2017-2018 Official Season Discussion Thread

[Magicman28 295]

2 minutes ago, Payton4thewin said:

If you start doing the math for next year we're close or over the luxury tax line. Also with Simmons and Isaac there's not much room for him in our future plans even though he's actually looked good this year.  

But i don't understand the Richardson point of that.  He's not good and doesn't make us better.  If we're going to dump Mario for a cheap young player go for Brice Johnson so we have someone to play 4. 

I agree with the first paragraph.

It's the second one that has me like why too?  Wonder if it's to get Phoenix to speed up on a deal.

Sources: Orlando has explored the trade market on Mario Hezonja. The Magic must decide on his fourth-year $5.2 million team option by today.

 

 

[ML6 520]

PSA for everyone as this ramps up: save yourself a lot of trouble and just accept that we're going to get an inconsequential return for an inconsequential player. 

[Magicman28 295]

17 minutes ago, ML6 said:

PSA for everyone as this ramps up: save yourself a lot of trouble and just accept that we're going to get an inconsequential return for an inconsequential player. 

More than likely.

Fun to speculate though.

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

1 hour ago, ML6 said:

PSA for everyone as this ramps up: save yourself a lot of trouble and just accept that we're going to get an inconsequential return for an inconsequential player. 

I'm cool with the inconsequential return.  I just don't want that inconsequential return to be a shooting guard

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

Here's the numbers. 

Assuming max contract for Gordon, cutting mack, not picking up Mario's option, not resigning speights or afflalo we're at 103,475,560. 

Salary cap is at 101m

Luxury tax is 123m

And a decision to make with Payton. 

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

 We should trade for Bledsoe.  Mitigates future salary issues.  If dj is included you're only adding 7,750,000 to the 103 million.  Bring back speights and afflalo and now you're at $114ish you can add a solid backup point guard or just keep mack and run a rookie third string and still under the tax

[Magicman28 295]

3 minutes ago, Payton4thewin said:

 We should trade for Bledsoe.  Mitigates future salary issues.  If dj is included you're only adding 7,750,000 to the 103 million.  Bring back speights and afflalo and now you're at $114ish you can add a solid backup point guard or just keep mack and run a rookie third string and still under the tax

What time is today's deadline for Mario?

[Odin 137]

An early look at the Magic's team numbers (What do they need to keep doing well and what do they need to improve as the season moves forward):

So, obviously the Magic are shooting at unsustainable percentages. So what is it that they are doing well otherwise that can keep us winning? And what are they currently not doing well at that they need to improve upon? A cravat, this is nowhere near extensive and most of the numbers used here come from Basketball-reference.

1. Rebounding: Currently, the Magic are not rebounding at good rates. Our offensive rebounding percentage is 19.2%, which is 28th in the league, while our defensive rebounding is 74.1% which is 26th in the league. If we could get to about league average (~23% and ~77% respectively) that would come out to about 1.5 extra offensive rebounds and 1.5 defensive rebounds per game. Opponents are currently scoring 16.6 second chance points on us per game (second highest in the league). At league average this would equal eliminating about 2 points from the opposing team while scoring about 2 more points ourselves, or a swing of about 4 points per game, all other things even. This would be a pretty substantial improvement with us only moving to league average numbers- which should be doable with at least average rebounders at almost every position.

2. Turnovers: We are pretty average in this category, both for and against, with the 10th lowest turn over percentage and the 19th highest opponent turn over percentage. We can maybe see those improve, but they are not far from our last year numbers.

3. Pace- we are playing at the 3rd highest pace and it seems to be working, especially since we have better shooters than the other teams that are pushing the pace (also just generally better over all- the other teams in this category are the Nets, Suns, Lakers, and Wizards- only the Wizards are any good).

4. Offensive/defensive ratings- We are at an unsustainable 2nd place with offensive rating, but our defensive rating is currently 12th in the league, which I think is promising especially with the pace we are playing.

5. We are leading the league, holding opposing teams to 27.5% 3 point percentage. This is likely as unsustainable as our league leading 44% 3 point percentage. We are also so far keeping teams from shooting from three, with the opposing teams only taking 29.2% of their shots from three, good for fourth in the league. I think that second part is likely more sustainable than the low shooting percentage from three from opposing teams. We have also been good at getting teams to shoot in the mid-range so far (fourth highest number in the league in percentage of opposing team shots coming from 3 feet from the basket to the three point line.)

 

[Odin 137]

22 minutes ago, Payton4thewin said:

Here's the numbers. 

Assuming max contract for Gordon, cutting mack, not picking up Mario's option, not resigning speights or afflalo we're at 103,475,560. 

Salary cap is at 101m

Luxury tax is 123m

And a decision to make with Payton. 

If we decide to keep Payton, is 4 years 60 million reasonable, or do you think we would have to pay more?

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

2 minutes ago, Odin said:

If we decide to keep Payton, is 4 years 60 million reasonable, or do you think we would have to pay more?

So here's where i think we might end up getting screwed.  

If Payton hypothetically doesn't work here we're basically left with mle level players to fill his place. 

If Payton comes back and looks great he's going to price us out of his contract.  

If Payton looks fine and is reasonably priced is that someone you want to lock up long term? 

[Soul Bro 1,419]

50 minutes ago, Payton4thewin said:

We should trade for Bledsoe.  Mitigates future salary issues.  If dj is included you're only adding 7,750,000 to the 103 million.  Bring back speights and afflalo and now you're at $114ish you can add a solid backup point guard or just keep mack and run a rookie third string and still under the tax

Exactly 

[Odin 137]

4 minutes ago, Payton4thewin said:

So here's where i think we might end up getting screwed.  

If Payton hypothetically doesn't work here we're basically left with mle level players to fill his place. 

If Payton comes back and looks great he's going to price us out of his contract.  

If Payton looks fine and is reasonably priced is that someone you want to lock up long term? 

Who really has the money and will to sign him if he comes back and plays well?

I looked at the teams with likely cap space and I don't really see a team that has the money that would be interested in paying him more than my proposed amount that he would at the same time be interested in going to.