2016 Off-Season Thread

[Catalina Maria 64]

Vuc is killing it and shooting 3's ya'll. He made 6 Three's in 5 games. The green light is on:

 

http://www.nba.com/magic/news/nikola-vucevic/montenegro-eurobasket-qualifying-tournament-albania-2-20160914

[Catalina Maria 64]

Henny won't need an exit strategy If we miss the playoffs again and Ibaka sucks/walks at the end of the year. An exit strategy will be provided for him by senior management.

 

We won't miss the playoffs. Ibaka won't suck. Book it.

[Catalina Maria 64]

in fact, there's little to suggest the magic shouldn't have been an elite offensive team last year. I'm going to do more snooping to figure out what our downfall was. I'm thinking it's probably free throws as we were last in the league in FTM but Atlanta was second to last so whats the difference between us and them.

 

How were we on ASSISTs or ASSISTS/TO ratio? I think our game was significantly slow too. We were probably on the low end when it comes to Field Goal Attempts. I'd be interested to know since those are from my observations from watching games.

[Catalina Maria 64]

How were we on ASSISTs or ASSISTS/TO ratio? I think our game was significantly slow too. We were probably on the low end when it comes to Field Goal Attempts. I'd be interested to know since those are from my observations from watching games.

 

I was completely wrong. We are #4 on FGA!!!! We sucked on 3's and FTA. It's all here:

 

http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/ORL/2016.html#all_team_and_opponent

[Justin Jaudon 221]

Payton had the injury bug. The system he was placed in removed the ball from his hands. His coach gave up on him in January. His coach quit when management stuck up for their young PG.

 

Justin Jaudon -- in 6 months time, it is you who will be considered absurd for lacking belief in your team.

 

Belief isn't something I'm interested in when it comes to sports. My problem is that Payton isn't good enough the ball in his hands to run an offense that way. Skiles had the brain to see that. The same Skiles you say gave up on him never once benched him, even when Jennings could have been given a shot at starting. Payton was bad mostly because he became disinterested, both on offense and defense, when the ball wasn't in his hands. That's why I see him as a quitter. I still think this team could make the playoffs. But Payton as an All-Star...that would take a miracle.

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

Belief isn't something I'm interested in when it comes to sports. My problem is that Payton isn't good enough the ball in his hands to run an offense that way. Skiles had the brain to see that. The same Skiles you say gave up on him never once benched him, even when Jennings could have been given a shot at starting. Payton was bad mostly because he became disinterested, both on offense and defense, when the ball wasn't in his hands. That's why I see him as a quitter. I still think this team could make the playoffs. But Payton as an All-Star...that would take a miracle.

 

there's a lot of conjecture and speculation here.

 

 

the facts are:

 

Payton is really bad playing off ball.

 

Payton has some inconsistency on both ends of the court.

 

Payton tends to play disinterested in exhibitions.

 

the other stuff like he plays disinterested when the ball is in his hands or that he's a quitter make me somewhat uncomfortable to extrapolate from what we've seen. It relies on an intimacy with the locker room that you or I don't really have.

 

 

But Skiles gave the other point guards every opportunity to take the starting job away from Payton. They couldn't. Shabazz had that great game against the Lakers then couldn't expand on it in the games that followed. Jennings had a promising two games when he was first traded here and it appeared like he was going to usurp Payton once he got familiar with the offense but then he put up stinkers vs philly twice, New York, and golden state. Watson had several games where the team "looked good" while he was in the game but that didn't correspond with his own production. He'd get 5 points and 4 assists and the team would be +9 in the 20 minutes he played but you don't know if that's on him or if the team just played well.

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

so here's the breakdown of our offense.

 

we basically need to figure out how to bump up our TS% by 1-1.5%

 

we can do this a few ways.

 

1. take a higher rate of free throws (and make a similar %). The Miami heat method

 

or

 

2. take more threes. since we've already established we already take a significant amount of open threes compared to the rest of the league, we need to make a higher % of loosely contested threes. The Golden State method

 

or

 

3. we do neither. the offense stays about the same but we become an elite defense. Like top 5. The Chicago method.

