Preseason Thread

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

Jalen rose loves us. Says we're making the playoffs. 56:40ish in the latest podcast

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

Random thoughts :

 

I think the Magic starting lineup for regular season will be Eflrid/Vic/Gordon/Harris/Vuc

 

I believe gordon will be assigned the best player between the PF or SF.

 

Gordon is showing elite skills on both ends. When his shot starts dropping, we will have an all-star. Most likely he will be there by next season. He looks like a 12-14ppg/8-10 Reb/1.5 block and 2 steal per game guy right now which IMO, is awesome.

 

Mario played much better defense last night. He was much more active and is incredibly impressive. We very well may have the rookie of the year depending on if he gets the minutes.

 

Frye looked slow his first night, but now he looks great. He played a complete game last night and looks like a very nice fit next to dedmon off the bench.

 

I wish we could fuse Dedmon and Vuc together. Love Vuc's array of offense, but his defense still looks tentative and slow.

 

Dedmon immediately makes a huge difference on the defensive end. It is dramatic at how much better the help side defense is and how teams just stop driving to the hoop.

 

Justice Winslow was not nearly as impressive to me as Mario is. So glad we broke the mold that every one assumed Henny had and picked the Croat.

 

Huge year for Oladipo. He is a big trade piece for us if we need a star next summer. Him and Vuc IMO, need to show strides because I believe our true core moving forward is all about Gordon/Elfrid and Mario. They just need to gel this season. I think Harris is also tradable, but of course that is one reason we resigned him. Got lucky he expired before the cap went up.

 

On that note, I am still not impressed with Oladipo yet. Not much has changed that I can see. We need consistent output from the SG position in order to be a playoff team.

 

For anyone who has not seen this team play yet, it is going to be so much more fun to watch then last year. The challenge for Skiles will be to tighten up the lineups and rotations. I believe that will contribute to a slow start to the season, but the team will settle in over time and will be a major pain to play.

 

Oladipo has been super efficient this pre-season

[Mauro Pedrosa 1,033]

Oladipo's 3pt shot has looked better. He's a work horse so I believe he'll improve his rate when driving to the basket. I'm not so sure he's the 2nd best player on the team though

 

--

 

I agree with Catman that Gordon and Hezonja will be vital to the team, I'm just not sure Payton is in that group. If Payton (especially) and Oladipo don't improve their scoring dramatically one of them might have to go. You can't have a backcourt with two guys that struggle to score

[Catman 380]

Oladipo has been super efficient this pre-season

 

I didn't see it last night. The one efficient thing I did see was he is better at drawing contact and getting to the line. The problem though is his drives are still out of control at times and without the foul call to bail him out it doesnt seem like he will make a lot of them.

 

He also missed open 3s that we will need him to knock down once the season progresses.

 

I see it like Mauro. We can't have Elfrid and Victor as our backcourt unless one of them shows improvement as a shooter and scorer. It just will not work. If you look at the model a guy like Fournier or Mario is a better fit next to Elfrid right now.

 

Honestly, I believe Fournier is our most efficient SG and Mario will probably surpass that after a year. If Gordon continues to develop as a SF the Magic could make a play for a star at the 4 or 5 and become a much better team rather quickly.

 

I do not believe it to be a coincidence that the Magic won games in the beginning of the year with Fournier starting at SG and then lost when he returned to the bench.

 

It is still preseason, but I have not seen a dramatic improvement in Oladipo's play over 3 years so far. As a counterexample, I have seen Gordon improve rapidly. Rapid improvement and development is an early sign of a potential star player. I still do not feel that Oladipo is our star player and may be better suited as a trade piece.

 

We have a whole season to figure this out. This is just my initial impression based on what I am seeing now. And it's something to chat about since its been pretty slow here.

[Magicman28 295]

Oladipo better step his game up because Mario and Gordon look like the wing tandem of the future. Just nasty. If Gordon can play SF like it appears he can, the Magic can make a move for a star PF and they will be loaded with talent. They could bring Fournier Harris Watson Dedmon and Frye off the bench and be serious contenders in 2016.

 

Give Mario one year and he will surpass any SG we have here. He is that good.

 

I was thinking the same thing while watching last nights game. I love Dipo but Mario appears to be a better player. You can just see the difference when watching Dipo with the ball in his hands compared to Mario. Mario has the instinctive IQ where as Dipo still looks like he's trying to figure it out and unsure.

[Catman 380]

I was thinking the same thing while watching last nights game. I love Dipo but Mario appears to be a better player. You can just see the difference when watching Dipo with the ball in his hands compared to Mario. Mario has the instinctive IQ where as Dipo still looks like he's trying to figure it out and unsure.

 

Cool Im not the only one. I have never been a huge dipo believer like some here, but I root for the guy because he is a good dude and the type of person we need in a Magic uniform.

