2019-2020 Official Regular Season Thread

[ML6 520]

Big feather in the cap for Cliff’s long term master plan tonight! 

Losing to the league’s worst team without their best player because we kept the starters’ minutes relatively low as usual and needlessly worked 2 end of bench guys into the rotation. Playing chess! 

[The Boss 129]

We're bad. I think deep down I've known this for years but my blue tinted glasses gave me blind optimism. I'd tell myself after every season 'we're not that bad, if only we had x we'd be a really good team' the next season it would be 'if only we had y..' I didn't realize the whole time we needed uvwxy and z.

[South_Aussie_Magic 90]

 

34 minutes ago, The Boss said:

We're bad. I think deep down I've known this for years but my blue tinted glasses gave me blind optimism. I'd tell myself after every season 'we're not that bad, if only we had x we'd be a really good team' the next season it would be 'if only we had y..' I didn't realize the whole time we needed uvwxy and z.

I love this basketball club, the (albeit short) history of it, the location, the aesthetics. But god, what I wouldn't give to trade in our "lackluster effort" for a bit of Miami's endless grit in the face of being less talented and heralded than other teams. I like it about Dallas as well. It'd be nice to have a culture of "you always have to work hard when you play these guys"

[TrueMagicFan07 671]

1 hour ago, The Boss said:

We're bad. I think deep down I've known this for years but my blue tinted glasses gave me blind optimism. I'd tell myself after every season 'we're not that bad, if only we had x we'd be a really good team' the next season it would be 'if only we had y..' I didn't realize the whole time we needed uvwxy and z.

Hi Boss. I couldn't help but laugh when I read the last part of your post. I'm giving you a "love" vote. The way you put it all together was poetic but funny (to me). 

I wanted to insert my "little boy, falling over laughing" meme. But apparently, some people don't like it.

GOOD STUFF!!!. . . I LOVE IT!

[Magicman28 295]

You can not build a team around role players. You get a star and build around star. It’s been about a decade since we had one. 

[Luke_FfS 248]

Don't worry Magic Fans, we're just limiting our Big Stars minutes just to keep them fresh in the end of the season (maybe we'll need a run to come back to the 8th seed again).

We're also trying to lose every game with mediocre/bad opponents, just to make the game more entretaining and the league more appealing.

And we have no reason to beat winning teams except Philadelphia, or they would be worried by us coming playoff time. It's all in the master plan, just have faith.

(Seriously, I had no hopes in this team as constructed this summer already, but this is getting even worst game by game than I would have thought.  Happy new year to all of you Magic Fans, hoping that a real change will come)

 

[Luke_FfS 248]

10 hours ago, Soul Bro said:

My issue is we know the ceilings of DJ, Fournier, Ross and Vooch... And these guys get us the 8th seed. Why are we still building around them? Why are they getting the majority of the shots? What’s our goal? 

Why we have resigned some of them first... there was a time this summer that the renovation of Ross seemed entrenched to the Vuc's one. I like more the role/contract of Ross, but if it was a 2x1, just let go both..

I mean, since they were resigned, we know coach Clifford philosophy and he was clearly going to build around them and give them the majority of shots. I could understand that way of thinking, but it was so evident that it was going to be a bad idea...

Look at some of the team that are above us in the east, and are also pretty good to watch. Indiana is still without Dipo, and has made good moves to stay on top. Toronto has lost MVP, but they're exciting and with a great record even with a ton of injuries (actually, a lot more bad luck than us) The Nets are above us even without KD and with other health problems. Miami was as mediocre as us and made a move to change that situation. Boston was going nowhere but they keeped faith in their young guys developing. Should I have to go on?

Not all of them have/had better talent then us, but they chosed to improve by trades, signings, have faith in young guys giving them a central role, or just letting go some other players that were not worth the contract/risk. And more of that, a lot of those teams just play hard.  Something you're not going to achieve when you've guys like Vuc or Fournier in your roster..

[Magicpassion 4]

We’ll probably recycle the end of our bench. Too bad we can’t find these hidden gems like other teams do. Iwundu will probably be gone, Frazier not showing enough in practice for significant pt. Still not sure on Bamba. Burch is very limited. 

[hootie249 293]

   Vuc plays hard, i still think we should have traded him years ago when his contract was better. Vuc is like evan, both very good players but not great.

I think Vuc tries hard but it has to be a downer when you see everyone else fail around you year after year.He has been the most consistent player during the whole rebuild.

The problem is if your best player is a center the key to success are shooters.Where have the shooters been the entire rebuild? The Magic should know this better then any other team since we built two finals teams this way. I saw him making plays last night, but when the shots stop dropping all of a sudden our guys stop rebounding and playing defense. It can be fixed, we saw it last year.

[Mike1989 68]

10 hours ago, Magicman28 said:

You can not build a team around role players. You get a star and build around star. It’s been about a decade since we had one. 

Sometimes it comes down to how lucky you are in the draft. Some teams land those stars in the draft while others have to draft players and bet on them reaching their upside. Unfortunately post-Dwight we have had to bet on upside and to date none of our prospects have developed into stars here. Oladipo has become an all star with Indiana but neither us nor OKC believed that was happening. 

In a sense I am not really jealous of the teams that drafted stars above us. The ones that bug me more are when teams like Milwaukee get Giannis, Utah get Mitchell and Phoenix get Booker (etc). When teams land star talent after we've drafted it does make me question why we didn't take a punt on them or why other teams didn't do it either, but that's the beauty of the draft. 

It is going to be interesting to see how we move forwards as a team. Are we likely to become more than an 8th seed with this core of players? Unlikely. We'll likely need to sign or acquire someone to give us a chance of that next level and even that's not a guarantee. In someways it wouldn't surprise me if we start another rebuild in the near future or at least reboot the team.

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

7 hours ago, hootie249 said:

   Vuc plays hard, i still think we should have traded him years ago when his contract was better. Vuc is like evan, both very good players but not great.

I think Vuc tries hard but it has to be a downer when you see everyone else fail around you year after year.He has been the most consistent player during the whole rebuild.

The problem is if your best player is a center the key to success are shooters.Where have the shooters been the entire rebuild? The Magic should know this better then any other team since we built two finals teams this way. I saw him making plays last night, but when the shots stop dropping all of a sudden our guys stop rebounding and playing defense. It can be fixed, we saw it last year.

We were tied for the 10th best 3 point shooting team last year. 

DJ was literally the best spot up shooter in the NBA last year. 

Ross had the 10th most made threes in the league last year. 

Post all star Isaac hit 38% of his threes and Gordon hit 37% of his and then went on to hit 40% of his threes in the playoffs. 

 

We should be shooting better. We're basically returning the same team as last year. 

[Soul Bro 1,419]

Oh the irony of the Magic’s motto this year: “Magic Above All.” Lol