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2020-2021 Official Magic Season Thread

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The other issue is the play in is one of the stupidest things the NBA has ever done. We have teams deliberately resting players in order to miss it as some of those teams know they would just be bounced in 4 1st round and would prefer a high lottery pick. We are already seeing the Spurs and Toronto trying to lose games to avoid it. So he have middling teams trying to lose games on top of lottery teams trying to lose.

As far as Sam Presti goes. He's still fully trying to exploit the lottery as usual. Teams like Detroit and Orlando aren't 'tanking' they're trying to win every game still they're just bad, we had MCW play through an enitre game with an ankle sprain. OKC are flat out tanking, they are resting players that aren't even injured like Horford. He has no injury at all . . .

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57 minutes ago, crisby pancakes said:

The other issue is the play in is one of the stupidest things the NBA has ever done. We have teams deliberately resting players in order to miss it as some of those teams know they would just be bounced in 4 1st round and would prefer a high lottery pick. We are already seeing the Spurs and Toronto trying to lose games to avoid it. So he have middling teams trying to lose games on top of lottery teams trying to lose.

As far as Sam Presti goes. He's still fully trying to exploit the lottery as usual. Teams like Detroit and Orlando aren't 'tanking' they're trying to win every game still they're just bad, we had MCW play through an enitre game with an ankle sprain. OKC are flat out tanking, they are resting players that aren't even injured like Horford. He has no injury at all . . .

I edited my comment because I actually meant Sam Hinkie not Presti but tbf your points on Presti still stand. 

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4 hours ago, CTMagicUK said:

I think what the league already did with the lottery odds was fine. Under the old system it was a race to the bottom for that 25% shot at a first round pick and a guaranteed top 4 pick. The guaranteed top 4 is still there and I think teams are chasing that more this year because of the idea that this is a 4 player draft at the top. 

Plus there are a couple of franchises that are basically being forced into tanking by prior trades (Houston and Minnesota). 

Under the old system, which Sam Hinkie successfully exploited, if you were the worst team in the league for 4 years you had a near 70% chance of getting the #1 pick at least once. Under the new system that'd be a 42% chance. The incentive to be bad for long periods just isn't the same as it used to be. 

 

Not stopping almost everyone here from calling for us to tank.  And IIRC, the very worst team has about a 50% chance of getting pick #5, so top 4 not guaranteed at all.  

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22 minutes ago, JJZFL said:

Not stopping almost everyone here from calling for us to tank.  And IIRC, the very worst team has about a 50% chance of getting pick #5, so top 4 not guaranteed at all.  

You're right about the pick 5 thing...

I tend to post here very early in the morning before I start work so I'm prone to a mistake, I'm often thinking out loud, now I think about it I don't think the old lotto odds had guaranteed top 4 either, might have just meant to type 5 instead of 4...

That doesn't  change the fact they have the (tied) best odds at top 4 so my point still stands RE: the clear top 4 in this draft being worth tanking for the best odds at staying in the top 4. 

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32 minutes ago, CTMagicUK said:

You're right about the pick 5 thing...

I tend to post here very early in the morning before I start work so I'm prone to a mistake, I'm often thinking out loud, now I think about it I don't think the old lotto odds had guaranteed top 4 either, might have just meant to type 5 instead of 4...

That doesn't  change the fact they have the (tied) best odds at top 4 so my point still stands RE: the clear top 4 in this draft being worth tanking for the best odds at staying in the top 4. 

Since from my standpoint tanking has a cost associated with it, the calculation is not so clear.  I balance the cost of tanking vs the very small additional improvement in odds from, for example, 3rd worst vs 6th worst, and I don’t believe the benefit is worth the cost.  
 

Imagine if we all of a sudden started playing good ball and finished 12-5 or something similar.  We’d have a lot of optimism going in to next season, and the players might feel like they’re starting to coalesce as a team.  Instead we’re likely to slink into the off season at 3-14 or worse.  I think that sets the tone for a bad start to next season, and also slows the development of our young team.  How do you get into the mindset of grinding out tough wins if you don’t win any?  Barring a draft miracle, which as we’ve seen in the past 10 years is an incredibly risky strategy to rely on, I think tanking does us more harm than good. I’d rather focus on using the rest of this season to develop what we have.  

