2019-2020 Official Regular Season Thread

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

8 minutes ago, Magicpassion said:

Do you see us moving on from a big in order to get some offense?

Not until January. We don't have much to trade until then and the market will be deeper. 

[Franchero MVP 391]

12 hours ago, Fultz4thewin said:

I'm not sure he does. 

 

Miami isn't being flexible. They've mortgaged their future to attempt to field a winning team because their GM is going to retire or die soon. The result of that process is missing the playoffs in two of the last 3 years and a current roster with a low ceiling. 

But yeah. Let's just keep being myopic because of what they're doing today. 

And yet it seems like we’re saying this tidbit every few years as well. “Miami is mortgaging their future, won’t have cap space, isn’t flexible anymore” etc and yet here we are. Then they somehow find ways move on from their bad contracts and move on from their mistakes . I just don’t buy it.

To me these are just excuses for us to make “safe moves” without every really moving the needle. 

[fan for too long 2 530]

2 hours ago, Fultz4thewin said:

Yeah. We're not a young team. But our most important players are young. 

The vets who are struggling deserve criticism because they need to be more consistent. 

My point, which the above poster kind of missed, is that this roster isn't designed for contention. It's designed to create a style of play and keep a high floor for the short term. It's a roster designed to put the young players in situations where they develop habits in games that matter and learn how to win consistently. Vucevic, aminu, augustin, MCW, Fournier, and probably Ross aren't going to be on the team when we shift into the next stage of contention. 

Basically, this is all an exercise to get Isaac, fultz, Gordon, and (in theory) Bamba playoff reps. 

In other words we are 3 years from being 3 years away from being contenders. Got it. Gotta love our management. Rolls eyes. 

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

35 minutes ago, Gordon MVP said:

And yet it seems like we’re saying this tidbit every few years as well. “Miami is mortgaging their future, won’t have cap space, isn’t flexible anymore” etc and yet here we are. Then they somehow find ways move on from their bad contracts and move on from their mistakes . I just don’t buy it.

To me these are just excuses for us to make “safe moves” without every really moving the needle. 

I mean if there's ever an all star free agent who says "I want to sign in Orlando, get me there" and we don't figure out how to make that move I'll be upset too. But it's not like we had that option available. 

That's what it took for Miami to get Butler. 

We tried to trade up for doncic and Dallas inserted themselves ahead of us. We tried to trade back up into the draft for SGA and couldn't get a deal done there. 

We traded inconsequential pieces for fultz and that is paying off so far. 

What has management done that you disprove of? They're appropriately aggressive. They have a well defined plan. Their plan has shown real on court results. What's the issue? Resigning Vucevic? 

[Odin 137]

We have played 6 games.

We have only lost one game that we really shouldn't have, against Atlanta. Toronto is likely in a similar range as us, and Denver and Milwaukee will likely be two of the best teams at the end of the year.

We really should win at least 3 of the next 4 games. We need to start scoring better. But the season is still early, and stuff can look weird.

[JJZFL 618]

4 minutes ago, Odin said:

We have played 6 games.

We have only lost one game that we really shouldn't have, against Atlanta. Toronto is likely in a similar range as us, and Denver and Milwaukee will likely be two of the best teams at the end of the year.

We really should win at least 3 of the next 4 games. We need to start scoring better. But the season is still early, and stuff can look weird.

Well put.  The offense needs to start clicking soon, though, or concern will start to mount.  I wonder when the last time is (in the modern NBA era) that a team has gone six straight games without breaking 100?  Maybe it’s more common than I think;  Fultz4thewin will probably have this information at his fingertips.  

[Just a regular Magic fan 38]

8 hours ago, Fultz4thewin said:

Yeah. We're not a young team. But our most important players are young. 

The vets who are struggling deserve criticism because they need to be more consistent. 

My point, which the above poster kind of missed, is that this roster isn't designed for contention. It's designed to create a style of play and keep a high floor for the short term. It's a roster designed to put the young players in situations where they develop habits in games that matter and learn how to win consistently. Vucevic, aminu, augustin, MCW, Fournier, and probably Ross aren't going to be on the team when we shift into the next stage of contention. 

Basically, this is all an exercise to get Isaac, fultz, Gordon, and (in theory) Bamba playoff reps. 

3

Yeah, I definitely missed the point about building a team with a high floor. Among many things, it’s hard for me to envision a GM not doing everything they can to build a contender every year. It’s not that Weltman aren’t trying, it’s probably not practical and the window of opportunity they are using is bigger than what I, and many casual fans, would expect.

