2021 NBA Draft Thread

[Luke_FfS 247]

+1 Soul

And admitted way too late... the rebuild was not even their, just some choices and... evaluation! :P

I'm not pro tanking at all, but if it's just for two months (I mean, after the trades, even if we were already unintentionally bad before) it's ok for me, it's not like we could make something really different with what we have right now, and at least there's playing time for young guys that we need to evaluate.

Next season, we need to be back to serious mode. Trying to win, but also being active in the market. We still have a long long way to go.

[CTMagicUK 1,476]

8 minutes ago, Soul Bro said:

The irony is we were unintentionally tanking WITH Vooch and the other vets. Plus, the culture had turned a bit south with guys like AG asking for a trade. In the end, I don’t think WeltHam chose “tanking” as much as they chose to admit “failure” in the last rebuild. 

I actually think the opposite. I think Weltman always wanted to tear it down and rebuild but a combination of factors (Ownership expectations, low player value at the time he arrived, realising in year 1 that Vogel was a bad coach for the group and a better fitting coach could help immeasurably) meant he had to sort of stand pat and ride it out. When he made the trades he was very candid about how the previous roster wasn't going to win a championship and had little room to improve and now they've got cap space and extra assets and hopefully high draft picks to work with. 

[Soul Bro 1,419]

3 hours ago, CTMagicUK said:

I actually think the opposite. I think Weltman always wanted to tear it down and rebuild but a combination of factors (Ownership expectations, low player value at the time he arrived, realising in year 1 that Vogel was a bad coach for the group and a better fitting coach could help immeasurably) meant he had to sort of stand pat and ride it out. When he made the trades he was very candid about how the previous roster wasn't going to win a championship and had little room to improve and now they've got cap space and extra assets and hopefully high draft picks to work with. 

I agree in that I think Cliff, Vooch and that rebuild outperformed expectations under WeltHam which stalled everything. I’m not mad at all in this reset. It was a long time coming.

[Luke_FfS 247]

4 hours ago, CTMagicUK said:

I actually think the opposite. I think Weltman always wanted to tear it down and rebuild but a combination of factors (Ownership expectations, low player value at the time he arrived, realising in year 1 that Vogel was a bad coach for the group and a better fitting coach could help immeasurably) meant he had to sort of stand pat and ride it out. When he made the trades he was very candid about how the previous roster wasn't going to win a championship and had little room to improve and now they've got cap space and extra assets and hopefully high draft picks to work with. 

Sorry, but those to me sound like a long list of excuses. They're responsable of all the decision, of lack of, and their results. They talked about one season of evaluation, and we all know how it ended... not taking any decision is the worst possible path to choose.

[hootie249 293]

4 hours ago, CTMagicUK said:

I actually think the opposite. I think Weltman always wanted to tear it down and rebuild but a combination of factors (Ownership expectations, low player value at the time he arrived, realising in year 1 that Vogel was a bad coach for the group and a better fitting coach could help immeasurably) meant he had to sort of stand pat and ride it out. When he made the trades he was very candid about how the previous roster wasn't going to win a championship and had little room to improve and now they've got cap space and extra assets and hopefully high draft picks to work with. 

  Yeah, i think they wanted to start trading these guys earlier, it's just circumstance. Clifford gave them an identity. Isaac and Bamba were injury prone right from the beginning. Evan was our leading scorer at one point. I'm guessing if Ross was just a little more consistent and Isaac and Bamba came in raw but completely healthy, the rebuild would have been two years ago. I could have seen them trading Evan,Gordon and letting Vucevic walk. That year everyone was healthy and Vucevic and DJ had career years just delayed it.

[JJZFL 618]

8 hours ago, jmmagicfan said:

This season was largely de-railed by injuries to Isaac, and then Fultz. Throw in time lost by Gordon, Fournier, Ross, Ennis, Bamba (post-COVID), Anthony, etc. and it is easy to see why they finally decided it was time to move on. I think Gordon requesting a trade was kind of the last straw. I think the opportunity to rebuild with Harris, Carter, Hampton, and two draft picks in the top 10 was timely; and they jumped on it. 

