ORL and SAC (Dec. 15) - Sacramento Adds a Shooter

[Smitty731]

There is no chance the Magic will trade Frye until Aaron Gordon is back. They have nothing else at PF, unless you count Harris masquerading there. Harris has had a really nice year, and he's playing SF. He still can't really defend SFs, but offensively he's really fit in there at SF.

I believe a huge part of Vucevic's hot start is Frye. Vuc gets room to work down low, because Frye is pulling the other big away from the paint. This way Vuc gets to work one on one. And with his emerging game, he's becoming a very tough one on one cover.

And whoever said the attitude around the Magic is changing, is 100% correct. At least from the fan side. The fans know this can be a playoff team at the bottom of the East. While that might not be the best long term move, people want to see this team in the playoffs. The crowd on Saturday night against Miami was easily the best home crowd of the year. The fans were really in to it and pulling for the Magic to get a win. In all of the other home games this year, the crowd was sitting on their hands most of the night. It was pretty awesome to see.

That was my long answer of saying the Magic should just hang on to Frye and let things play out until at least the first of the year. If still in contention for the playoffs, stretch that to the deadline. If still in contention, maybe look to add a small piece and really try to make a run at the playoffs.

[tiderulz]

There is no chance the Magic will trade Frye until Aaron Gordon is back. They have nothing else at PF, unless you count Harris masquerading there. Harris has had a really nice year, and he's playing SF. He still can't really defend SFs, but offensively he's really fit in there at SF.

Harris has actually done a decent job defending SF's this year. not sure where you are getting this.

[Smitty731]

Harris has actually done a decent job defending SF's this year. not sure where you are getting this.

Here we go again... Are you watching the games? He has been mediocre at best, horrible at worst. Going game by game:

NOP - Evans - Harris was good on D in a tough matchup against a guy who is really a SG.
WAS - Pierce - Harris was horrible. I was there and Pierce did pretty much all he wanted. He could have scored more if Wall hadn't taken over the game.
TOR - DeRozan and Johnson - Again I was there and he covered DeRozan most of the game after DeRozan took Fournier down inside early. Johnson came in and scored easily as well.
CHI - Butler - Chicago went small almost the entire game and Butler had a really good game.
PHI - ? - Good I guess. Did not see most of this game and from the box score, hard to tell who he covered.
MIN - Martin and Brewer - With Wiggins pulling a disappearing act, the Wolves played Martin and Brewer at SF a lot and both had really good games.
BRK - Bogdanovic - Not a good night for Harris defensively at all. Even when switched on to Johnson, the Nets took advantage.
TOR - This time around the Magic kept Harris on Ross and Ross had one of his better games of the year.
NY - Carmelo Anthony pretty much ate him up all night long.
MIL - He was ok. Really decent against Parker. Antetokounmpo came in and was too much athletically for Harris to handle.
WAS - He was ok again. Did a nice job on Pierce, but Porter got some buckets on him.
DET - Another game where he was good against Josh Smith. But then Caron Butler came in and scored almost at will.
LAC - He was really bad. Repeatedly left Barnes open (but that was probably the strategy). But then Turkoglu came in and made plays on him. And when the Clippers went small and he had to try and cover Crawford it was over.
CHA - Good night against Lance Stephenson who is another tough cover.

Minus Evans and Stephenson, who are tough matchups, he hasn't been very good defensively. When covering guys who are more SG than SF, he really has to focus and keep them in front of him. Both Evans and Stephenson missed a lot of jumpers, so he did his job there. I've been to each home game and a consistent pattern emerges. The other team either runs SF/SG P&R or a SF/PF P&R. If Harris gets caught on the smaller guy, they back up and then take him off the dribble. If He gets caught with the bigger PFs, they get him inside. He's also extremely lazy getting back on defense. This has caught my eye a bunch of times this year. Several of the games, his man has made the play, simply because Harris is running back on defense.

I know he's carrying a large offensive load and that can be taxing, so I'm happy to cut him a break. He's just never going to be a very good defensive player. At this point, passable and giving effort every night would be good.

[Golabki]

So it sounds like the consensus is we'd need to include one of our SGs in any trade. Frye is definitely not worth McLemore (people will realize this in the coming months and then laugh about this in coming years) but the idea of throwing in Stauskas could work if we could get a serviceable backup SG in return. I'm not too big on Gordon or Green. How does ORL value Fournier? He's going to be stuck behind Oladipo anyway, would you guys prefer a pure shooter instead?

I can't speak for other Orlando fans but I have no interest in moving Fournier. He played great when Oladipo was out and once we move to the probable future starting backcourt of Payton/Oladipo he'll be a great first guard off the bench and offensive leader of the 2nd unit. I also don't know why we'd be interested in a SG since we seem to have our starter and primary backup set there.

PLEASE speak for me. Fournier is not untouchable but he is light years away in regards to development and being able to provide now compared to McLemore/Statuskas in no way I am saying those two cant be better or even elite in the league at one point but it will be a downgrade in every sense for the Magic

I could see something like this working..

Chicago Out
-Gibson
-Snell

Chicago In
-Jason Thompson
-Ben McLemore
-Maurice Harkless
-Maybe future Magic pick

Orlando In
-Gibson
-Snell

Orlando Out
-Harkless
-Frye
-Gordon

Kings In
-Frye
-Ben Gordon

Kings Out
-Thompson
-McLemore

Everyone kinda fills a need
Orlando - Post defense
Sac - Floor spacing, Shooting, serviceable back up SG
Chi - Shooting and an upgrade to Snell and depth

Why'd we turn this into a Gibson to Orlando trade? What's going on?