2022-2023 Season Thread

[jmmagicfan 302]

1 hour ago, CTMagicUK said:

One day I might type up an essay length post about how I think future 2nd round picks are much better assets than almost any player you can reasonably expect to select in the second round and trading them into the future is a great way to preserve assets for when you want to make moves to win now. 

But today is not that day (nor is that day anytime soon lol)

Though I usually would agree with you on this, I think we actually made at least one error trading them. We traded Jarred Vanderbilt and Talen Horton-Tucker after picking them in consecutive years, and both have turned out to be rotation-level players. I was especially high on THT, so was p.o.'d when we sent him to the frickin' Lakers of all places. 

[jmmagicfan 302]

30 minutes ago, fan for too long 2 said:

Oh yay we used one. Finally. I stand corrected. Lolololol

The last two we used/kept were Wes Iwundu and Melvin Frazier, Jr., so I mostly agree with CT (except for my post above). 

[CTMagicUK 1,480]

2 minutes ago, jmmagicfan said:

Though I usually would agree with you on this, I think we actually made at least one error trading them. We traded Jarred Vanderbilt and Talen Horton-Tucker after picking them in consecutive years, and both have turned out to be rotation-level players. I was especially high on THT, so was p.o.'d when we sent him to the frickin' Lakers of all places. 

Jarred Vanderbilt I agree was a good player and sucks to miss on but there's no actual suggestion we'd have picked him at that pick. 

THT I think is bad and I think the only reason he got the deal he got is because he played with LeBron for 3 seasons. If we got offered a deal of THT for Ross and a 2nd I wouldn't do it. 

(The below is kind of a small part of the essay length I was thinking about, this part is specifically about deciding whether to trade out or not) 

It comes down to your draft board. Every year is not the same so pick 41 one year is not the same as pick 41 the year after. Your scouts and analysis and the years of research might basically lead you to conclude there's only 38 guys worth drafting and rostering in a bad draft and if you trust that and you have pick 45 and none of those 38 are available why wouldn't you trade it? You've got to remember that if you use a draft pick on a guy you don't even end up giving a contract to or a guy who doesn't even last more than 1 year in the league you've wasted that pick entirely and that happens far more often than the guys who stick and become real NBA players. And in order to roster a 2nd round pick you've got to believe they're better, or could develop to be considerably better (because there's no point wasting time developing someone to be an end of bench guy) than your 15th man. 

One of those guys you didn't think was worth drafting might work out, they might have an outlier development curve or go to the exact right situation for them or get an opportunity that unlocks something in them but that doesn't mean your entire scouting process is just wrong so you can't over react to those things unless you notice a legitimate pattern in types of guys you're undervaluing in which case you might have a bias you need to address. 

With all the above said it'll be really interesting to see what we do with our 2nd this summer. We'll have a likely top 40 second rounder but in a world where we don't make any major moves (and I'd always assume no major move would be made over the opposite) we might only have 3 roster spots become free this summer (Ross, Mo Wagner and RJ Hampton) if you assume we resign Mo Wagner we'd have 2 free. We have 2 lottery picks and then anyone we picked in the 2nd round we'd have to look at as a better prospect/player than our 15th man (which would be Caleb Houstan presumably). Of course you could also give them a 2 way deal but again there's a value thing at play where you might as well not use assets to fill your 2 way slots but I'm not going to get into specifics on that. 

A lot of that is subject to change because of the trade deadline and what moves we might think we can make in free agency etc (we could waive Bamba because his second year is non guaranteed for example or something like that which would open up salary and roster space) but I wouldn't be surprised to see us trade our 2nd this summer. 

(There's a lot of places you can veer off into general roster construction and/or asset management stuff here but I'll stop there because I'm supposed to be working)

[CTMagicUK 1,480]

 

 

[J Roc Baby 24]

2 hours ago, CTMagicUK said:

 

 

Atta boy Caleb

[Albert Lergier 99]

On 1/18/2023 at 10:32 AM, CTMagicUK said:

Jarred Vanderbilt I agree was a good player and sucks to miss on but there's no actual suggestion we'd have picked him at that pick. 

THT I think is bad and I think the only reason he got the deal he got is because he played with LeBron for 3 seasons. If we got offered a deal of THT for Ross and a 2nd I wouldn't do it. 

