Chicago vs. Orlando: A Tale of Two Tanks

[JJZFL]

3 minutes ago, TheNameIsOrlando said:

3 of our worst defenders leading the team. Why is anyone surprised?

I mean the team doesn’t have any really good defenders except maybe Gordon and possibly Isaac. But you can’t blame that on injuries if four of the five starters when we’re healthy don’t play very good defense. 

As was quoted in a recent article by Zach Lowe posted on the other active thread, the Magic have been stinking on defense since game 9 or so, long before this current rash of injuries. 

[TheNameIsOrlando]

10 minutes ago, JJZFL said:

I mean the team doesn’t have any really good defenders except maybe Gordon and possibly Isaac. But you can’t blame that on injuries if four of the five starters when we’re healthy don’t play very good defense. 

As was quoted in a recent article by Zach Lowe posted on the other active thread, the Magic have been stinking on defense since game 9 or so, long before this current rash of injuries. 

It's obvious it's a combination of things but again when Payton Vuch and Simmons are your three best players we are gonna lose, lose badly, and lose a lot.

[Magicman28]

47 minutes ago, JJZFL said:

I mean the team doesn’t have any really good defenders except maybe Gordon and possibly Isaac. But you can’t blame that on injuries if four of the five starters when we’re healthy don’t play very good defense. 

As was quoted in a recent article by Zach Lowe posted on the other active thread, the Magic have been stinking on defense since game 9 or so, long before this current rash of injuries. 

Yup and that's the excuse the local media is starting to use. Injuries. Never mind that it's been issue for a few years now.

[JJZFL]

38 minutes ago, TheNameIsOrlando said:

It's obvious it's a combination of things but again when Payton Vuch and Simmons are your three best players we are gonna lose, lose badly, and lose a lot.

Unfortunately the decision was made to continue with that group before the season started in order to “evaluate what we have”.

[fan for too long 2]

This is what I have to say to mngt.

EVALUATE THIS:  F U

[Magicman28]

Sounds like we'll continue to evaluate. Hammond was on Drive Time and blamed losses on injuries and said that we still don't know who we are and will continue to evaluate.

[Magicfan1987]

53 minutes ago, Magicman28 said:

Sounds like we'll continue to evaluate. Hammond was on Drive Time and blamed losses on injuries and said that we still don't know who we are and will continue to evaluate.

if only they'd come to the board. we should have a board meeting with Weham

[Fultz4thewin]

7 hours ago, JJZFL said:

I mean the team doesn’t have any really good defenders except maybe Gordon and possibly Isaac. But you can’t blame that on injuries if four of the five starters when we’re healthy don’t play very good defense. 

As was quoted in a recent article by Zach Lowe posted on the other active thread, the Magic have been stinking on defense since game 9 or so, long before this current rash of injuries. 

Game 9 was when we were down to 1 point guard. It was the beginning of the injuries.  

[Mike1989]

On 21/12/2017 at 6:32 AM, Jay Magic said:

The Bulls are a 9-20 team we should not be down by 27 points to them EVER. Simple as that. It's embarrassing. End of the discussion 

Agreed, but they did have one of the longest winning streaks in the NBA heading into that game. They were also playing decent enough basketball. When you consider how our team can struggle to score and defend at times, I don't think it is by any means surprising that we lost that game. Should we have lost as badly as we did? Or been that far behind? No, but an argument can be made that they are in a better position than we are and they have started to put things together. They've got young talent and they are improving at both ends of the court. As for us, we've got injury problems and lacklustre play at both ends so that didn't help our cause. 

For me, it's games like this that make it hard to be a Magic fan at the minute and to make the effort to watch them. How many years have we been rebuilding now? I've lost count and we are still not close to being a play off team and/or contender again, and arguably we'll have a longer wait if/when they blow this team up.

On 21/12/2017 at 8:47 AM, Orlando Magic Toaster said:

This is not a good result to wake up to, of all the teams to get blown out by and I was expecting this to be a close game. Reading some of the comments on FB is kind of embarrassing everyone calling for trades to be made. 

Something has to happen though but my concern is if we lose Payton & Vuc I believe they will flourish wherever they go.

I think we can say the same about a few other players as well, that if they go elsewhere they might flourish. Oladipo is a prime example since ending up in Indiana. He's looking like the player we wanted him to be when we drafted him, yet with us he never became anything more than a streaky good player. 

The issue we have right now is that we aren't a good team, so while there is a risk that our talent will achieve their potential elsewhere, that is a risk we'll have to take if we want to get better because this team isn't improving as hoped. The team needs rebuilding and as much as I like players like Vuc, it is arguably time to move on.

[Fultz4thewin]

6 minutes ago, Mike1989 said:

Agreed, but they did have one of the longest winning streaks in the NBA heading into that game. They were also playing decent enough basketball. When you consider how our team can struggle to score and defend at times, I don't think it is by any means surprising that we lost that game. Should we have lost as badly as we did? Or been that far behind? No, but an argument can be made that they are in a better position than we are and they have started to put things together. They've got young talent and they are improving at both ends of the court. As for us, we've got injury problems and lacklustre play at both ends so that didn't help our cause. 

For me, it's games like this that make it hard to be a Magic fan at the minute and to make the effort to watch them. How many years have we been rebuilding now? I've lost count and we are still not close to being a play off team and/or contender again, and arguably we'll have a longer wait if/when they blow this team up.

I think we can say the same about a few other players as well, that if they go elsewhere they might flourish. Oladipo is a prime example since ending up in Indiana. He's looking like the player we wanted him to be when we drafted him, yet with us he never became anything more than a streaky good player. 

The issue we have right now is that we aren't a good team, so while there is a risk that our talent will achieve their potential elsewhere, that is a risk we'll have to take if we want to get better because this team isn't improving as hoped. The team needs rebuilding and as much as I like players like Vuc, it is arguably time to move on.

We lose by 7. Ok it's basketball.  We don't have a shot in games until everyone is back healthy.  

We ostensibly lost by 28 without garbage time.  That's just terrible.  That's why we need to make wholesale changes away from the guys who are currently playing 

[Jay Magic]

35 minutes ago, Payton4thewin said:

We lose by 7. Ok it's basketball.  We don't have a shot in games until everyone is back healthy.  

We ostensibly lost by 28 without garbage time.  That's just terrible.  That's why we need to make wholesale changes away from the guys who are currently playing 

This is what I'm getting at. Thanks for clarifying what I meant. And yes wholesale changes ASAP. 

[JJZFL]

7 hours ago, Payton4thewin said:

Game 9 was when we were down to 1 point guard. It was the beginning of the injuries.  

Actually Payton was injured and we were still playing good team defense even with Augustine, who no one thinks is a great defender.