RUMOR: Magic to Sign Luke Ridnour Today

[Wanderer]

I like Luke, and I was hoping that we will get him to be our backup or 3rd PG. Either way, it's a good thing to have a guy like him on the roster. He's a nice guy, and he can show a few things to our young players, and still contribute on the floor.

Also, I don't see a problem with getting some vets...I read comments and what the media is saying about this, and other moves made by Magic this offseason, and they are asking what's the point of getting older guys, when you have a young team. I suppose according to them guys in their early twenties are enough to win it all, older guys just get in the way.

[MagicStarwipe]

The media thinks we are still in tank mode. They don't realise we are about to ramp it up this season and make a push for the playoffs.

[orlando1214]

i see no reason why we let go of jameer on a 1 year deal to sign this guy

How many times does it have to be said that Jameer wanted out and we wanted to start the young guys?

I love Jameer, he will forever be one of my favorite players. But, I just don't understand why people keep bringing his up name after every signing.

ridnour had a 9 PER last year.....jameer had a 14 and a way better TS%.
what are we trying to do here? ridnour is NOT good

Nobody is saying Ridnour is better, it's just that right now in the development of this team, he is a better fit. If Jameer was still here, it would still be his team, and most likely would not have taken much of a reduce roll. We all love Jameer and he is a true professional, but this team needs to be passed onto the young guys, it's time. This team isn't so much about winning right now, it's about developing our young guys, which is the best way to win in the future.

Do you really feel like having Jameer around for another year, probably starting and taking minutes and a starter roll away from the young guys is the best thing for the teams future? Ridnour isn't as good as Jameer, but he has been a solid PG in this league for years now. He will be able to be a veteran presence and a teacher to Payton, but not hold him back by taking the minutes he needs to develop. Meanwhile, Jameer can go join a better team and hopefully play a few more meaningful games in his career. It's a good things for both parties.

More than anything though, I don't think we should look at this as the Magic picking Ridnour over Nelson. That' s not what is happening here. This is all about Payton and how we can best develop him and get him the playing time he needs.

[The Real Dalic]

i see no reason why we let go of jameer on a 1 year deal to sign this guy

How many times does it have to be said that Jameer wanted out and we wanted to start the young guys?

I love Jameer, he will forever be one of my favorite players. But, I just don't understand why people keep bringing his up name after every signing.

ridnour had a 9 PER last year.....jameer had a 14 and a way better TS%.
what are we trying to do here? ridnour is NOT good

How much of Ridnour do you expect to see? He's most likely our 3rd stringer.

[basketballRob]

So far I've heard Gordon, ridnour and Frye are gonna start.. I don't think people understand what we're doing with them. Frye is the only one that will probably start.

I agree, I don't see A Gordon or Ridnour starting. This is our most likely starting 5,


Oladipo
Fournier
Harris
Frye
Vuc

I think that will be our lineup as well. I hope Payton can win the starting job by the All Star break though.

With JV as the coach I could see our starting lineup being

Ridnour
Ben Gordon
Harkless
Frye
Vuc

[zuppafly]

We needed a cheap 2nd/3rd string PG vet and we got a pass-first one that will mentor our young guns perfectly.
Nice signing.

[MagicFan32]

Do you really feel like having Jameer around for another year, probably starting and taking minutes and a starter roll away from the young guys is the best thing for the teams future? Ridnour isn't as good as Jameer, but he has been a solid PG in this league for years now. He will be able to be a veteran presence and a teacher to Payton, but not hold him back by taking the minutes he needs to develop. Meanwhile, Jameer can go join a better team and hopefully play a few more meaningful games in his career. It's a good things for both parties.

More than anything though, I don't think we should look at this as the Magic picking Ridnour over Nelson. That' s not what is happening here. This is all about Payton and how we can best develop him and get him the playing time he needs.

Yes.
first we don't know if payton is ready to start.
second, would it really hurt paytons development to sit under the learning tree and play easier minutes as a backup?

ridnour is not a good player anymore and he is an awful defender

[orlando1214]

Yes.
first we don't know if payton is ready to start.
second, would it really hurt paytons development to sit under the learning tree and play easier minutes as a backup?

ridnour is not a good player anymore and he is an awful defender

I mean obviously you have your opinion and it doesn't seem like you are going to change your mind, and that's fine. I'm just saying though, you keep Nelson and that's 30 minutes and a starting role gone. Let's say you do that and give Payton the necessary minutes to develop, which I think should be a good amount like Dipo had last year, which was about 31 minutes a game. Well you don't have that much left at Point Guard because of Nelson's high minutes, so you're already going to have to cut minutes, giving him only 18 minutes at most. Well now that means there are no minutes left at PG, so that means Dipo is going to have to play full time at Shooting Guard. Well maybe that's fine, but he's definitely going to play as much as he did last year, maybe a few minutes more, so that's a good chunk of the Shooting Guard minutes right there. Which means you're cutting into the time for Fournier which he needs to develop. So what was the point of trading Afflalo for him if don't plan to really develop him?