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9 minutes ago, JJZFL said:

Since from my standpoint tanking has a cost associated with it, the calculation is not so clear.  I balance the cost of tanking vs the very small additional improvement in odds from, for example, 3rd worst vs 6th worst, and I don’t believe the benefit is worth the cost.  
 

Imagine if we all of a sudden started playing good ball and finished 12-5 or something similar.  We’d have a lot of optimism going in to next season, and the players might feel like they’re starting to coalesce as a team.  Instead we’re likely to slink into the off season at 3-14 or worse.  I think that sets the tone for a bad start to next season, and also slows the development of our young team.  How do you get used to gutting out tough wins if you don’t win any games?  Barring a draft miracle, which as we’ve seen is an incredibly risky strategy to rely on, I think this does us more harm than good. 

I get the argument and here's the counterpoint (to be clear I'm somewhat on the fence with this discussion, I see both sides so this is somewhat devils advocate):

How many guys on the team currently will be here next year? We actually don't know. We assume everyone not out of contract but guys could get traded etc. Even if we assume everyone minus Porter and Ennis (and random g League guys) return the expectations will be dramatically different next season because rookies will have had a full training camp and pre season to understand the system, Isaac will return, Fultz might return, we'll have at the very minimum 3 new players. With an off-season to work on their games some players might take leaps forward. We just don't know. Present doesn't necessarily predict future when you're dealing with guys 22 and under. 

Also, nothing is stopping this team from playing good ball and going 12-5. The only thing stopping them is being talented enough and consistent enough to do that. Fans might complain and there'd be arguments about whether that's for the best long term but nobody in this organisation, presently at least, is deliberately stopping the young guys from going out there and winning games. In fact I'm sure Cliff is still very much setting up to win every game he can with the roster he's got at his disposal.

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4 hours ago, crisby pancakes said:

The other issue is the play in is one of the stupidest things the NBA has ever done. We have teams deliberately resting players in order to miss it as some of those teams know they would just be bounced in 4 1st round and would prefer a high lottery pick. We are already seeing the Spurs and Toronto trying to lose games to avoid it. So he have middling teams trying to lose games on top of lottery teams trying to lose.

As far as Sam Presti goes. He's still fully trying to exploit the lottery as usual. Teams like Detroit and Orlando aren't 'tanking' they're trying to win every game still they're just bad, we had MCW play through an enitre game with an ankle sprain. OKC are flat out tanking, they are resting players that aren't even injured like Horford. He has no injury at all . . .

   This a great post, something is really wrong with the NBA. In theory, they did fix the lottery, the odds do not support long term losing. However so many teams are still really bad or trying to lose like OKC. Even in 2016,2017 the Magic were playing hard every night, we all saw the games. I want to apologize for any personal attacks in my previous posts. This season has just really made me dislike the sport at the moment. Not even watching the games, but i still have hope for the team and the NBA. I'll check in again around the playoffs. 

Go Magic.

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1 hour ago, hootie249 said:

   This a great post, something is really wrong with the NBA. In theory, they did fix the lottery, the odds do not support long term losing. However so many teams are still really bad or trying to lose like OKC. Even in 2016,2017 the Magic were playing hard every night, we all saw the games. I want to apologize for any personal attacks in my previous posts. This season has just really made me dislike the sport at the moment. Not even watching the games, but i still have hope for the team and the NBA. I'll check in again around the playoffs. 

Go Magic.

+1 from me.  I agree with all your points.  I also could have phrased some of my posts differently.  

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NBA has the ability to force organizations to try and win, by threatening a forced sale of the team. If your team is in the top ten worst,  five years in a row then you have to sell.

But this is never gonna happen because it’s a big club and we ain’t in it. 

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1 hour ago, fan for too long 2 said:

NBA has the ability to force organizations to try and win, by threatening a forced sale of the team. If your team is in the top ten worst,  five years in a row then you have to sell.

But this is never gonna happen because it’s a big club and we ain’t in it. 

Weren’t we in the top 10 worst 5 years in a row?  I seem to recall we had the worst W-L in the NBA for a five year stretch. We weren’t forced to sell 

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