2018-19 Official Season Discussion Thread

[Magicpassion 4]

Who cares about what Kuzma says. He’s phony Hollywood and we are substance! He is always going to be about his brand and putting himself first. We are a team that cares about one another therefore we will see sustainable success with team chemistry. 

[Jay Magic 1,233]

 

WELL SAID CHARLES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Jay Magic 1,233]

 

[Magicfan1987 266]

5 hours ago, Jay Magic said:

 

The overreactions were STRONG

[magicdoc1 261]

 

Nothing to do, so I figured I share this with you guys. Cant wait to see Fultz and Bamba playing together. 

[Natesroom 197]

On 2/17/2019 at 12:16 PM, JJZFL said:

 

This discussion has come to an odd place.  I don't think there is a choice between playing a player who isn't yet ready and making the current team worse in the process, vs developing that player for the future.  A lot of rookies aren't ready to play important minutes when they first come in the league.  That's ok.  Develop them (as SVG did with Reddick) but don't have them play big minutes which may hurt the team now.  Being on a winning team and sharing in being competitive is also very important in the development of a young player.  No one is talking about "giving up" on anybody.

Regarding P4TW's earlier post about it being easy to find inexpensive replacement back-up centers who can bring the same value as Birch, I think that extrapolating statistical generalities to specific circumstances may not always give an accurate picture.  Last season, Vuch/Biyombo terrible, Biyombo/Birch (for the entire month Vuch was out) much better.  This year, Vuch/Bamba pretty bad most of the time, Vuch/Birch much better.  Now maybe this all a coincidence.  But I don't believe that.  Obviously I wouldn't overpay Birch if he wants more than 4M a year, but if possible I would retain him and try to give him minutes until Bamba is ready.  If that takes 2-3 more years,  so be it, let this team taste some success for awhile, and don't allow years where we could possibly be competitive to slip away in the name of development.  In doing that, you will probably not accomplish either goal.

If you think it's nice for us as fans to finally have meaningful and even exciting games to look forward to after the AS break for the first time in 7 years, just think how much more important it is the for the players to experience that kind of competition.  This is just no other way for them to learn it.

I think this second unit with Briscoe & bamba would be better then bamba's first half, the problem with that second unit was bamba was playing with Simmons and grant and thats not good

[Odin 137]

Fivethirtyeight.com has updated our probability of making the playoffs to 60%. They project that we finish with a record of 38-44.

This is a 6 win increase from the beginning of the year, where they projected 32 wins and only a 19% chance of making the playoffs.

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

1 minute ago, Odin said:

Fivethirtyeight.com has updated our probability of making the playoffs to 60%. They project that we finish with a record of 38-44.

Basketball reference has us at 38.5 wins, the 7 seed, and a 57.5% chance to make the playoffs. 

Think we need to really shoot for that 7 seed. There's not a series that we have a good chance to win but I think Milwaukee is the worst matchup for us. We handle Toronto really well because we're built to handle siakam, it doesn't really bother us to have Kawhi take Gordon out of the game, and I'm not as worried about Augustin and fournier defending Lowry and Green. 

Philly or Boston are definitely winnable. Philly with Simmons is easier to defend and they don't have the depth to kill us. Boston should just out talent us but we won the season series against them so maybe there's just something there. 

Milwaukee is the only series that I think is a definite 4 or 5 game series. The rest I think we can push to 6 or 7 if we play our best and maybe if the other team looks ahead we can steal one. 

[King Close 63]

7 minutes ago, ?4thewin said:

Basketball reference has us at 38.5 wins, the 7 seed, and a 57.5% chance to make the playoffs. 

Think we need to really shoot for that 7 seed. There's not a series that we have a good chance to win but I think Milwaukee is the worst matchup for us. We handle Toronto really well because we're built to handle siakam, it doesn't really bother us to have Kawhi take Gordon out of the game, and I'm not as worried about Augustin and fournier defending Lowry and Green. 