So you see what I mean, keeping Nelson just starts a domino effect of players not getting the minutes they need. You may think Ridnour sucks, and that's fine, although I disagree and think he's solid enough to be a 3rd string PG. Again, I love Nelson, but as weird as it may sound, we don't need him. We need his veteran presence for sure, but we can get that from other players, like Ridnour, who won't need the big minutes like Nelson does.

I want Oladipo, Payton, and Fournier to get as much minutes as possible. I don't want a single minute of their time cut. I want them to become starters when their ready, and not have to come off the bench because we kept a 32 year old Point Guard who isn't part of the future of the team. I also think if it was anybody but Jameer we wouldn't even be having this conversation. I would have loved him to stay for his whole career as well, but it just doesn't make sense for us, and it doesn't make sense for him in my opinion.

[MagicFan32]

if you guys want our young players to play as much as possible i take no issue with that
just don't expect the magic to be very good
luckily we aren't committed to gordon and ridnour beyond this season

[basketballRob]

If it was up to me, I would start Payton, Dipo, A. Gordon, Harris or O'Quinn, and Vuc. With Harkless, Fournier, and Harris or O'Quinn as the first ones off the bench.

[AddiFB]

The media thinks we are still in tank mode. They don't realise we are about to ramp it up this season and make a push for the playoffs.

It's more than just the media, it's forum posters too, including some fans of this team. They just look at the W-L column for last year, without looking at player rotations and how they were screwed up during games, so many random lineups and benchings when the team was doing pretty well during a span of games or within a game. They just figure out, by that simple column, that our roster sucks... and also that JV sucks.

They seem to ignore the (blatantly obvious, to me, at least) tankjob JV and the FO made last season. It just didn't land us a top 2-3 draft pick but that's out of their control. Now that Afflalo and Nelson are gone, they keys to the cruiser will be handed to VO, Tobes, Vuc and soon Payton and Gordon will join that group at the ships' steering wheel and I'm VERY positive this season will be VERY different than the last one.

More up-tempo, more cutting and slashing, more defense and the true capability of this young team will soon come to fruitition. We have A LOT of promising players, now it's just a matter of letting them prove to themselves and others what they can do and of course, with time Henny and co. have to figure out how to keep that core together if everything works the way everyone hopes.

I personally can't see why so many are so negative about this roster and the future of this team. I see so many players I can root for. Hard workers and good guys who all seem to like eachother.

[tiderulz]

We needed a cheap 2nd/3rd string PG vet and we got a pass-first one that will mentor our young guns perfectly.
Nice signing.

well, Payton has already shown that he is a very willing passer. Almost wish they had gotten a better shooting PG, to help Payton with that aspect of his game. Hopefully Gordon will help somewhat with that. He better be able to contribute somehow with that salary of his

[tiderulz]

Do you really feel like having Jameer around for another year, probably starting and taking minutes and a starter roll away from the young guys is the best thing for the teams future? Ridnour isn't as good as Jameer, but he has been a solid PG in this league for years now. He will be able to be a veteran presence and a teacher to Payton, but not hold him back by taking the minutes he needs to develop. Meanwhile, Jameer can go join a better team and hopefully play a few more meaningful games in his career. It's a good things for both parties.

More than anything though, I don't think we should look at this as the Magic picking Ridnour over Nelson. That' s not what is happening here. This is all about Payton and how we can best develop him and get him the playing time he needs.

Yes.
first we don't know if payton is ready to start.
second, would it really hurt paytons development to sit under the learning tree and play easier minutes as a backup?

ridnour is not a good player anymore and he is an awful defender

would it really hurt? no. Would it slow down his development? absolutely. He needs to be there from day one and learning by fire. Look at his SL play. 1st game, not great. But played better as it went on and he got more time and more confidence. We arent winning anything this year, he isnt some 18 yr youngster at PG. Let him get on the court for a lot of time and figure out what he can and cant do.

[spinedoc]

Not bad, its good enough to tip the scale after getting BG, sliding dipo to sg more, which is a good thing. I still wish we would have gotten a starting pg this summer like Bledsoe or Lowry, and let elf develop gradually over a longer period of time. Because, if he doesn't develop quickly, it locks dipo into the point for much longer than I prefer. I think that would cause the biggest regression of this team going forward. Dipo would blossom much more playing off the ball, and his development is what we should be more concerned with, not the 10th pick in the draft.

