2023-2024 Regular Season Game 73: Los Angeles Clippers (45-27) at Orlando Magic (42-30) - 7pm

[pepe1991]

About age thing, cumulative of age of a roster is indeed young. But mostly because we have two rookie who don't play.

This is active rotation from tonight, from youngest to oldest:

Caleb Houstan -21
Paolo - 21

That's where "young " player list ends
Franz & Suggs turning 23 soon


Cole -24
Carter -25
Isaac -27
Wagner -27
Harris- 30
Ingles -37

For comparisons sake, oldest OKC starter is 26, nobody else older than 24.
Cavs starting 5 by age : 22,23,24,25,27
Rockets starting 5 with Segun: 20,21,21,28,29
Pacers starting 5: 23,24,24,27,29


Age is just cute excuse for poor roster construction from start, and zero desire to fix it halfway through. You have players who are "just 25" but in nba for 7 years ( Fultz, Carter). It's not like they will develop any more just because they are "just 25".
Other than Banchero, all other players have at least 2 full years of experience.

For current roster, this is max ceiling. Good against bad teams, bad against good teams.
25-6 vs sub .500 team
17-26 vs teams above .500 .

18 out of 29 teams are over .500. We just have luxury of playing 4 games a year against Hawks, Nets, Bulls ,Hornets, Raptors, Pistons and Wizards and that padded record. That's where 21 out of 42 wins arived from.
If we are on West, we would be fringe playin team. But due East being worst and having lesser competition, and all opposing teams dealing with incredible amount of injuries, we had opportunity to have home court adventage out of thin air.

But we did nothing at trade deadline for "continuity" and it worked for a week or two, against, again, terrible teams, but now, when schedule got harder, we are back at being mediocre team with clear weaknesses.

[eyriq]

About age thing, cumulative of age of a roster is indeed young. But mostly because we have two rookie who don't play.

This is active rotation from tonight, from youngest to oldest:

Caleb Houstan -21
Paolo - 21

That's where "young " player list ends
Franz & Suggs turning 23 soon


Cole -24
Carter -25
Isaac -27
Wagner -27
Harris- 30
Ingles -37

For comparisons sake, oldest OKC starter is 26, nobody else older than 24.
Cavs starting 5 by age : 22,23,24,25,27
Rockets starting 5 with Segun: 20,21,21,28,29
Pacers starting 5: 23,24,24,27,29


Age is just cute excuse for poor roster construction from start, and zero desire to fix it halfway through. You have players who are "just 25" but in nba for 7 years ( Fultz, Carter). It's not like they will develop any more just because they are "just 25".
Other than Banchero, all other players have at least 2 full years of experience.

For current roster, this is max ceiling. Good against bad teams, bad against good teams.
25-6 vs sub .500 team
17-26 vs teams above .500 .

18 out of 29 teams are over .500. We just have luxury of playing 4 games a year against Hawks, Nets, Bulls ,Hornets, Raptors, Pistons and Wizards and that padded record. That's where 21 out of 42 wins arived from.
If we are on West, we would be fringe playin team. But due East being worst and having lesser competition, and all opposing teams dealing with incredible amount of injuries, we had opportunity to have home court adventage out of thin air.

But we did nothing at trade deadline for "continuity" and it worked for a week or two, against, again, terrible teams, but now, when schedule got harder, we are back at being mediocre team with clear weaknesses.

A team's age is measured as the weighted average of players age, weighted by minutes played. We are legitimately the 4th youngest team.

In terms of performance against > .500 teams, eight teams have winning records.

In the East
Boston
Milwaukee
Indiana

In the West
Denver
Oklahoma City
Minnesota
LAC
New Orleans

So,
1. We are young, that's a fact, and
2. 73% of the league has a losing record against winning clubs.

Factor in
3. We are one of the winning clubs

The narrative that fits the facts is that we are developing young players and establishing a winning identity in stages, with stage 1 establishing a defensive identity.

There's no urgency yet, no closing window of opportunity.

[Rainwater]

About age thing, cumulative of age of a roster is indeed young. But mostly because we have two rookie who don't play.

