Acceptance.

[shadrock]

We screwed this up royally. The Dipo trade, the Tobias trade, the draft. But no amount of whining will change the fact that we are here.

And the place we are at right now sucks.

So what do we do? My fear is that we compound mistakes by making panic trades at the deadline. That to me is not the answer. I really hope that we are smart about this and that Alex can stay the fk out of things and let Henny hit the reset button once again. Having over committed to the win now approach means that by bottoming out, we are throwing a lot of assets away, but without any legitimate star potential in our lineup we are kidding ourselves to think we can become anything more than an 8th seed at absolute best.

Its time to accept that this rebuild has failed miserably.

Trust me, im usually one of the more homeristic Henny fanboys and one of the more optimistic people when it comes to the futures of Elf, Mario and AG, but things are starting to get clearer and its not looking how id hope it to look at this point in time.

We are at a crossroads. The upside is no longer there. The ceiling has fallen. To me, its a choice between digging the hole deeper, or accepting that we are fighting a losing battle and begin the process of digging ourselves out. I dont want to end up on the treadmill of mediocrity, or even worse, like the Brooklyn Nets, with a team that is full of middle of the road veterans and no picks that can help build for the future.

We can bail on this plan now without losing everything we have. A mini-rebuild i suppose. It will require some level of acceptance and mean we give up assets like Serge, but in turn, we will open ourselves up to the chance of obtaining more top-5 type talent which could potentially give us that star level player we so badly need.

Its time to accept that we made a mistake and start to correct the path we are on before we end up going too far down this dead-end road. Cash in on as many assets as we can, to me id be trading everything we have outside of AG and Mario for as many first round picks as we can, and aim for a top 3 pick ourselves. If we do this, we may not have cost ourselves as much as we all think. We could be back to having a high ceiling and lots of hope in no time. Its the best option we have. Maybe the only option we have.

[eyriq]

Fire Henny and blow it up

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[Tayswagzzz]

Blow it all up.

[shadrock]

Fire Henny and blow it up

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Who would you keep?

[pinoynurse]

blow it up

[Xatticus]

Fire Henny and blow it up

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Who would you keep?

[pinoynurse]

Fire Henny and blow it up

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Who would you keep?

I would probably keep hezonja, gordon and maybe elf. tbh im jealous of the sixers. they were ridiculed and laughed at but know what... that same process that made them a laughing stock produced embiid. and right now id rather have embiid compared to what we have..sigh

[shadrock]

Fire Henny and blow it up

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Who would you keep?

I would probably keep hezonja, gordon and maybe elf. tbh im jealous of the sixers. they were ridiculed and laughed at but know what... that same process that made them a laughing stock produced embiid. and right now id rather have embiid compared to what we have..sigh

And Simmons, and Saric, and Noel, and Okafor and and and and...

[pinoynurse]

We screwed this up royally. The Dipo trade, the Tobias trade, the draft. But no amount of whining will change the fact that we are here.

And the place we are at right now sucks.

So what do we do? My fear is that we compound mistakes by making panic trades at the deadline. That to me is not the answer. I really hope that we are smart about this and that Alex can stay the fk out of things and let Henny hit the reset button once again. Having over committed to the win now approach means that by bottoming out, we are throwing a lot of assets away, but without any legitimate star potential in our lineup we are kidding ourselves to think we can become anything more than an 8th seed at absolute best.

Its time to accept that this rebuild has failed miserably.

Trust me, im usually one of the more homeristic Henny fanboys and one of the more optimistic people when it comes to the futures of Elf, Mario and AG, but things are starting to get clearer and its not looking how id hope it to look at this point in time.

We are at a crossroads. The upside is no longer there. The ceiling has fallen. To me, its a choice between digging the hole deeper, or accepting that we are fighting a losing battle and begin the process of digging ourselves out. I dont want to end up on the treadmill of mediocrity, or even worse, like the Brooklyn Nets, with a team that is full of middle of the road veterans and no picks that can help build for the future.

We can bail on this plan now without losing everything we have. A mini-rebuild i suppose. It will require some level of acceptance and mean we give up assets like Serge, but in turn, we will open ourselves up to the chance of obtaining more top-5 type talent which could potentially give us that star level player we so badly need.

