Magic Vs. Suns - Wednesday, Dec. 26th at 7:00 P.M.

[HeHateMe 697]

15 minutes ago, ~O~ said:

Looks like our season is over.  Time to fire Clifford as the scapegoat. 

Fire Cliff. Re-build around Vuch and Fournier. 

[Soul Bro 1,419]

32 minutes ago, ?4thewin said:

If the options are to trade for a guy today that we can get this summer why would we give up something now to make that happen

One obvious reason is that we’ve struck out on good free agents over the last few years. If we were to trade for a player under contract or one who will be restricted, we’d have a lot more control over the process.

[Soul Bro 1,419]

37 minutes ago, ?4thewin said:

If the options are to trade for a guy today that we can get this summer why would we give up something now to make that happen

Another reason for a trade would be for the sake of accountability. If you know certain guys as high usage players don’t lead to consistent competitiveness, it’s best to move on. The case in point is when Toronto shipped out Gay, which completely changed their franchise.

[Okethree 76]

3 minutes ago, Soul Bro said:

Another reason for a trade would be for the sake of accountability. If you know certain guys as high usage players don’t lead to consistent competitiveness, it’s best to move on. The case in point is when Toronto shipped out Gay, which completely changed their franchise.

Good point

[jec 427]

This song and dance is killing me. I'm honestly feeling burnt out with this team.

[South_Aussie_Magic 90]

1 hour ago, Soul Bro said:

Another reason for a trade would be for the sake of accountability. If you know certain guys as high usage players don’t lead to consistent competitiveness, it’s best to move on. The case in point is when Toronto shipped out Gay, which completely changed their franchise.

Addition by subtraction at its finest. I'm glad he's finally realised he's not a no. 1 option now too.

[Mauro Pedrosa 1,031]

7 hours ago, ?4thewin said:

You're a hypocrite though. You can't push for the team to throw games while also lamenting not winning. 

And I'm not overly optimistic. I'm just talking a 1000 foot view of the situation instead of being beholden to the moment so I don't freak out and demand we blow up the team and build around vucevic one day because he happened to have a few good games in a row then change course a week later because vucevic had two bad games in a row. I'm not demanding more minutes for Bamba when he had two good games then trading him when he sucks.

This fanbase has so little success in years that they lack any poise in the face of adversity. Every bad stretch results in panic. But I've lived through posters on here suggesting we trade Dwight in 2005 because "his improvement stopped". I've lived through "Stan Van Dumby isn't a winner we won't go anywhere with him". I've lived through "how dumb are we for overpaying Rashard? He's averaging less than 20ppg. Worthless". 

So "we lost 4 games in a row! The season is over!" really doesn't phase me that much.

What I wanted this year is for us to have a legitimate season. Throw our roster out there and make a good faith effort to win basketball games so we can accurately evaluate everyone positively and negatively. And if that gives us 29 wins or 35 wins or 42 wins who cares. It at least gives us honest data to work with so we're not sitting here saying "Isaac averaged 17 points per game for the last month of the season but it was mostly garbage time scoring so who knows what's real". 

And if there's real moves out there looking towards the future I'd be happy for us to make them. But we'd be idiots to trade long term assets in a desperate attempt to turn our 29 win team into a 33 win team or our 35 win team into a 39 win team or our 42 win team into a 46 win team. Can't look at things that way. We're not Detroit. 

 

6 hours ago, JJZFL said:

So I took a lot of heat here back in the day, including maybe even some from you, Mauro, for cautioning against a tanking strategy.  Always felt it was high risk and could backfire badly.  People overestimated the likelihood of landing a superstar in the draft, overestimated which players would be superstars (Wiggins??), and underestimated the many bad effects of building a losing team.  Fortunately some of the major jerks are no longer posting here, but you can look way back at some of the threads from 2013 to see just how aggressively wrong people could be.

What's my point in bringing this back up?  Let's do what ?4thewin mentioned in an earlier post in this thread.  Let's take the hard road of actually building a good team one piece at a time, and then hopefully making a few shrewd moves, or getting lucky in the draft, to get us from good to great.  I too am tired of hearing people ready to tank at the first sign of trouble; it's becoming like a reflex now, and I think it's a main reason why we've become "irrelevant".  A pro team needs to be focused on winning.

I also agree with ?4thewin that making panic moves to improve marginally now while damaging our future is not the way to go.

Alright, I think the biggest thing our team has suffered from is not playing the young guys enough or giving them the keys.

There are different philosophies, some people think rookies have to earn their minutes, while others think they should play through their mistakes right away. I lean more towards the latter, because I think rookie contracts are pretty short and you need reps to improve and learn the NBA game. I'd even understand playing a single season as a backup and then getting the starting spot, so I'm more worried about how we're treating Gordon and Isaac than Bamba.

Isaac is the guy we have who has the most potential to become a star. He's already great defensively, but his offensive game is as rudimentary as it gets. We can all agree that he'd be a phenomenal player if he developed an off the dribble game and a 3 pt shot that didn't look like a broken catapult. You don't develop those skills if you just camp in the 3pt line and watch Fournier and Vuc do their thing.

Now, let's discuss Vucevic. I think he's a legitimately GREAT offensive player. He has a lot of flaws (being a crybaby, and some defensive issues) but we have to make a decision on whether we want to keep him, or trade him for younger players, and I think this is the most important point I'm trying to make.