 

I took a lot of flack for it, but I wanted Otto Porter, Ben Mac and Noel over him in the draft. I still like those guys, but obviously Porter would be a redundant piece for us. He is playing rather well though.

[Magicman28 295]

Cool Im not the only one. I have never been a huge dipo believer like some here, but I root for the guy because he is a good dude and the type of person we need in a Magic uniform.

 

I took a lot of flack for it, but I wanted Otto Porter, Ben Mac and Noel over him in the draft. I still like those guys, but obviously Porter would be a redundant piece for us. He is playing rather well though.

 

Well, I wasn't feeling that way until we got Mario. Dude just looks like he knows what to do and when to do it. Dipo is no slouch but Mario just makes him look worse.

 

The question is what's gonna happen to Payton.,

[Catman 380]

I think Payton will be fine and believe he picks it up when the regular season begins. He is the most talented PG on our team and is digesting a new scheme and probably being developed aggressively under Skiles.

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

I didn't see it last night. The one efficient thing I did see was he is better at drawing contact and getting to the line. The problem though is his drives are still out of control at times and without the foul call to bail him out it doesnt seem like he will make a lot of them.

 

He also missed open 3s that we will need him to knock down once the season progresses.

 

I see it like Mauro. We can't have Elfrid and Victor as our backcourt unless one of them shows improvement as a shooter and scorer. It just will not work. If you look at the model a guy like Fournier or Mario is a better fit next to Elfrid right now.

 

Honestly, I believe Fournier is our most efficient SG and Mario will probably surpass that after a year. If Gordon continues to develop as a SF the Magic could make a play for a star at the 4 or 5 and become a much better team rather quickly.

 

I do not believe it to be a coincidence that the Magic won games in the beginning of the year with Fournier starting at SG and then lost when he returned to the bench.

 

It is still preseason, but I have not seen a dramatic improvement in Oladipo's play over 3 years so far. As a counterexample, I have seen Gordon improve rapidly. Rapid improvement and development is an early sign of a potential star player. I still do not feel that Oladipo is our star player and may be better suited as a trade piece.

 

We have a whole season to figure this out. This is just my initial impression based on what I am seeing now. And it's something to chat about since its been pretty slow here.

 

 

just because you've watched one game doesnt allow you to discount the rest of his preseason.

 

charlotte he went 16/5/3 on 75/50/100 shooting and no turnovers in 20 minutes

miami he went 13/1/1 on 67/0/100 shooting with 2 turnovers in 22 minutes

indiana he went 15/4/2 on 50/50/n/a shooting with 0 turnovers in 32 minutes

Houston he went 9/1/4 on 50/100/n/a shooting with 1 turnover in 22 minutes

 

thats 17.7 points, 3.7 rebounds, 3.3 assists 1 turnover per game and 1.7 threes made per 32 on excellent shooting. thats pretty solid for summer league

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

Cool Im not the only one. I have never been a huge dipo believer like some here, but I root for the guy because he is a good dude and the type of person we need in a Magic uniform.

 

I took a lot of flack for it, but I wanted Otto Porter, Ben Mac and Noel over him in the draft. I still like those guys, but obviously Porter would be a redundant piece for us. He is playing rather well though.

 

 

are we really having a oladipo vs porter/mac/noel argument still?

 

has this not been resolved?

 

isn't the only piece arguable as noel and he was coming off of injury, missed a full season, and arguably not a piece you want on the floor due to his large weaknesses on the offensive end (a reverse David Lee)?

[~O~ 565]

I don't see what you guys are talking about. I'm with Payton4thewin; Oladipo has been efficient since the beginning of the preseason . He's had one off night and that was last night. Everyone else shot bad as well. Oladipo has shown improvement. He shot OVER 50% for 4 straight games on limited minutes.

 

Slow that excitement for Gordon and Hezonja looking like acrobats the other night and lay out the facts.

 

 

I believe Payton is the odd man out. He hasn't shown anything different or improvement on shooting. We haven't been critical on him because we've been making an excuse for him; that lack of real genuine competition is why Payton hasn't been competing as hard. Another form of deflection.

I'll give Payton 20 games to show his worth in the regular. We'll see impact of course. I'm sure his assists will be up off of everyone else's improvements which would help their cases. I'll be critical on his shooting and only that.

I DO NOT want him to be traded. Payton has all the tools the Magic need and the resources to improve his shot. As a fan, its all that I need Payton to do; improve his shooting. Other than that, he's in his sophomore year. Nothing to freak out about.

I don't think they'll be a knee jerk trade but Hennigan is Twisted Fate, it might happen. Cautiously optimistic was the phrase used as I recall.

[ML6 520]

I'm trying to figure out if I truly just read someone surmise that Mario is better than Victor (based off, of course, 4 watchable preseason games in which Victor has been fantastic and Mario has been average), but I can currently see only black spots given the massive aneurysm I just had.

 

I'm as excited for the Mario era in Orlando as anybody, but let's slow down a bit.