Its time to accept that we made a mistake and start to correct the path we are on before we end up going too far down this dead-end road. Cash in on as many assets as we can, to me id be trading everything we have outside of AG and Mario for as many first round picks as we can, and aim for a top 3 pick ourselves. If we do this, we may not have cost ourselves as much as we all think. We could be back to having a high ceiling and lots of hope in no time. Its the best option we have. Maybe the only option we have.

this is my fear as well. i hope we do not trade our young guns or future picks for mediocre vets

[Def Swami]

Hate to say it as well, but I agree. I was optimistic that one of our young guys would make a leap, but it never looked good in pre-season and has been disastrous so far in the regular season. At times, they don't even look like a professional team. Had some of these games been close, it's one thing. But consistently getting blown out and/or having devastating scoring droughts without any potential star in sight, which is the biggest failure of the rebuild, makes me believe this team needs to go back to the lottery and re-work this. The problem was they tried to take short cuts with the rebuild and squandered assets in the process instead of being patient. While it cost the GM his job, the rewards of the patience are already showing in Philadelphia.

SI wrote an article at the beginning of the season that really struck a cord with me and really changed my perspective on this team and really tempered my expectations.

Which NBA Team Has The Worst Best Player In 2016–17?

Not everyone can be the Warriors, but every NBA team has a go-to player — the guy that gets printed on the season tickets, the one holding the ball in a tie game with five seconds left. Some best players are much more “best” than others, though, so how do the NBA’s go-to guys shake out this season?

The Winner?
30. Orlando — Serge Ibaka

The Magic are in serious need of some star power. Remember ESPN Films 30 for 30: This Magic Moment? Remember when Orlando was the home of Shaquille O’Neal and Penny Hardaway and Tracy McGrady and Dwight Howard? Those days are long gone.

The Magic have had only three top-10 picks in 12 years, and they’ve used them on Victor Oladipo (No. 2, and traded for Ibaka), Aaron Gordon (No. 4), and Mario Hezonja (No. 5). They’ve also only won a playoff series in three of those 12 years, forever stuck in the middle. There is no star in Orlando. The Magic are the walking antithesis of Philadelphia’s Process.

It’s difficult to know for sure who the best Orlando player even is. The statistical answer is Nikola Vucevic at 18 points and 9 boards a game, but he’s a defensive sieve and looks like a good-stats-bad-team guy. It’s probably not Aaron Gordon yet, still raw and without a true position. Evan Fournier is improving, but posted below-average advanced metrics last year. Bismack Biyombo could be the answer if he continues to dominate on defense like he did for Toronto in the playoffs.

For now the answer is probably Ibaka, whose numbers have eroded for three years straight as he begins to look closer to 37 years of age than 27. No one really flinched when the Thunder decided to move on from him, and at 13 points, 7 rebounds, and 2 assists a game (all rounded up), you can see why.

Ibaka at his best was a brilliant third NBA player for a title-contending team. He was never meant to be the best player on a team then, let alone three years later. The Magic will have to hold out hope that Gordon or Hezonja turn into something special.
Until then, Ibaka may be the best they’ve got.

Now, Ibaka has clearly not been our best player thus far (and this is a rather crude analysis), but the point still remains. You cannot argue that the Magic have a franchise player. Whether you believe our best player is Vucevic, Gordon, or Fournier, they're probably ending up 30th on this list. There's still hope for guys like Aaron Gordon or Elfrid Payton to develop into that, but the early returns from their 3rd year aren't inspiring. The whole point of tanking 3 seasons was to invest in players that could develop into stars and/or use them to acquire stars. And frankly, the Magic have failed to do that.

So Shadrock is right, we can keep on with this dog and pony show of a flailing team acting like they're good enough to make the playoffs. But I think we all know, the coaches know, and the front office knows where this is heading. And as a fan, I hate that they're in this position right now after 5 years and will likely have to go back to the high lottery. The lack of good basketball has been such a drag over the years, but I just don't see many other options for this team.

It sucks, guys.

[Tayswagzzz]

Just like you said. Keep AG & Mario. Dumpster everything else for picks or promising upcoming youth. We need to start young again and try again.

We failed too hard trading Harris and Oladipo, we got **** luck in drafts. It's time to go the Hinkie route and accumulate as many picks as possible and evaluate all the talent we can.

The problem is, I don't trust our front office. It's very much deeper than Hennigan. There's gotta be a reason we keep on screwing up and trading some of our best promising players like Harris and Dipo for garbage. How about this awful trade sequence? "On December 18, 2010, having lost five of their last six games, the Magic made a blockbuster trade deal with the Phoenix Suns and the Washington Wizards. They traded Vince Carter, Marcin Gortat and Mickaël Piétrus to Phoenix for Hedo Türkoğlu (who led them into the 2009 NBA Finals when they lost 4–1 against the Los Angeles Lakers), Jason Richardson and Earl Clark. Rashard Lewis was traded to Washington for 3-time All-Star Gilbert Arenas." We CONTINUOUSLY make these colossal mistakes.