I think Vucevic could play with a star offensive player and still be very effective. ?4thewin doesn't agree, but it's fine to disagree.

I could also see him traded and I wouldn't bat an eye. What I'm trying to say is that we have to choose who we want to feature. Vucevic, or BIG

This halfway BS is what I think can't happen. We've recently lost to the Bulls on the road and the Suns at home. Our players are starting to scream at each other and you can just see the losses coming. There's no way we're making the playoffs if we don't make a move this season.

It's just like fantasy basketball. If you have a team that's so-so at every category, you won't be able to win in the long run. You have to choose 5 or 6 categories and build your team around that, letting go of players that break your strategy.

And I don't necessarily think we have to tank. The pictures and gifs are just for comedic value. There's a difference between tanking and featuring your young players. Phoenix is featuring Ayton and Booker and they aren't tanking. They're just a lot worse than the rest of the West right now

[Magicman28 295]

2 hours ago, Mauro Pedrosa said:

 

Alright, I think the biggest thing our team has suffered from is not playing the young guys enough or giving them the keys.

There are different philosophies, some people think rookies have to earn their minutes, while others think they should play through their mistakes right away. I lean more towards the latter, because I think rookie contracts are pretty short and you need reps to improve and learn the NBA game. I'd even understand playing a single season as a backup and then getting the starting spot, so I'm more worried about how we're treating Gordon and Isaac than Bamba.

Isaac is the guy we have who has the most potential to become a star. He's already great defensively, but his offensive game is as rudimentary as it gets. We can all agree that he'd be a phenomenal player if he developed an off the dribble game and a 3 pt shot that didn't look like a broken catapult. You don't develop those skills if you just camp in the 3pt line and watch Fournier and Vuc do their thing.

Now, let's discuss Vucevic. I think he's a legitimately GREAT offensive player. He has a lot of flaws (being a crybaby, and some defensive issues) but we have to make a decision on whether we want to keep him, or trade him for younger players, and I think this is the most important point I'm trying to make.

I think Vucevic could play with a star offensive player and still be very effective. ?4thewin doesn't agree, but it's fine to disagree.

I could also see him traded and I wouldn't bat an eye. What I'm trying to say is that we have to choose who we want to feature. Vucevic, or BIG

This halfway BS is what I think can't happen. We've recently lost to the Bulls on the road and the Suns at home. Our players are starting to scream at each other and you can just see the losses coming. There's no way we're making the playoffs if we don't make a move this season.

It's just like fantasy basketball. If you have a team that's so-so at every category, you won't be able to win in the long run. You have to choose 5 or 6 categories and build your team around that, letting go of players that break your strategy.

And I don't necessarily think we have to tank. The pictures and gifs are just for comedic value. There's a difference between tanking and featuring your young players. Phoenix is featuring Ayton and Booker and they aren't tanking. They're just a lot worse than the rest of the West right now

This and I’ll add trade for a player who’s not only talented but has been a part of a winning club. For instance if Lillard wanted out or something like that. Mesh that with our youth.

[~O~ 565]

*MEETS DRUG DEALER IN DARK ALLEY* 

*SLOWLY WALKS UPS TO DEALER* 

ORLANDO MAGIC: AY.... AY MAN.....YOU GOT THAT "CONSECUTIVE BLOWOUT DISAPPOINTMENT"  MAN? *SCRATCHES SELF*

DEALER: YEAH MAN....GOT THAT STUFF FA DAT LOTTERY MY MAN.  ITLL TAKE YOU STAIGHT THERE SON.  

 

ORLANDO MAGIC:  I BEEN WINNIN TOO MUCH MAN....I WANNA GET REALLY HIGH IN THE LOTTERY.  I ALSO WANT DAT "COACHES SCAPEGOAT" AND YOU GOT THAT "DECEMBER DISSAPPOINTMENT".  MY PLAYERS THAT **** SON.  YOU KNOW.   DAT DOUBLE D SON! 

DEALER: (THATS WHAT SHE SAID).  .....ANYWAY...I GOT.THIS NEW ****.CALLED "PERRNIALLY OVERHYPED" MAN. I ALSO GOT THAT "ABYSMAL JANUARY"?

MAGIC:  I GET THAT EVERY JANUARY.  I LIKE MY FANS HIGH ON THAT DECEPTION SON.  LOW EXPECTATIONS SON.  AIGHT FAM.  PRECIATE YOU.  

*WALKS AWAY UNDER THE MOONLIGHT PASSING AND DRIVES AWAY IN CHEVY IMPALA.  CAMERA PANS TOWARD THE SKY.

 

 

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

The starting lineup had a 159.3 offensive rating and a 85.2 defensive rating last night

It shot 73% from the field, 67% from 3. Had 8 assists to 3 turnovers. Outscored Phoenix 43 to 23. 

[Catalina Maria 64]

7 minutes ago, ?4thewin said:

The starting lineup had a 159.3 offensive rating and a 85.2 defensive rating last night

It shot 73% from the field, 67% from 3. Had 8 assists to 3 turnovers. Outscored Phoenix 43 to 23. 

So as Jim Carrey says, “There’s still a chance?”

[Catalina Maria 64]

As constructed, Iwundu back in the SL and Isaac in the 2nd unit to give life to that awful 2nd unit.