This is active rotation from tonight, from youngest to oldest:

Caleb Houstan -21
Paolo - 21

That's where "young " player list ends
Franz & Suggs turning 23 soon


Cole -24
Carter -25
Isaac -27
Wagner -27
Harris- 30
Ingles -37

For comparisons sake, oldest OKC starter is 26, nobody else older than 24.
Cavs starting 5 by age : 22,23,24,25,27
Rockets starting 5 with Segun: 20,21,21,28,29
Pacers starting 5: 23,24,24,27,29


Age is just cute excuse for poor roster construction from start, and zero desire to fix it halfway through. You have players who are "just 25" but in nba for 7 years ( Fultz, Carter). It's not like they will develop any more just because they are "just 25".
Other than Banchero, all other players have at least 2 full years of experience.

For current roster, this is max ceiling. Good against bad teams, bad against good teams.
25-6 vs sub .500 team
17-26 vs teams above .500 .

18 out of 29 teams are over .500. We just have luxury of playing 4 games a year against Hawks, Nets, Bulls ,Hornets, Raptors, Pistons and Wizards and that padded record. That's where 21 out of 42 wins arived from.
If we are on West, we would be fringe playin team. But due East being worst and having lesser competition, and all opposing teams dealing with incredible amount of injuries, we had opportunity to have home court adventage out of thin air.

But we did nothing at trade deadline for "continuity" and it worked for a week or two, against, again, terrible teams, but now, when schedule got harder, we are back at being mediocre team with clear weaknesses.

I just disagree with this. I feel like when people say this is a young team people are thinking of the guys who will be here in the future; the players who are believed to be the building blocks or are mainly carrying the load. People are mainly thinking of Paolo, Franz, Suggs, Black, Cole, and Jett. Nobody is thinking of Harris, Ingles, or Fultz. These guys are likely gone next season. The only older guys I expect to be here long term are JI and Moe the rest of the guys are likely gone

The best two players are 21 and 22 and the rebuild just started 3 years. The Magic seem ahead of schedule, they weren’t even supposed to be this good. 5th best team in east when they should have been battling it out for a playin spot is a successful season. With all this cap space this offseason I expect some moves to be made. This is a process.

[Rainwater]

This is no jab at anyone in particular but I just think there is general idea that this team should be winning now. That the magic should be title contenders year three into a rebuild. That the front office should have put it all together by now. I just find it all a little absurd.

I just feel like the two main guys are young and most guys aren’t winning at that point. And I just think the front office is just getting their plan in motion. Just because we don’t know what it is doesn’t mean it’s not happening.

[cedric76]

Jett is gonna beast next season

[Bensational]

This is no jab at anyone in particular but I just think there is general idea that this team should be winning now. That the magic should be title contenders year three into a rebuild. That the front office should have put it all together by now. I just find it all a little absurd.

I just feel like the two main guys are young and most guys aren’t winning at that point. And I just think the front office is just getting their plan in motion. Just because we don’t know what it is doesn’t mean it’s not happening.

This guy gets it. Free Goga and Black!

[SloNick Russia]

Our great defense wins us games vs bad teams our poor offense loses us games vs good teams.
At the moment I just want us to make playoffs for experience purposes, unfortunately we are not likely to win more then 1-2 games in any series.
Anyway our rebuild process is going crazy fast, but it still takes time to build a contending team.

Sent from my SM-G9750 using RealGM mobile app

[KillMonger]

i'm still upset about this game....our margin of error is so slim and i'm pissed thinking about that Joe Ingles technical, his "trash talking" antics getting old for me

[zaymon]

Loses like this are "by design" from the front office. Its about how young we are but also what type of skill and character they are bringing to the team.

1. We dont have good ball handlers. Keeping Joe Ingles in the game should tell the story. Franz is afraid to shoot, Paolo makes bad decisions under pressure, Anthony also makes bad decisions under pressure and is too small. Banchero will obviously get better but the amount of mistakes he makes is worrying, especially becouse they are very dumb mistakes not some ambitious passes like Luka does.

2. Mosley also makes bad decisions under pressure, and its a thing from the beginning. He is not much different in this regard than 3 years ago. Clifford was always prepared, had assistant with a laptop with stream on delay and his decisions were good twice as often as Mosley's. Clifford had other flaws like screaming on players so the change was necessary. Mosley is good motivator and defensive coordinator but his flaws will be more and more exposed as we play higher stake games. I dont see that much improvement yet.