I agree with your post, and particularly with your summary of our circumstances this season.  I’m fine with losing as long as you’re trying your hardest to win.  Successful franchises like Miami and Boston never tank; they keep a culture of trying their hardest to win every game and we see how it pays off.  They are almost always relevant, and develop young players who learn how to win.  
 

This wink and a nod stuff where we hold players out and implicitly try not win needs to go from my standpoint.  We are teaching our young players how to lose.  When they go on the court they expect to lose.  In the past we’ve seen how this works with young talent such as Harris and Oledipo who really only developed after they left us and went to teams with a better culture.  I want to see heart and hustle and getting everything we can out of what we’ve got.  And then if we get a good draft pick that’s icing on the cake but we have a foundation of trying to build a winning team no matter what happens in the draft.

If we allow ourselves to wallow in the muck for years hoping for lightning to strike in the lottery with a superstar talent, I’m reasonably convinced that 10 years from now we won’t have a team in Orlando.  

[jmmagicfan 299]

5 minutes ago, JJZFL said:

I’m fine with losing as long as you’re trying your hardest to win.  Successful franchises like Miami and Boston never tank; they keep a culture of trying their hardest to win every game and we see how it pays off.  They are almost always relevant, and develop young players who learn how to win.  
 

This wink and a nod stuff where we hold players out and implicitly try not win needs to go from my standpoint.  We are teaching our young players how to lose.  When they go on the court they expect to lose.  In the past we’ve seen how this works with young talent such as Harris and Oledipo who really only developed after they left us and went to teams with a better culture.  I want to see heart and hustle and getting everything we can out of what we’ve got.  And then if we get a good draft pick that’s icing on the cake but we have a foundation of trying to build a winning team no matter what happens in the draft.

If we allow ourselves to wallow in the muck for years hoping for lightning to strike in the lottery with a superstar talent, I’m reasonably convinced that 10 years from now we won’t have a team in Orlando.  

I tend to agree with you about not trying to win - but at the same time, let me play devil's advocate. Ennis, Carter-Williams, and Ross have all missed time earlier in the year with the same issues, Porter had missed a lot of time prior to coming to us - again for the same issue. We already know that we have been cautious bringing people back earlier in the year, so I'm not sure that we are "wink and a nod" keeping players out to avoid winning. Are we really doing anything that is inconsistent with the philosophy we displayed earlier in the year?

 

[JJZFL 618]

22 minutes ago, jmmagicfan said:

I tend to agree with you about not trying to win - but at the same time, let me play devil's advocate. Ennis, Carter-Williams, and Ross have all missed time earlier in the year with the same issues, Porter had missed a lot of time prior to coming to us - again for the same issue. We already know that we have been cautious bringing people back earlier in the year, so I'm not sure that we are "wink and a nod" keeping players out to avoid winning. Are we really doing anything that is inconsistent with the philosophy we displayed earlier in the year?

 

You may be right.  I don’t know for sure.
Good posts BTW.  

[South_Aussie_Magic 90]

11 hours ago, Luke_FfS said:

Next season, we need to be back to serious mode. Trying to win, but also being active in the market. We still have a long long way to go.

As long as after this draft we actually have someone worth building around this time instead of saying f- it and hoping for the best!

[argentinaworldchampion 32]

what happens if we tie for the 2nd worst record with detroit and minnesota, like we are doing now? which is the tiebreaker?

[A Better DJ & Photographer 456]

1 hour ago, alwaystragic said:

what happens if we tie for the 2nd worst record with detroit and minnesota, like we are doing now? which is the tiebreaker?

I think we split the balls for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th 3 ways?

[CTMagicUK 1,476]

https://www.si.com/.amp/nba/2021/04/28/2021-nba-draft-big-board-top-80-rankings

Jeremy Woo new SI big board. In general I quite agree with his top 18-19 guys and then things get funky. Half of my favourite guys for our 2nd rounder are in the 50s and beyond. 

Just as an FYI I've always found Woo to be less accurate than the group of Wasserman/Vecinie/Givony and Schmitz but I think it's still worth reading his player descriptions etc to get a feel for guys.