2022 Off-season Thread

[Jay Magic 1,243]

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CffPiCrDbm2/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

This gave me goosebumps 

[Jay Magic 1,243]

 

[VoiceofReason 38]

7 hours ago, Jay Magic said:

 

No doubt he has talent and it won't cost us much to kick the tires and see if he continue's to develop.  Mosley's forte is player development after all.

[Luke_FfS 248]

9 hours ago, Wilbur said:

Someone on here brought up the young guns.  Of those 5 guys 2 proved good role players in the NBA (Harkless and O'Quinn) and two turned into good NBA players for other teams (Oladipo and Harris).  

The Magic chose to build around Vuc and Fournier.  They made the playoffs, but don't you sort of wonder what if they'd chosen to build around Oladipo and Harris?

The problem hasn't been the tank, it was the failure to back the right horses.  Hoping they saddle up the right ones currently in the barn and sell the rest when they are at peak value. 

I could agree with the concept, but it's not like Oladipo+Harris makes you win a championship... not even being a contender probably.

We're now following a similar path than the one in Henningan tenure. In the start of his project we were all excited about what he was doing, even if now he's considered a bad manager... then everything has gone down, as All Eyes on Me wrote, with the change of path (Ibaka Byiombo) I still doubt that this was really what Henningan has envisioned (Martins pushing?), but still, we failed.

Now we're really young again. We could say that this is a totally different management, but situation is quite similar and they have to prove it... I'm not convinced at all honestly. Talent wise we're not that far either probably, even if now we hope that most of them are going to become studs... And let's see if we have the patience to wait or we're going to make some stupid move like last time, after refusing to make any significant move year after year.

[VoiceofReason 38]

5 minutes ago, Luke_FfS said:

I could agree with the concept, but it's not like Oladipo+Harris makes you win a championship... not even being a contender probably.

We're now following a similar path than the one in Henningan tenure. In the start of his project we were all excited about what he was doing, even if now he's considered a bad manager... then everything has gone down, as All Eyes on Me wrote, with the change of path (Ibaka Byiombo) I still doubt that this was really what Henningan has envisioned (Martins pushing?), but still, we failed.

Now we're really young again. We could say that this is a totally different management, but situation is quite similar and they have to prove it... I'm not convinced at all honestly. Talent wise we're not that far either probably, even if now we hope that most of them are going to become studs... And let's see if we have the patience to wait or we're going to make some stupid move like last time, after refusing to make any significant move year after year.

Skiles should also shoulder part of the blame if I remember correctly.  He was ready to compete even though we were obviously still rebuilding and nowhere near contention.

[JJZFL 619]

9 hours ago, Wilbur said:

Someone on here brought up the young guns.  Of those 5 guys 2 proved good role players in the NBA (Harkless and O'Quinn) and two turned into good NBA players for other teams (Oladipo and Harris).  

The Magic chose to build around Vuc and Fournier.  They made the playoffs, but don't you sort of wonder what if they'd chosen to build around Oladipo and Harris?

The problem hasn't been the tank, it was the failure to back the right horses.  Hoping they saddle up the right ones currently in the barn and sell the rest when they are at peak value. 

Figuring out who the “right horses” are isn’t easy, though.  It’s much clearer in hindsight.  It’s another risk of the tanking strategy.  And don’t forget that the two players you mention above didn’t really develop until they went to other teams with some veteran players.  

[VoiceofReason 38]

1 minute ago, JJZFL said:

Figuring out who the “right horses” are isn’t easy, though.  It’s much clearer in hindsight.  It’s another risk of the tanking strategy.  And don’t forget that the two players you mention above didn’t really develop until they went to other teams with some veteran players.  

Gift wrapping Sabonis hurts too.

[VoiceofReason 38]

2 minutes ago, JJZFL said:

Figuring out who the “right horses” are isn’t easy, though.  It’s much clearer in hindsight.  It’s another risk of the tanking strategy.  And don’t forget that the two players you mention above didn’t really develop until they went to other teams with some veteran players.  

I liked having Brook Lopez as a mentor for our young guys last year.  Hopefully Harris takes on that role this year.  I just don't want to sacrifice young undeveloped talent and lose that asset for nothing to sign a mediocre player at best.  Like you said deciding who to build around is difficult so I'd rather have more options while they develop, especially since thats the sole reason we brought Mosely here.  Once we identify our core then perhaps we can bring in more veteran players who complement our core.

[Wilbur 48]

Oladipo and Harris wouldn't have been all that rebuild version would've had going for it.

Whatever trades of Vuc and Fournier produced plus whatever the draft produced. 

I agree a tank has many things that can go wrong.  That said, our 10 year tank isn't on the tank its on the scouting/development folks that spent the assets unwisely. 

[VoiceofReason 38]

18 minutes ago, Wilbur said:

Oladipo and Harris wouldn't have been all that rebuild version would've had going for it.

Whatever trades of Vuc and Fournier produced plus whatever the draft produced. 

I agree a tank has many things that can go wrong.  That said, our 10 year tank isn't on the tank its on the scouting/development folks that spent the assets unwisely. 

If we would have kept Sabonis.  Oladipo  Harris, Sabonis, and whatever we would've got for Vuc and Fournier might have faired better than what we built with them here. Hindsight is 20/20 though, I'm happy with where we are in our rebuild. If our young guys develop and Isaac returns to health, WATCHOUT!!!!

[CTMagicUK 1,482]

I don't personally think this rebuild is anything like the Hennigan one. Mostly because I think Franz Wagner is comfortably the best prospect we've drafted since Dwight Howard. He put up comparable/better numbers as a rookie than Evan Fournier was putting up in his like 7th year in the league when we won the 42 games. 

And it remains to be seen obviously but I'm hoping and I think the franchise is hoping/believes that Paolo Banchero is going to be even better than that. 

What the Hennigan/Vaughn rebuild suffered from to me is instead of the young players playing together they all pulled in different directions to try and prove they were the guy worth building around and in the end none of them were really good enough to build around to make a real contender (for us, Oladipo eventually got their on his 3rd team and in his 5th season before all his injuries and even then those Indiana teams weren't really contenders). If Paolo is as good as we believe he can be and Franz continues his development they are absolutely building blocks for playoff calibre teams. And I'd argue WCJ is the type of C that stays on the floor in the playoffs too (smart, good positionally, can move his feet, can pass, not a total non shooter) even if you think he's more of a complimentary piece (he might be more than that, he's really good). 

 

[Albert Lergier 99]

10 hours ago, Jay Magic said:

 

With the addition of Bol Bol, the Magic are a very tall team.....JI, Bamba, Wendell, Banchero....should be a good interior defensive team. The wing players have good size to. I'm amazed.