predicting Skiles to Orlando from the beginning and was hoping Magic brass hired him....Loved watching him play live back in the day....There's a reason large pictures of him resonate on the walls of Amway Arena. http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/insider/story/_/id/12977046/scott-skiles-hiring-orlando-limited-impact Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Captain Hi-Top 791 Report post Posted July 19, 2015 Because Junkie thinks Pelton has a pretty mouth. He gonne do some prayin' for him. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ball junkie 277 Report post Posted July 19, 2015 JB (work :() E. Payton vs. M. Smart, who looks better now & long term? Kevin Pelton Smart is better now, and since he's younger, I think he has the long-term edge. Basically, with Payton you're projecting optimistically that he will develop some ability to make shots. And that is more realistic than a good shooter becoming a great athlete or distributor. But at the same time the D-League Showcase going on right now is filled with guys who are a jump shot away from being very good players. Kevin Pelton The funny thing, of course, is that young Elfrid Payton is so much like young Gary Payton in that regard. No relation! Kevin Pelton Payton, like I said about Leonard, represents the 100th-percentile scenario for developing offensively. JB (Work) Thanks for answering the Q on Payton Vs. Smart. On the age though, Smart is ONLY 12 days younger. Kevin Pelton Whoopsie. This is like when George Costanza claimed that he was a different generation than Jerry Seinfeld. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Fultz4thewin 2,464 Report post Posted July 19, 2015 JB (work :(/>/>/>) E. Payton vs. M. Smart, who looks better now & long term? Kevin Pelton Smart is better now, and since he's younger, I think he has the long-term edge. Basically, with Payton you're projecting optimistically that he will develop some ability to make shots. And that is more realistic than a good shooter becoming a great athlete or distributor. But at the same time the D-League Showcase going on right now is filled with guys who are a jump shot away from being very good players. Kevin Pelton The funny thing, of course, is that young Elfrid Payton is so much like young Gary Payton in that regard. No relation! Kevin Pelton Payton, like I said about Leonard, represents the 100th-percentile scenario for developing offensively. JB (Work) Thanks for answering the Q on Payton Vs. Smart. On the age though, Smart is ONLY 12 days younger. Kevin Pelton Whoopsie. This is like when George Costanza claimed that he was a different generation than Jerry Seinfeld. I was about to say, Payton and smart are the same age Another example why pelton is a hack. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
CTMagicUK 1,476 Report post Posted July 19, 2015 I was about to say, Payton and smart are the same age Also 'Smart is better now' is disputable if not plain wrong. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Fultz4thewin 2,464 Report post Posted July 19, 2015 Also 'Smart is better now' is disputable if not plain wrong. Well Payton is a terrible shooter and Marcus smart is a sharp shooter with his 37/34/65 line this past year. His preference to smart is skewed by his projections of smart as the number 1 player in last year's draft. The better smart is, the better pelton looks. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mauro Pedrosa 1,031 Report post Posted July 19, 2015 In what world is Smart better than Payton? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Trey Time 186 Report post Posted July 20, 2015 Here's the difference between learning how to shoot and learning how to do anything else in basketball. If I put enough hours in I can become as good a shooter as Steph Curry or Ray Allen (no exaggeration). It doesn't matter how many hours I put in, there are mid level players that have better handles than I will ever have. Defense is the easiest thing to learn, because defense is athleticism and effort, nothing else. If you're in the NBA, you have the first part down. I don't care WHO you mention, if they're in the NBA and they don't play defense they are lazy, plain and simple. After that, while shooting takes skill, it is the easiest "skill" to learn. Handles are a whole other story. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