Someone has some serious blackmail on the Devos family or they are really just that terrible of owners when it comes to player personnel. They have done a fantastic job for the entertainment side of things, but I feel like they have to be dipping into the GM's pot continuously when it comes to trades and drafting.

I'm not supporting Hennigan, he's done some trash moves, but he did find Harris & Fournier rotting on benches and they turned out to be good players. His trades have been awful but then again so has almost every GM in our history has had colossal failures of trades, and I don't know if that's all on the GM, I'm saying the Devos family...Martins...might have a big say in trades and drafting and maybe that's why we've been stuck.

[Xatticus]

[Tayswagzzz]

[Hadvar]

1- We screwed up nothing,cause we never have had a young good core.
Peyton-oladipo-harris-gordon-vucevic in mediocre and bad assembled as much as actual starting five,whatever it is.

2-we have to wait,cause you never know.
at least until the end of the 2016,seasons could change in an hearthbit,remember how good we seem first 20-25 games last year.

3-if things remains so bad,the absolute sure thing is that we can not wait for other 3-4 seasons of insane losing.
try to retooling the way the pistons did under Stan the Great(and that situation was worst than our by far);probably you are not gonna be a contender,but at least you can save something and give to fans and everyone few solid years of playoff runs,if you do things correctly.

4-if this year goes bad as it seems,if the 5 years plan fail,at some point someone has to pay;and can not always be the coach,whoever he is,to take the blame.

Situation has never be so good during these years,like large majority of people here thought:but at same time we are not completely hopeless now,with changes and a different way to build the team we can still have fun next years.

[Nemesis21]

OMG can we please stop whining, it's really annoying. We are 9 games into an 82 game season. Yes we have not looked very good, the players are still making the same mistakes. But guess what, there is still plenty of time to get things turned around. Drink a beer, smoke one and chill the f*** out.

[MagicMatic]

AG and Mario. Everyone else is on the table.
Time to start building an identity and drafting /signing players that make sense to the rotation.

Can we at least start by acquiring players that don't have deficiencies on one side of the court. Maybe some two way players perhaps??? I'm tired of the "When he develops a shot" or the "must improve defensively" players.

[PennytoShaq]

The mistake here is believing the Magic brought Ibaka in to be our lead guy. I don't believe that is the case. I do think the Magic are acquiring assets and will keep moving them until they get a roster that can win. Why not tank like Philly? Well we tried but the lottery luck was never once in our favor.

None of the picks we made were the wrong picks. Even Mario at the time was met with excitement. It's not like Rob would have passed on Porzingis if he could get him.

We have been incredibly unlucky in our tank. We took a gamble on Ibaka to give us shot blocking and paint presence and it has not been working. I don't think he is playing his best right now, so I am not as concerned as others.

Reality is that we have a lot of tradable players. Ibaka, Vuc, Fournier, Gordon to name a few. There are no bad contracts on this team. As much as people hate the Ibaka trade, we would have been married to Oladipo at SG by extending him, and Orlando did not want to do that. At least with Ibaka we have the flexibility to free up that money if we need to.

Let's just assume the team fails miserably this season. What is the worst case? We have a lottery pick with a draft loaded with wings and a ton of cap space. We also have the potential of the most athletic front court in the NBA if we put Gordon and Biz down low together. We could go after a starting PG in free agency and potentially get a good bounce finally and draft a stud SF. Our team will be balanced again and we will be back.

I guess my point is that this is not the end of the world to me. Simply because we are not married to this roster like in years past.

My biggest source of disappointment is really the team being so adamant on the 2 bigs concept. It is not working, it is outdated, and we have the personnel to kill people with athleticism and we are not using it.

[MagicFan101]

We are a team without a star in a super star driven league.

Most of us thought we would end somewhere around .500. That means we would lose most than 40 games this season! There are going to be ugly moments. But we have already seen a 3 game win streak following a 3 game losing streak. This is going to be an up and down road.

If this isn't what you expected then the problem is with your expectations.

[tiderulz]

AG and Mario. Everyone else is on the table.
Time to start building an identity and drafting /signing players that make sense to the rotation.

Can we at least start by acquiring players that don't have deficiencies on one side of the court. Maybe some two way players perhaps??? I'm tired of the "When he develops a shot" or the "must improve defensively" players.

AG and Mario have deficiencies on one side of the court

[tiderulz]

We also have the potential of the most athletic front court in the NBA if we put Gordon and Biz down low together.

sorry, and this isnt an attack on you, but im tired of hearing this. So what if we have this "athletic front court". BB is a train wreck on offense and AG is not a whole lot better. You cant live in today's NBA with subpar offense at 2 positions.