Philly or Boston are definitely winnable. Philly with Simmons is easier to defend and they don't have the depth to kill us. Boston should just out talent us but we won the season series against them so maybe there's just something there. 

Milwaukee is the only series that I think is a definite 4 or 5 game series. The rest I think we can push to 6 or 7 if we play our best and maybe if the other team looks ahead we can steal one. 

Great breakdown. +1

[Murphy13 185]

I personally don't think 38 wins gets us into the playoffs, I think there'll be one sub .500 team and they'll probably have 40 wins.  That said I think the 6 seed is a legitimate possibility seeing as we are only 3 games back of it.  I think Brooklyn will stay just above 500 (42-40) and either Charlotte or Detroit will end strong at around 40 wins.  Call me a homer but looking at our schedule I think we can finish 16-7 and end up 43-39 for the 6 seed.

In this scenario obviously it would be great if Indiana could hold onto #3 but with Oladipo gone that isn't going to happen.  It would be against Philly or Boston and both of those would be tough but I think we'd get a game or two and consider it a win going into next season.  I think Toronto and Milwaukee would clean our clocks assuming everyone is healthy.  

Add: I see 12 likely wins on the schedule and 4 tossups.  

[Odin 137]

8 minutes ago, ?4thewin said:

 Basketball reference has us at 38.5 wins, the 7 seed, and a 57.5% chance to make the playoffs. 

 Think we need to really shoot for that 7 seed. There's not a series that we have a good chance to win but I think Milwaukee is the worst matchup for us. We handle Toronto really well because we're built to handle siakam, it doesn't really bother us to have Kawhi take Gordon out of the game, and I'm not as worried about Augustin and fournier defending Lowry and Green. 

 Philly or Boston are definitely winnable. Philly with Simmons is easier to defend and they don't have the depth to kill us. Boston should just out talent us but we won the season series against them so maybe there's just something there. 

 Milwaukee is the only series that I think is a definite 4 or 5 game series. The rest I think we can push to 6 or 7 if we play our best and maybe if the other team looks ahead we can steal one. 

Definitely, though if we can go on a run that gets us 6th, that would be best. I am really not that scared of Boston or Philly. (They should beat us in the end, but we have played both teams tight with us beating Boston twice so far with one more to go and Philly once with two more to go. We have a puncher's chance against both).

It is amazing how quickly fortunes change though, as just 2 weeks ago they had us at 33 wins and only a 19% chance of making the playoffs. And that was with them factoring in our soft schedule to close out the season.

[Odin 137]

6 minutes ago, Murphy13 said:

I personally don't think 38 wins gets us into the playoffs, I think there'll be one sub .500 team and they'll probably have 40 wins.  That said I think the 6 seed is a legitimate possibility seeing as we are only 3 games back of it.  I think Brooklyn will stay just above 500 (42-40) and either Charlotte or Detroit will end strong at around 40 wins.  Call me a homer but looking at our schedule I think we can finish 16-7 and end up 43-39 for the 6 seed.

 In this scenario obviously it would be great if Indiana could hold onto #3 but with Oladipo gone that isn't going to happen.  It would be against Philly or Boston and both of those would be tough but I think we'd get a game or two and consider it a win going into next season.  I think Toronto and Milwaukee would clean our clocks assuming everyone is healthy.  

This is all just the odds breakdown from fivethirtyeight which factors in the chance to win every game in the future based on their formula (Carmelo ratings). If you change to their pure elo forcast, they actually improve our odds to finishing 40-42 and grabbing the 6th seed with that at a 73% chance to make the playoffs (yeah, they don't think the bottom of the east is going to look pretty).

We have a soft schedule to finish out the year, and I think the crap teams are really going to start fielding even weaker lineups to get better draft odds. I think we can finish up there as well, but it is more likely that we finish around 40-41 wins and the 7th-8th seed.