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2020 Official Playoffs Thread

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2 hours ago, All Eyes On Me said:

Advanced stats confirming what the eyes are seeing. Fultz and Fournier have been unplayably bad so far

Fultz has disappointed me the most since the break. He looks like he has not worked on his body or game. In fact regressed. He looks slow and bad technique on defense and ball handling. Yesterday’s game he also looked uninterested on the bench. When we made a 15-3 run,  guys were up cheering and he looked like he was falling asleep.

I don’t think he is our future guys. 

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3 hours ago, fan for too long 2 said:

Fultz has disappointed me the most since the break. He looks like he has not worked on his body or game. In fact regressed. He looks slow and bad technique on defense and ball handling. Yesterday’s game he also looked uninterested on the bench. When we made a 15-3 run,  guys were up cheering and he looked like he was falling asleep.

I don’t think he is our future guys. 

No argument from me. He has definitely regressed in my eyes. He is not playing with the same confidence that we came to know and love earlier this season--the confidence and style of play that got us fans excited about the future of this team.

So, for now, it is what it is.

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3 hours ago, Jason Funderburker said:

Imagine having Luka instead of Mo

Oh the stress of the ping pong ball game. This is why I absolutely hate 'tanking'. We tried to lose games, as an organization. But we didn't lose enough - by one game the year Luka came up - and we didn't move up in the draft during the entire process. Despite that, we drafted a star in Oladipo, and we traded him before he blossomed. We traded for a future All-Star in Tobias, and we gave him up for nothing. And neither of those things seemed completely crazy at the time, because those guys weren't supposed to be stars. You can have all the lottery luck, get the star player, but if you don't have a good culture, it doesn't matter. I question just how good Luka would be in Orlando. Surely he'd be good, but I doubt he'd be this good. The problem in Orlando has not been the players, it has been the culture of the team, created by coveting the likes of Luka in the draft, rather than trying to find Giannis or Mitchell while competing the best we can. The culture of this team IS changing, though, that's clear. I think we need a better coach, honestly, for the final change. Cliff has done a good job, but he's been basically what we expected Skiles to be years ago - the transition coach who shook off the expectation of losing. Maybe he can do better than I expect, but we'll see. I still keep hoping OKC will get stupid and fire Billy Donovan.

My point is that I get the idea of this team being stagnant, going nowhere. But I don't think that means we should return to the 'tanking' process. The Heat were stagnant, going nowhere. Now I think Milwaukee better win a championship or Miami's going to steal Giannis. OKC was supposed to rebuild after they realized they couldn't compete in the West with Russ and Paul George. Indiana is competitive with a hurt star and a bunch of guys no one wanted - a second-round pick, a guy Phoenix gave them for cash, a guy who was traded twice in his first two years as a throw-in, and a guy who couldn't run right.

Minnesota had two first picks in the draft - technically three if you count Bennett. Now they have a dominant first pick Center and an All-Star Guard. And they haven't made the playoffs yet. Phoenix might finally have something, but we'll see; they still ain't made the playoffs yet, and Golden State is coming back into the picture out West, as is Memphis. And the poster-boys for the "Process" going right, the 76ers... we lasted longer in the playoffs than they did.

See, I don't want to imagine having Luka. I'd rather imagine having the organizational mentality of the Nuggets or the Bucks or the Rockets or the Pacers or the Heat. Or, hell, the Raptors. And I actually think we're getting back there. This is already a rebuild, guys. Except we aren't rebuilding the team, we're rebuilding the culture. And if you ask me, we're doing it right. Finally.

Go Magic!

 

 

 

And yeah, Luka's a beast...

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I agree about the organizational issues. It’s why the 76ers, even with all that talent, aren’t really all that good. Simply adding Al Horfors can’t undo what years of tanking did.

But Luka absolutely would have been great here, because he is great. 

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1 hour ago, Justin Jaudon said:

Oh the stress of the ping pong ball game. This is why I absolutely hate 'tanking'. We tried to lose games, as an organization. But we didn't lose enough - by one game the year Luka came up - and we didn't move up in the draft during the entire process. Despite that, we drafted a star in Oladipo, and we traded him before he blossomed. We traded for a future All-Star in Tobias, and we gave him up for nothing. And neither of those things seemed completely crazy at the time, because those guys weren't supposed to be stars. You can have all the lottery luck, get the star player, but if you don't have a good culture, it doesn't matter. I question just how good Luka would be in Orlando. Surely he'd be good, but I doubt he'd be this good. The problem in Orlando has not been the players, it has been the culture of the team, created by coveting the likes of Luka in the draft, rather than trying to find Giannis or Mitchell while competing the best we can. The culture of this team IS changing, though, that's clear. I think we need a better coach, honestly, for the final change. Cliff has done a good job, but he's been basically what we expected Skiles to be years ago - the transition coach who shook off the expectation of losing. Maybe he can do better than I expect, but we'll see. I still keep hoping OKC will get stupid and fire Billy Donovan.