I hope Anthony Parker will have more influense at type of players (and assistant coaches) we get. I really like whats Weltman doing, he is one of the smarters gms out there, but he mistakes good character with lack of aggression, low confidence. Yes guys who are selfless, funny and compassionate are also important, but it cant be 2/3 of a roster and head coach.

[pepe1991]

About age thing, cumulative of age of a roster is indeed young. But mostly because we have two rookie who don't play.

This is active rotation from tonight, from youngest to oldest:

Caleb Houstan -21
Paolo - 21

That's where "young " player list ends
Franz & Suggs turning 23 soon


Cole -24
Carter -25
Isaac -27
Wagner -27
Harris- 30
Ingles -37

For comparisons sake, oldest OKC starter is 26, nobody else older than 24.
Cavs starting 5 by age : 22,23,24,25,27
Rockets starting 5 with Segun: 20,21,21,28,29
Pacers starting 5: 23,24,24,27,29


Age is just cute excuse for poor roster construction from start, and zero desire to fix it halfway through. You have players who are "just 25" but in nba for 7 years ( Fultz, Carter). It's not like they will develop any more just because they are "just 25".
Other than Banchero, all other players have at least 2 full years of experience.

For current roster, this is max ceiling. Good against bad teams, bad against good teams.
25-6 vs sub .500 team
17-26 vs teams above .500 .

18 out of 29 teams are over .500. We just have luxury of playing 4 games a year against Hawks, Nets, Bulls ,Hornets, Raptors, Pistons and Wizards and that padded record. That's where 21 out of 42 wins arived from.
If we are on West, we would be fringe playin team. But due East being worst and having lesser competition, and all opposing teams dealing with incredible amount of injuries, we had opportunity to have home court adventage out of thin air.

But we did nothing at trade deadline for "continuity" and it worked for a week or two, against, again, terrible teams, but now, when schedule got harder, we are back at being mediocre team with clear weaknesses.

A team's age is measured as the weighted average of players age, weighted by minutes played. We are legitimately the 4th youngest team.

In terms of performance against > .500 teams, eight teams have winning records.

In the East
Boston
Milwaukee
Indiana

In the West
Denver
Oklahoma City
Minnesota
LAC
New Orleans

So,
1. We are young, that's a fact, and
2. 73% of the league has a losing record against winning clubs.

Factor in
3. We are one of the winning clubs

The narrative that fits the facts is that we are developing young players and establishing a winning identity in stages, with stage 1 establishing a defensive identity.

There's no urgency yet, no closing window of opportunity.

18 out of 29 ( we are 19th out of 30 ) teams have winning record.

Magic in their Division have 2 worst team in nba and face them 4 times.

Out of 12 teams with negative record, 8 are on East. 28 games out of 52 on East, Magic play against teams with negative record.


Magic have 12-14 record vs teams from West.



I never said anything about urgency nor championship window. My point is: team is not that young as some of you pretend and team record is inflated by uneven strenght of conferences and being placed in worst division in nab, where 5 out of 7 contenders are from West, and on East you have bunch of mediocre teams and only Bucks & Celtics are actually tear above.
And on top of all that we are only nba team between Cavs, Knicks, Heat, 76ers, Bulls, Hawks, Pacers that had pretty much no injuries whole year long.

All those individual factors combined into one overachiving season, record vise, but i highly doubt anybody views this, current roster as anything more than first round exit team.
We have lot work to do, starting with offseason and PG position.

[SOUL]

Feel like there's so many people inferring ceilings and futures and so much out of 3 games that coulda been 3-0 with one or two things going differently. Fans truly living and dying with wins and losses. So we have a great future if 1 or 2 plays go a different way in these games and we go 2-1 or 3-0 and we're **** now in the playoffs and in the future because it went the other way? What does that say about teams like Warriors, Clippers and Kings who have older, win-now rosters that eked these wins out despite so many things going poorly for us?

It sucks but it is what it is. Team is not even close to complete and it's useless trying to glean much from the capabilities of our offense until we add modern day PG/volume shooters.

[eyriq]

About age thing, cumulative of age of a roster is indeed young. But mostly because we have two rookie who don't play.