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

21 minutes ago, JJZFL said:

Well put.  The offense needs to start clicking soon, though, or concern will start to mount.  I wonder when the last time is (in the modern NBA era) that a team has gone six straight games without breaking 100?  Maybe it’s more common than I think;  Fultz4thewin will probably have this information at his fingertips.  

Memphis had 8 straight last year. 

We had 7 straight last year. 

Chicago had 7 straight last year that actually ran concurrently with our 7 game stretch last year. 

New York had 7 straight last year. 

[Franchero MVP 391]

1 hour ago, Fultz4thewin said:

I mean if there's ever an all star free agent who says "I want to sign in Orlando, get me there" and we don't figure out how to make that move I'll be upset too. But it's not like we had that option available. 

That's what it took for Miami to get Butler. 

We tried to trade up for doncic and Dallas inserted themselves ahead of us. We tried to trade back up into the draft for SGA and couldn't get a deal done there. 

We traded inconsequential pieces for fultz and that is paying off so far. 

What has management done that you disprove of? They're appropriately aggressive. They have a well defined plan. Their plan has shown real on court results. What's the issue? Resigning Vucevic? 

I get the Butler thing. But watching Miami draft big scorers and pick up undrafted scorers is what's been pissing me off lately.

With regards to Doncic and SGA, what's the source on this? I don't know if we truly offered anything or even much. I am not sure the FO was convinced Doncic was going to be as good as he is so quickly, and same thing with SGA. Instead we doubled down on our assets. This FO has shown that it will take who they want regardless of the slot, in light of taking Okeke at our position last year when it was unclear if he should have even been taken that early -- so if we were really convinced SGA was our man, we would have taken him instead of Bamba. Instead we ended up with a risky move in taking Bamba when we had a free agency of Vuc coming up, along with already having Birch on the roster. It was not a position of need and there were so many questions on Bamba that it didn't seem likely he was gonna be the next Dwight, Embid or even the next Capela. To me, you don't waste a pick that high on the C position unless that's you're thinking they're gonna turn out to be. There are plenty of C's in the NBA and even in the G-league where it isn't an issue to replace Vuc with another C if let him go. It was a very dumb move. 

And I don't even want to start on paying Vuc that kind of money. It was the equivalent of a Biyombo payoff after 1 good season. In a league moving away from Center scoring to more perimeter scoring and foul-drawing, how have we not figured out that setting up an offense around Vuc is just outdated and wont work?

 

 

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

3 minutes ago, Gordon MVP said:

I get the Butler thing. But watching Miami draft big scorers and pick up undrafted scorers is what's been pissing me off lately.

With regards to Doncic and SGA, what's the source on this? I don't know if we truly offered anything or even much. I am not sure the FO was convinced Doncic was going to be as good as he is so quickly, and same thing with SGA. Instead we doubled down on our assets. This FO has shown that it will take who they want regardless of the slot, in light of taking Okeke at our position last year when it was unclear if he should have even been taken that early -- so if we were really convinced SGA was our man, we would have taken him instead of Bamba. Instead we ended up with a risky move in taking Bamba when we had a free agency of Vuc coming up, along with already having Birch on the roster. It was not a position of need and there were so many questions on Bamba that it didn't seem likely he was gonna be the next Dwight, Embid or even the next Capela. To me, you don't waste a pick that high on the C position unless that's you're thinking they're gonna turn out to be. There are plenty of C's in the NBA and even in the G-league where it isn't an issue to replace Vuc with another C if let him go. It was a very dumb move. 

And I don't even want to start on paying Vuc that kind of money. It was the equivalent of a Biyombo payoff after 1 good season. In a league moving away from Center scoring to more perimeter scoring and foul-drawing, how have we not figured out that setting up an offense around Vuc is just outdated and wont work?

 

 

There were significant rumors from multiple (typically correct) sources on draft day that we were attempting to trade up with Sacramento and then Atlanta for doncic but Dallas superceded us. 

After we took Bamba it was rumored by the same sources that we attempted to trade with Charlotte to move up to "select a point guard we were targeting". 

Bamba was a risky pick but he was a high reward pick. 

Okeke was a really smart pick. He's going to be really good. And before I get labeled a homer, here's evidence from before we drafted him:

 

And I pretty much agree on Vucevic but I want to at least give them the benefit of the doubt. Let's see how it plays out. If we rent him for a year and then include him in a package for something substantial it's a good move. 

[JJZFL 618]

35 minutes ago, Fultz4thewin said:

Memphis had 8 straight last year. 

We had 7 straight last year. 

Chicago had 7 straight last year that actually ran concurrently with our 7 game stretch last year. 

New York had 7 straight last year. 

I knew you’d have the info :)

[fan for too long 2 530]

Memphis, Chicago, and New York are not really  teams you want to be linked to in terms of performance.