My point is that I get the idea of this team being stagnant, going nowhere. But I don't think that means we should return to the 'tanking' process. The Heat were stagnant, going nowhere. Now I think Milwaukee better win a championship or Miami's going to steal Giannis. OKC was supposed to rebuild after they realized they couldn't compete in the West with Russ and Paul George. Indiana is competitive with a hurt star and a bunch of guys no one wanted - a second-round pick, a guy Phoenix gave them for cash, a guy who was traded twice in his first two years as a throw-in, and a guy who couldn't run right.

Minnesota had two first picks in the draft - technically three if you count Bennett. Now they have a dominant first pick Center and an All-Star Guard. And they haven't made the playoffs yet. Phoenix might finally have something, but we'll see; they still ain't made the playoffs yet, and Golden State is coming back into the picture out West, as is Memphis. And the poster-boys for the "Process" going right, the 76ers... we lasted longer in the playoffs than they did.

See, I don't want to imagine having Luka. I'd rather imagine having the organizational mentality of the Nuggets or the Bucks or the Rockets or the Pacers or the Heat. Or, hell, the Raptors. And I actually think we're getting back there. This is already a rebuild, guys. Except we aren't rebuilding the team, we're rebuilding the culture. And if you ask me, we're doing it right. Finally.

Go Magic!

 

 

 

And yeah, Luka's a beast...

I totally agree with you. It's not about tanking and trying to get a higher draft pick. It's doing well with what you got. I'm a KC Chiefs fan and for years our fans wanted the team to tank because they felt the only to a championship was to get that #1 or #2 pick and get a QB. Well they won their division the year before they got Patrick Mahomes. They had to trade up a bit to get him, but they did well with what they had. Their scouts did their jobs well. The Magic can do the same thing. The Utah Jazz had the 24th pick and traded to get Donovan Mitchell, who turned out to be a superstar player. 

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12 minutes ago, Jason Funderburker said:

I agree about the organizational issues. It’s why the 76ers, even with all that talent, aren’t really all that good. Simply adding Al Horfors can’t undue what years of tanking did.

But Luka absolutely would have been great here, because he is great. 

You're probably right. Luka is a generational talent. I think he's going to be top-5 all-time player if he stays healthy and they can build a good team around him. I don't actually think any amount of bad culture could kill Luka, just like the Bulls horrible culture couldn't kill Jordan. I guess I over-spoke to make a point. Still, the point stands. He's battling a Clippers team that's a legit contender starting a second-round pick PG, a mid-round pick PF on his sixth team, a second-round pick Center, two sixth man of the year candidates - neither of whom they drafted, but both of whom were second-round picks - and two stars drafted... 10th and 15th in their drafts. Sure they built that team in part on years of bad culture getting them guys like Blake Griffin, and top picks like Eric Gordon turned into Chris Paul. But that didn't mean anything until Doc Rivers - and, probably, a little bit Chris Paul - changed the culture. And they still have had to turn over the entire team - including Griffin, who came up in that bad culture - to be real contenders. The reason that series is tied now isn't just because Luka is a generational talent. That is a big part, sure. But how huge is it that Dallas never really tanked. They tanked for half a season after they realized they weren't going to make the playoffs, and they lucked into the 5th, not 1st 2nd or 3rd, pick in the draft, where they traded down with another team who over-valued another really good guard in Trey Young. Dallas already had the culture, the coach, everything ready. They just didn't have the players yet. And even Luka didn't get them to the playoffs his rookie year. There's a reason LeBron didn't make the playoffs his first two years in the league, despite being a top-5 all-time player. There's a reason he had to go to Miami to get a championship. Culture.

Give me three more years of riding Vuc to the 8th seed before one more year of trying desperately to suck bad enough to maybe pick a guy who can get us into the big picture in a few years. If Vuc keeps getting us to the 8th seed, maybe some playoff team will trade us young talent in a couple years to get themselves over the top, like with OKC/LACLIPS. Maybe Boston will see how he's playing well against Milwaukee and think they need him to top Giannis and crew; maybe that Memphis pick comes in a deal for him, and it turns into the next Donovan Mitchell; maybe Langford comes in a package and makes a huge impact. Maybe we draft a star this draft with our own mid-round pick. Maybe Chuma is a monster. But give me those maybe's over, "maybe, if we suck bad enough, the guy we pick will be a generational talent."

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The bubble playoffs have brought two major things to light:

1) There is a ton of young talent in the league that are ready to bring on an exciting next generation of amazing basketball right now.

2) The Orlando Magic haven’t managed to get their hands on any of said generational talent in their decade long rebuild.

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26 minutes ago, All Eyes On Me said:

The bubble playoffs have brought two major things to light:

1) There is a ton of young talent in the league that are ready to bring on an exciting next generation of amazing basketball right now.

2) The Orlando Magic haven’t managed to get their hands on any of said generational talent in their decade long rebuild.

Basically. Dudes dropping 50 point games on rookie contracts and we lose our minds when Fultz can make 1 3 pointer. 3 first round picks for this FO and not a single one can even put on a uniform for Game 4.

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Yea one thing the bubble has highlighted to me is that Fultz has a long way to go to even be a good starting PG, never mind a star. Someone like Ja Morant is so far ahead of him and is younger. I think it's a mistake to assume he's the answer to our lack of star power.

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