This is active rotation from tonight, from youngest to oldest:

Caleb Houstan -21
Paolo - 21

That's where "young " player list ends
Franz & Suggs turning 23 soon


Cole -24
Carter -25
Isaac -27
Wagner -27
Harris- 30
Ingles -37

For comparisons sake, oldest OKC starter is 26, nobody else older than 24.
Cavs starting 5 by age : 22,23,24,25,27
Rockets starting 5 with Segun: 20,21,21,28,29
Pacers starting 5: 23,24,24,27,29


Age is just cute excuse for poor roster construction from start, and zero desire to fix it halfway through. You have players who are "just 25" but in nba for 7 years ( Fultz, Carter). It's not like they will develop any more just because they are "just 25".
Other than Banchero, all other players have at least 2 full years of experience.

For current roster, this is max ceiling. Good against bad teams, bad against good teams.
25-6 vs sub .500 team
17-26 vs teams above .500 .

18 out of 29 teams are over .500. We just have luxury of playing 4 games a year against Hawks, Nets, Bulls ,Hornets, Raptors, Pistons and Wizards and that padded record. That's where 21 out of 42 wins arived from.
If we are on West, we would be fringe playin team. But due East being worst and having lesser competition, and all opposing teams dealing with incredible amount of injuries, we had opportunity to have home court adventage out of thin air.

But we did nothing at trade deadline for "continuity" and it worked for a week or two, against, again, terrible teams, but now, when schedule got harder, we are back at being mediocre team with clear weaknesses.

A team's age is measured as the weighted average of players age, weighted by minutes played. We are legitimately the 4th youngest team.

In terms of performance against > .500 teams, eight teams have winning records.

In the East
Boston
Milwaukee
Indiana

In the West
Denver
Oklahoma City
Minnesota
LAC
New Orleans

So,
1. We are young, that's a fact, and
2. 73% of the league has a losing record against winning clubs.

Factor in
3. We are one of the winning clubs

The narrative that fits the facts is that we are developing young players and establishing a winning identity in stages, with stage 1 establishing a defensive identity.

There's no urgency yet, no closing window of opportunity.

18 out of 29 ( we are 19th out of 30 ) teams have winning record.

Magic in their Division have 2 worst team in nba and face them 4 times.

Out of 12 teams with negative record, 8 are on East. 28 games out of 52 on East, Magic play against teams with negative record.


Magic have 12-14 record vs teams from West.



I never said anything about urgency nor championship window. My point is: team is not that young as some of you pretend and team record is inflated by uneven strenght of conferences and being placed in worst division in nab, where 5 out of 7 contenders are from West, and on East you have bunch of mediocre teams and only Bucks & Celtics are actually tear above.
And on top of all that we are only nba team between Cavs, Knicks, Heat, 76ers, Bulls, Hawks, Pacers that had pretty much no injuries whole year long.

All those individual factors combined into one overachiving season, record vise, but i highly doubt anybody views this, current roster as anything more than first round exit team.
We have lot work to do, starting with offseason and PG position.

Ok, if your point is that the roster as currently constructed isn't a contender now or in the future and needs re-tooling, I'm on board.

You mentioned the trade deadline which is what prompted my "no urgency" point.

[Bergmaniac]

We are just not a good offensive team and it shows against better defenses. We usually hang around even when we struggle offensively thanks to our great defense but it's tough to close out games against good teams when your ballhandling is so suspect and you lack reliable shooters. Paolo is asked to do way too much creating and scoring. And no lineups changes with the current rosters would help this. Sure, Black getting minutes would be nice from a development point of view and he's certainly better than Fultz right now, but this won't solve the fundamental issues with this team.

Still, it'sa bit of a shame we couldn't beat the Clippers when they were playing pretty poorly themselves and Harden had a shocker.

[MagicMatic]

What are people even talking about in this thread anymore? lol

This team is young. How are people spinning that? 3/5 of the guys in the starting lineup, that actually matter in games, are on contract #1 and weren’t in the league 3 seasons ago. This is a “young” team because they have no post season experience or prior experience playing for other pro teams. Even the coach is young with no head coaching experience himself.

If you want to draw up a correlation as to why this roster beats bad teams and loses to good teams it comes down to skill sets and consistency.

