Jump to content
Sign in to follow this  
Soul Bro

2024 Preseason Thread

Recommended Posts

15 hours ago, orlandoholic said:

because Franz had a terrible shooting season. I don’t think he’ll repeat that. 

We traded a terrible shooter in Fultz with a great shooter KCP

And it’s safe to assume that AB and Suggs are improved shooters. Paolo has improved and had a whole summer of working on his shot! I’ll bet everything he’s a good shooter!


So yeah, i expect us to be a good shooting team

Not to be a Debbie-Downer, but we were 24th last year in 3P% and 15th in FG%. I think we'll make SOME improvement there, but I don't see up jumping to a top 10 true shooting team. If we can jump from 24th to like just league average (15th!), I think that's a win. Let's temper expectations on "good shooting team" here. We'll make good decisions and will make smart passes, leading to good looks that we can hopefully hit. 

Excited for the season to start already!! 

  • Upvote 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
16 hours ago, orlandoholic said:

because Franz had a terrible shooting season. I don’t think he’ll repeat that. 

We traded a terrible shooter in Fultz with a great shooter KCP

And it’s safe to assume that AB and Suggs are improved shooters. Paolo has improved and had a whole summer of working on his shot! I’ll bet everything he’s a good shooter!


So yeah, i expect us to be a good shooting team

KCP is going to be taking Harris' spot, not Suggs.  Yes, we'll have Harris instead of Fultz in the second unit, but since Fultz played PG, we'll basically have Cole instead of Fultz, unless they play AB at PG instead of Cole.  In which case shooting doesn't improve that much in the second unit.  Hopefully either way it will translate into improved second unit play.

IF we have better spacing, better decisions, better passing that will translate into better shooting percentages; I have no doubt about that.  But will all that happen without a true playmaker on the team, except maybe AB?  And will AB even get significant minutes on the second unit when you also have Cole and Harris?  I think these are all unknowns at this point.  Over the next few months we should see some answers to these questions.  Looking forward to it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
4 hours ago, JJZFL said:

KCP is going to be taking Harris' spot, not Suggs.  Yes, we'll have Harris instead of Fultz in the second unit, but since Fultz played PG, we'll basically have Cole instead of Fultz, unless they play AB at PG instead of Cole.  In which case shooting doesn't improve that much in the second unit.  Hopefully either way it will translate into improved second unit play.

IF we have better spacing, better decisions, better passing that will translate into better shooting percentages; I have no doubt about that.  But will all that happen without a true playmaker on the team, except maybe AB?  And will AB even get significant minutes on the second unit when you also have Cole and Harris?  I think these are all unknowns at this point.  Over the next few months we should see some answers to these questions.  Looking forward to it.

I don’t really agree with that first part. As of now, KCP replaces Harris as the starting SG. That’s a huge upgrade as Harris is a great corner shooter but didn’t provide much else. Also he was injured a lot. 

And when you look at the bench unit. When healthy, Fultz was playing but he was really the PG. Ingles was handling the ball the majority of the time. So Fultz was just terrible for spacing. That was part of the criticism last year why we’d have Ingles handling the ball and not provide too much spacing as he was a facilitator and Fultz being completely ignored. 

So we don’t know yet how our lineup will look like. But either way, we won’t have that issue that we have a complete non shooter on the floor. AB, even off ball is a huge upgrade in that regard. 
 

But i completely agree with that second part. It all depends on how Cole, AB and probably TDS will be able to playmake. That’s a huge negative imo. At the same time i feel like we will ride it and see where we end up at the All Star break. If we lack playmaking, i feel like we can really go out of character and trade for one. We have good movable contracts and players and a lot of depth to not sacrifice. 

But i’m rooting for this team to grow internationally and that they continue this ride together. They are just a joy of a team. 

  • Upvote 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, orlandoholic said:

I don’t really agree with that first part. As of now, KCP replaces Harris as the starting SG. That’s a huge upgrade as Harris is a great corner shooter but didn’t provide much else. Also he was injured a lot. 

And when you look at the bench unit. When healthy, Fultz was playing but he was really the PG. Ingles was handling the ball the majority of the time. So Fultz was just terrible for spacing. That was part of the criticism last year why we’d have Ingles handling the ball and not provide too much spacing as he was a facilitator and Fultz being completely ignored. 

So we don’t know yet how our lineup will look like. But either way, we won’t have that issue that we have a complete non shooter on the floor. AB, even off ball is a huge upgrade in that regard. 
 

But i completely agree with that second part. It all depends on how Cole, AB and probably TDS will be able to playmake. That’s a huge negative imo. At the same time i feel like we will ride it and see where we end up at the All Star break. If we lack playmaking, i feel like we can really go out of character and trade for one. We have good movable contracts and players and a lot of depth to not sacrifice. 

But i’m rooting for this team to grow internationally and that they continue this ride together. They are just a joy of a team. 

+1 from me.  I’m rooting for the same thing but experience has generally been that hoping for a lot of internal growth during the summer hasn’t  panned out most of the  time.  Given the youthfulness of the team, this time could be different.  Answers start appearing in about 3 weeks.  I don’t put too much credibility on preseason games, although it’ll be fun to see the Magic out there on the court.  

  • Upvote 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, JJZFL said:

+1 from me.  I’m rooting for the same thing but experience has generally been that hoping for a lot of internal growth during the summer hasn’t  panned out most of the  time. 

Exactly.

I understand the fair expectation for Franz having a better 3p%, but it's utopic to believe that everyone will have better % in the same season. A couple examples, Suggs had a great 40%, will maintain it? KCP had great % in teams that were contender with MVP caliber players with him. Will be the same with us and our usual spacing issues? Finally, old grandpa Ingles had the best 3p% in the team and is gone.

Some will improve, others will regress, that's normal in an NBA season, but until now we're far away from being a top shooting team.

  • Upvote 2

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
2 hours ago, Luke_FfS said:

Exactly.

I understand the fair expectation for Franz having a better 3p%, but it's utopic to believe that everyone will have better % in the same season. A couple examples, Suggs had a great 40%, will maintain it? KCP had great % in teams that were contender with MVP caliber players with him. Will be the same with us and our usual spacing issues? Finally, old grandpa Ingles had the best 3p% in the team and is gone.

Some will improve, others will regress, that's normal in an NBA season, but until now we're far away from being a top shooting team.

It can happen. Happened on my favorite baseball team last year. The Braves offensive players all had career years. It was ridiculous. They didn't win the championship, but Acuna won MVP and just about everyone else was amazing. I don't expect everyone to improve but this sure seems like the year it could happen on the Magic. Something just seems so right about the chemistry. Reminds me of 1993, that's why i wanted to mention Horace Grant.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Orlando Basketball is back! let’s gooo! 

My prediction is that the Pelicans aren’t ready to be harassed on defense in a preseason game, but that just who we are lol

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
On 10/4/2024 at 1:25 PM, CTMagicUK said:

Pretty sure it's the Oct 11th Pels game on NBA TV.

An update on my original post, this link:

https://www.nba.com/schedule/magic?cal=all&pd=false&region=1

Suggests the Pels and Spurs local TV will be airing the games on the 7th and 9th so should be possible to find a stream if you're so inclined.

You're right CT....today's game is not the one being televised. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    No registered users viewing this page.

×