2016 Off-Season Thread

[Catalina Maria 64]

A lot of people here underestimate Payton's ability to drive in and score. Our team last year is vastly improved with the addition of Ibaka and Biyombo alone. That help on defense will free up our offense. To add: FREE GORDON. He's about to start his third season YOUNGER than when Blake Griffin started as an NBA rookie. THINK about that. Plus, I hear he has been working on his shooting.

 

I trust Vogel will be able to do SOMETHING great with this lineup. DJ is no slouch at PG for the Payton doubters. BUT I think Payton will thrive this year. He's got a chip on his shoulder, and he doesn't seem like the quitter type. He gets discouraged, yes, but he seems to want to win. This is the year he proves to us he can be a winner on a CONSISTENT basis.

[Magicman28 295]

I'm telling y'all. Vuch is gonna see more time outside the 3. Not majority, but a lot more than usual. It'll spread out things for AG and Payton.

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

heres a good explanation of what we can expect from Vogel's defensive system

 

http://www.todaysfastbreak.com/nba-east/indiana-pacers/frank-vogels-system-will-work-orlando/

[Catalina Maria 64]

heres a good explanation of what we can expect from Vogel's defensive system

 

http://www.todaysfastbreak.com/nba-east/indiana-pacers/frank-vogels-system-will-work-orlando/

 

Nice!

[Justin Jaudon 221]

Payton-hezonja-Gordon-ibaka-biyombo --- YEAH, this lineup is very sexy!!!!

 

The future. Hezonja/Payton/Gordon = future all stars. You heard it hear first. I'm the same guy who batted for JJ. Who wanted Brian Hill out in the 2000's. Who thinks we are POSSIBLY better without Dipo. I will be proven right once again. This team we have now is going to blow the NBA away. Wait and see.

 

 

A lot of people here underestimate Payton's ability to drive in and score. Our team last year is vastly improved with the addition of Ibaka and Biyombo alone. That help on defense will free up our offense. To add: FREE GORDON. He's about to start his third season YOUNGER than when Blake Griffin started as an NBA rookie. THINK about that. Plus, I hear he has been working on his shooting.

 

I trust Vogel will be able to do SOMETHING great with this lineup. DJ is no slouch at PG for the Payton doubters. BUT I think Payton will thrive this year. He's got a chip on his shoulder, and he doesn't seem like the quitter type. He gets discouraged, yes, but he seems to want to win. This is the year he proves to us he can be a winner on a CONSISTENT basis.

 

You do so love to be optimistic to a point of absurdity, don't you?

 

And yes, Payton does seem like the quitter type. At least, to me he does. What the hell else can we say about last season?

[The Neighborhood Bully 266]

The big man nailed just 32.6% (60-184) of his attempts and averaged his lowest points per game total (14.2) since the lockout-shortened 2011-12 season.

 

The most concerning part of Ibaka’s three-point woes is he was wide open (closest defender 6+ feet away) on nearly 70% of his attempts from downtown and converted at just a 34.4% clip. He won’t have nearly as many open looks in Orlando.

 

Ibaka might have struggled on offense last season, but he still received plenty of looks. The 6-foot-10 forward led the team in pick and roll opportunities and spot up situations.

 

According to NBA.com, Ibaka struggled mightily in both. He was in the 39th percentile as the roll man scoring just 0.96 points per possession and the 40th percentile in spot ups scoring just 0.90 points per possession.

http://elitesportsny...2016-17-season/

[Catalina Maria 64]

[/size]http://elitesportsny...2016-17-season/

 

Last year of his contract. If he sucks, we get cap space and we let him go. Henny always has an exit strategy.

[Catalina Maria 64]

You do so love to be optimistic to a point of absurdity, don't you?

 

And yes, Payton does seem like the quitter type. At least, to me he does. What the hell else can we say about last season?

 

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.

[The Neighborhood Bully 266]

Last year of his contract. If he sucks, we get cap space and we let him go. Henny always has an exit strategy.

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.

[Magicman28 295]

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.

 

 

You need an adventure trip or something. Go white water rafting or hunt or something. Maybe climb an mountain or go camping.

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

the optimistic spin on ibaka is he shot 39% from three the first 50 games last year and then 25% in the final 28 games. He then shot 45% over the 18 games in the playoffs. He basically had a really bad February that sunk his numbers.

 

 

Also, I'm not really sure the "Player X wont get as many open shots because he's moving from a good team to a bad team" statement holds up. It makes sense conceptually (i.e. Westbrook and Durant have gravity when they have the ball, therefore other players on the team will get more open shots as their man helps on the stars) but I'm not sure it works that way in practice. If it worked that way, you would think our team last year would have a hard time getting open shots. You could make the argument that Payton, Gordon, and maybe even oladipo got open threes by design based on their issues shooting the ball. But Fournier was able to shoot 99 for 219 on threes that were considered wide open (where the nearest defender is 6+ feet away). If a team with universally acknowledged spacing issues, inept offense for most of the year, and no star player can scheme 219 wide open threes for their best three point shooter, why do we expect it to be an issue for ibaka?

 

 

in fact, when you look at the data from a team standpoint, we were significantly better at creating open threes last year than Oklahoma City. 12.5% of our attempts were open threes while only 10.6% of OKC's shots were wide open threes. That might not seem like a huge gap but we're closer to Golden state in frequency of wide open threes than OKC is to us.

 

Maybe that's the result of poor ball movement.

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

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.