There is no starting point guard on this roster. Mosely is starting two shooting guards that are basically the same player profile on paper. Black isn’t ready yet for that role. That’s not a glaring indictment on him. Cason Wallace is also good but not a starting level point guard yet in season 1.

Both of the #1 and #2 options have the same exact skillset to varying degrees with similar deficiencies. That means the FO has to do their jobs and build the rest of the team around those skill sets. Not hoard mid players they had prior to landing them while giving reasons they can’t move them.

I'd argue that the Center doesn’t really fit next to the aforementioned primary or secondary options for the same reasons. Isaac should be starting but he will always have this weird minute and role limit because our highest paid player has an injury history and is treated like a McDonald’s Ice Cream Machine.

So ultimately this comes down to the FO and TIME. So yeah, the “young” label does matter. Players aren’t the same in year 1-3 that they are in their late 20’s after multiple contracts and teams. The person saying that “age doesn’t matter and we aren’t young” in this thread is also the one that incorrectly calls out rookies as finished products.

The reason we had endless threads this offseason is the reason these post-loss game threads are as long as they are now… people knew this roster was flawed and that the FO sitting on their hands was going to make the young guys on this roster have to do a bunch of **** “by committee” like.. rebound and be the primary facilitator. It’s just a cute way of saying “we didn’t find actual vets that do the things at those positions so you figure it out.”

Yeah anyone with a + 70 IQ could have told you that retaining Fultz and signing a 40 year old as your only offseason moves probably weren’t moving the needle if your goal was “must make the playoffs” as a barometer.

[eyriq]

...Sure, Black getting minutes would be nice from a development point of view and he's certainly better than Fultz right now, but this won't solve the fundamental issues with this team...

Developing a ball handler wouldn't help this team? Ball control is the #1 offensive weakness and AB is the PG of the future. Develop him.

[Bergmaniac]

We are just not a good offensive team and it shows against better defenses. We usually hang around even when we struggle offensively thanks to our great defense but it's tough to close out games against good teams when your ballhandling is so suspect and you lack reliable shooters. Paolo is asked to do way too much creating and scoring. And no lineups changes with the current rosters would help this. Sure, Black getting minutes would be nice from a development point of view and he's certainly better than Fultz right now, but this won't solve the fundamental issues with this team.

Still, it'sa bit of a shame we couldn't beat the Clippers when they were playing pretty poorly themselves and Harden had a shocker.

Developing a ball handler wouldn't help this team? Ball control is the #1 offensive weakness and AB is the PG of the future. Develop him.

I meant It wouldn't help this season, I probably should have been more clear.

[eyriq]

We are just not a good offensive team and it shows against better defenses. We usually hang around even when we struggle offensively thanks to our great defense but it's tough to close out games against good teams when your ballhandling is so suspect and you lack reliable shooters. Paolo is asked to do way too much creating and scoring. And no lineups changes with the current rosters would help this. Sure, Black getting minutes would be nice from a development point of view and he's certainly better than Fultz right now, but this won't solve the fundamental issues with this team.

Still, it'sa bit of a shame we couldn't beat the Clippers when they were playing pretty poorly themselves and Harden had a shocker.

Developing a ball handler wouldn't help this team? Ball control is the #1 offensive weakness and AB is the PG of the future. Develop him.

I meant It wouldn't help this season, I probably should have been more clear.

Oh, gotcha. Yeah, Mosley is hell-bent on running the offense through Paolo and Franz.

[Fortune Teller]

We have no starting PG. We don't have even have a mid-level PG like a D.J. Augustin type. It's a bunch of SG's who can't shoot and zero playmakers. Our record is largely because Paolo is that good. Mosley could be John Wooden and he wouldn't be able to overcome this roster deficiency.

[eyriq]

We have no starting PG. We don't have even have a mid-level PG like a D.J. Augustin type. It's a bunch of SG's who can't shoot and zero playmakers. Our record is largely because Paolo is that good. Mosley could be John Wooden and he wouldn't be able to overcome this roster deficiency.

I think our record is largely because Franz, Paolo, and Suggs are that good. They'll keep team evaluations simple for years to come.

[The-Stallion70]

Our roster really isn't bad top to bottom its just oddly constructed with a defense-only approach and no point during a time when guard Play dominates the game.

Still the nightly mismatch of two 6-10 guys is hard for teams to deal with.