(The below is kind of a small part of the essay length I was thinking about, this part is specifically about deciding whether to trade out or not) 

It comes down to your draft board. Every year is not the same so pick 41 one year is not the same as pick 41 the year after. Your scouts and analysis and the years of research might basically lead you to conclude there's only 38 guys worth drafting and rostering in a bad draft and if you trust that and you have pick 45 and none of those 38 are available why wouldn't you trade it? You've got to remember that if you use a draft pick on a guy you don't even end up giving a contract to or a guy who doesn't even last more than 1 year in the league you've wasted that pick entirely and that happens far more often than the guys who stick and become real NBA players. And in order to roster a 2nd round pick you've got to believe they're better, or could develop to be considerably better (because there's no point wasting time developing someone to be an end of bench guy) than your 15th man. 

One of those guys you didn't think was worth drafting might work out, they might have an outlier development curve or go to the exact right situation for them or get an opportunity that unlocks something in them but that doesn't mean your entire scouting process is just wrong so you can't over react to those things unless you notice a legitimate pattern in types of guys you're undervaluing in which case you might have a bias you need to address. 

With all the above said it'll be really interesting to see what we do with our 2nd this summer. We'll have a likely top 40 second rounder but in a world where we don't make any major moves (and I'd always assume no major move would be made over the opposite) we might only have 3 roster spots become free this summer (Ross, Mo Wagner and RJ Hampton) if you assume we resign Mo Wagner we'd have 2 free. We have 2 lottery picks and then anyone we picked in the 2nd round we'd have to look at as a better prospect/player than our 15th man (which would be Caleb Houstan presumably). Of course you could also give them a 2 way deal but again there's a value thing at play where you might as well not use assets to fill your 2 way slots but I'm not going to get into specifics on that. 

A lot of that is subject to change because of the trade deadline and what moves we might think we can make in free agency etc (we could waive Bamba because his second year is non guaranteed for example or something like that which would open up salary and roster space) but I wouldn't be surprised to see us trade our 2nd this summer. 

(There's a lot of places you can veer off into general roster construction and/or asset management stuff here but I'll stop there because I'm supposed to be working)

Can we find a gem that no one else sees? A Nikola Jokic with pick # 41.....we can only hope so.

We have two 2nd round picks this year / today. I doubt we keep any because we have two 1st's....but we shall see.

[CTMagicUK 1,480]

5 minutes ago, Albert Lergier said:

Can we find a gem that no one else sees? A Nikola Jokic with pick # 41.....we can only hope so.

We have two 2nd round picks this year / today. I doubt we keep any because we have two 1st's....but we shall see.

Do you know how many MVPs have ever been drafted in the second round? 2. Willis Reed and Nikola Jokic. So if you ask "can we find a Nikola Jokic?" My answer will be "almost certainly not"

We only have 1 2nd this year. Our own.

[Albert Lergier 99]

26 minutes ago, CTMagicUK said:

Do you know how many MVPs have ever been drafted in the second round? 2. Willis Reed and Nikola Jokic. So if you ask "can we find a Nikola Jokic?" My answer will be "almost certainly not"

We only have 1 2nd this year. Our own.

One 2nd, yes. My bad. 

A "gem" not necessarily a MVP.

Do you happen to know who's been the Magic's best 2nd rounder ever?

[CTMagicUK 1,480]

9 minutes ago, Albert Lergier said:

One 2nd, yes. My bad. 

A "gem" not necessarily a MVP.

Do you happen to know who's been the Magic's best 2nd rounder ever?

We've basically never had a good one. 

[Albert Lergier 99]

17 hours ago, CTMagicUK said:

We've basically never had a good one. 

I'm going to take at crack at this one:

Marcin Gortat - Pick 57 - 2005 - yes PHX picked and traded him to ORL.

Without him, the Magic might not advance to the Finals in 2009....Dwight was suspended for game 6 on Apr 30, 2009.

Marcin's line: 11 PTS, 15 RBS, 2 AST, 4 STL in 40:18 minutes (max) with a  +29 (max)

Magic 114, Sixers 89

 

[CTMagicUK 1,480]

4 hours ago, Albert Lergier said:

I'm going to take a crack a this one:

Marcin Gortat - Pick 57 - 2005 - yes PHX picked and traded him to ORL.

Without him, the Magic might not advance to the Finals in 2009....Dwight was suspended for game 6 on Apr 30, 2009.

Marcin's line: 11 PTS, 15 RBS, 2 AST, 4 STL in 40:18 minutes (max) with a 29 (max)

Magic 114, Sixers 89

 

Yea you're right. He didn't come up in my search because of the technicality that Phoenix picked him and traded him to us. 

[Jay Magic 1,240]