[Catalina Maria 64]

so here's the breakdown of our offense.

 

we basically need to figure out how to bump up our TS% by 1-1.5%

 

we can do this a few ways.

 

1. take a higher rate of free throws (and make a similar %). The Miami heat method

 

or

 

2. take more threes. since we've already established we already take a significant amount of open threes compared to the rest of the league, we need to make a higher % of loosely contested threes. The Golden State method

 

or

 

3. we do neither. the offense stays about the same but we become an elite defense. Like top 5. The Chicago method.

 

I think Vogel and Henny would opt for 3. It's the most plausible course given the team we have.

[Magicman28 295]

so here's the breakdown of our offense.

 

we basically need to figure out how to bump up our TS% by 1-1.5%

 

we can do this a few ways.

 

1. take a higher rate of free throws (and make a similar %). The Miami heat method

 

or

 

2. take more threes. since we've already established we already take a significant amount of open threes compared to the rest of the league, we need to make a higher % of loosely contested threes. The Golden State method

 

or

 

3. we do neither. the offense stays about the same but we become an elite defense. Like top 5. The Chicago method.

 

A combo of 1 and 3.

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

I think Vogel and Henny would opt for 3. It's the most plausible course given the team we have.

 

probably. though it's difficult to just come out and have an elite defensive team. Its one of the reasons I'm down on Vucevic. I think we really need to lean in and embrace defense because even if we have a Brooklyn level offense, if we have an Atlanta level defense we'll be winning a lot of games.

[fan for too long 2 531]

Belief isn't something I'm interested in when it comes to sports. My problem is that Payton isn't good enough the ball in his hands to run an offense that way. Skiles had the brain to see that. The same Skiles you say gave up on him never once benched him, even when Jennings could have been given a shot at starting. Payton was bad mostly because he became disinterested, both on offense and defense, when the ball wasn't in his hands. That's why I see him as a quitter. I still think this team could make the playoffs. But Payton as an All-Star...that would take a miracle.

"Do you believe in miracles"

[Odin 137]

probably. though it's difficult to just come out and have an elite defensive team. Its one of the reasons I'm down on Vucevic. I think we really need to lean in and embrace defense because even if we have a Brooklyn level offense, if we have an Atlanta level defense we'll be winning a lot of games.

 

I think it is difficult to delve into the team stats for last year to predict this year because we have had so much turn over. Of the 8 players getting the most minutes, we have Payton, Gordon, Fournier, and Vuch from last year. To this, we have added Ibaka, Biyombo, Augustin, and Green. Maybe Hezonja forces his way in there this year, but that is still about half the players taking a majority of the minutes who have not played on our team before.

 

It is like taking a car and swapping out a bunch of parts under the hood, like the engine and etc, and expecting the car to drive the same, or even similarly. Even more, it is like doing all of that and swapping out the driver and expecting the same or similar performance. (The driver being the coach in this analogy).

 

In my eye, a better way to approach it is to look at player's individual performance and to look at how Vogel set up his team's systems to see how they might fit into the way he has done things before. This is not to say that Vogel is necessarily set in his ways and that the system he ran in Indiana will be the same system he will run in Orlando. However, in the same vein, we cannot judge him on possibilities when it comes to game plans, and, as many coaches as there are in the league who try to tailor their systems to the specific traits of their current teams, there are as many coaches who try to bend the team to their preferred system.

 

So, starting with defense, what kind of scheme can we expect to see? I think the first part is obvious, with Ibaka and Biyombo, we will start with trying to deny opposing teams shots at the hoop. The second thing we can expect to see are wing players trying to run the opposing team off of the three point line.

 

Beyond this, I am struggling to find Vogel's exact strategy when it comes to switching, PnR, screens, and double-teaming. I read an older article that wrote that Vogel did not like switching, but our team this year almost seems made to switch a lot, with so many players around 6-8.