[orlandomike]

I still don't get why we waived Jameer, but Ridnour is a good replacement and a good fit

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I think Nelson wanted to start and that wasn't going to be guaranteed.

[tooler]

Not bad, its good enough to tip the scale after getting BG, sliding dipo to sg more, which is a good thing. I still wish we would have gotten a starting pg this summer like Bledsoe or Lowry, and let elf develop gradually over a longer period of time. Because, if he doesn't develop quickly, it locks dipo into the point for much longer than I prefer. I think that would cause the biggest regression of this team going forward. Dipo would blossom much more playing off the ball, and his development is what we should be more concerned with, not the 10th pick in the draft.

Disagree. I think deferring to a big free agent in his early prime would be far more damaging than giving Oladipo another half season (or whatever) of practice handling the ball.

Same with Jameer. I can't believe people still don't understand this. Maybe if we stopped talking about Aaron Gordon for a few days and looked at the big picture, it would be more clear.

[spinedoc]

Not bad, its good enough to tip the scale after getting BG, sliding dipo to sg more, which is a good thing. I still wish we would have gotten a starting pg this summer like Bledsoe or Lowry, and let elf develop gradually over a longer period of time. Because, if he doesn't develop quickly, it locks dipo into the point for much longer than I prefer. I think that would cause the biggest regression of this team going forward. Dipo would blossom much more playing off the ball, and his development is what we should be more concerned with, not the 10th pick in the draft.

Disagree. I think deferring to a big free agent in his early prime would be far more damaging than giving Oladipo another half season (or whatever) of practice handling the ball.

Same with Jameer. I can't believe people still don't understand this. Maybe if we stopped talking about Aaron Gordon for a few days and looked at the big picture, it would be more clear.

Maybe more damaging to elf, but not to dipo, which was a higher pick and bigger investment. Keep in mind, elf was in the Harpring range, dipo was not.

[basketballRob]

Not bad, its good enough to tip the scale after getting BG, sliding dipo to sg more, which is a good thing. I still wish we would have gotten a starting pg this summer like Bledsoe or Lowry, and let elf develop gradually over a longer period of time. Because, if he doesn't develop quickly, it locks dipo into the point for much longer than I prefer. I think that would cause the biggest regression of this team going forward. Dipo would blossom much more playing off the ball, and his development is what we should be more concerned with, not the 10th pick in the draft.

Geez, just let they young guys play. Players start every year their rookie season. We have to start looking at what we have. I get so frustrated with the Magic the last few years at not playing the young guys. Not only JV but Stan too. I still think if we would've started Gortat along with Howard in the finals we stood a better chance.

We have star players here we just need to let them play. Look at the heart & hustle year, we had Billups and Ben Wallace on that team but everyone insisted that we had a bunch of no names and needed some stars. If you look back we should've just developed what we had.

[basketballRob]

Not bad, its good enough to tip the scale after getting BG, sliding dipo to sg more, which is a good thing. I still wish we would have gotten a starting pg this summer like Bledsoe or Lowry, and let elf develop gradually over a longer period of time. Because, if he doesn't develop quickly, it locks dipo into the point for much longer than I prefer. I think that would cause the biggest regression of this team going forward. Dipo would blossom much more playing off the ball, and his development is what we should be more concerned with, not the 10th pick in the draft.

Disagree. I think deferring to a big free agent in his early prime would be far more damaging than giving Oladipo another half season (or whatever) of practice handling the ball.

Same with Jameer. I can't believe people still don't understand this. Maybe if we stopped talking about Aaron Gordon for a few days and looked at the big picture, it would be more clear.

Maybe more damaging to elf, but not to dipo, which was a higher pick and bigger investment. Keep in mind, elf was in the Harpring range, dipo was not.

I think Payton will be better than Lowry and Bledsoe.

[BadMofoPimp]

You guys are getting way too upset about a guy who is on a 1 year deal. My god.

You don't know how much of a cancer Ben will be on this team yet do you. Some people will just have to learn the hard way.

But BBD wasnt a cancer??? LOL BMP i think you are blinded by the fact that he got overpaid and couldnt live up to the deal. I actually think he will be great in THIS locker room

You must be blind if you think Ben Gordon is a better locker room presence than BBD. BBD was a vocal leader on the floor rallying the players and advising them in between time outs. He made the locker room easier with his presence. Ben Gordon had friction with everyone for 5 years now. He may put in the effort, but he won't change overnight. He will still have attitude problems. There is a huge difference between the two. BBD is light years ahead of Ben Gordon in chemistry and as a leader.

Just ask Bens and BBD's former teammates and I bet you any amount of money BBD comes out way far ahead.