2023-2024 Regular Season Game 77: Orlando Magic (45-31) at Charlotte Hornets (18-58) - 7pm

[Rainwater]

The original point I was making…

Is that they had Gary Harris, Isaac, Carter, Fultz, Cole etc. PRIOR to drafting their main core of Paolo, Franz, and Suggs.

The argument is that they have not ADDED a supporting cast of players knowing who their core was beforehand - hence “building backwards”.

To assume they had all their supporting role players BEFORE without knowing HOW things like offense were going to be run. That’s the point.

Drafting players and not playing them isn’t really contributing to that point. They have moved nobody out of those original players. They have made no additions aside from Goga, who doesn’t play, and Ingles who is a mediocre addition in the second unit.

Nobody has been added and they haven’t “constructed” anything post knowing who makes up the core . I’m not really even saying something that is an opinion… it’s just a fact based in reality.

Its hard not to agree with you, but they try If facts dont fit, too bad for facts.
Its mostly semantics. You can call everything you do "constructing", but thats not what you meant.
The most important thing is that we are not done "constructing, we are not even close. Its possible we will leave 3-4 players from our rotation next year.
Yes we can agree this year we are done "constructing" roster, but our goal was never maximizing wins. We wanted to keep the team together and develop young players. I think roster was constructed OK for this. Yes we need PG badly, but we reached play ins without it so who cares.

What are you even talking about?

Of course we want to maximize wins, we are not a damned farm team, lol. Are you a Lakers fan? We are not just trying to develop players, the Magic are here to kick some ass now

And we literally have home court advantage in the playoffs, we are way ahead of just getting lousy play-ins. Are you delusional man?

I really think you have made this assumption in your head that just because the Magic have home court advantage that the magic are done and ready to compete when this is far from the truth. In all honesty, most didn’t expect the Magic to be in this position and most are not expecting much in the playoffs. They are far ahead off schedule. Outside of Suggs, Paolo, and Franz this team has so much to fix. I am expecting big moves in the offseason.

[Bensational]

I think the success over the season has lead people to forget that we’re only in Paolo’s second year - he's not a finished product.

Just for some comparison, let's look at Paolo compared to some other young franchise stars in their 2nd seasons:

Paolo vs Shai

Paolo vs Ant

Paolo vs Tatum (21, 3rd season) - this is probably the best comp for Paolo. Keep in mind that Tatum was winning from day 1 playing behind Kyrie. It wasn't until Tatum's 3rd season that the keys were handed to him the way the Magic handed the keys to Paolo this season. Efficiency is on Tatum's side, but he wasn't phenomenally efficient that season. They were good enough to make the ECFs that season, and then drop to a .500 team the following season and a 1st round knockout. Imagine the outrage on this board if we have Paolo in year 4 his help was Kemba, Fournier and Theis off the back of a conference finals showing?

Tatum/Brown/Smart + Kemba + Hayward + Theis eventually became Tatum/Brown + White + JRue + KP + Horford and contenders, but they had some stormy waters in between.

Paolo/Franz/Suggs + (Fultz/Harris) + Ingles + Isaac + (WCJ/Moe/Goga) will eventually become something else, and it won't all be smooth sailing.

Silver lining though - Paolo's numbers are up across the board in efficiency, even if it's not at the level you'd like to see, it's trending the right direction. Tatum didn't crack 60% TS% until his 6th season (last season). Tatum's personal game has hit its peak over the last 2 seasons, right as Boston is primed to contend. They still managed to pull out some conference finals appearances in the lead up to that. I think we should feel good about Paolo's trajectory to date.

[Rainwater]

I think the success over the season has lead people to forget that we’re only in Paolo’s second year - he's not a finished product.

Just for some comparison, let's look at Paolo compared to some other young franchise stars in their 2nd seasons:

Paolo vs Shai

Paolo vs Ant

Paolo vs Tatum (21, 3rd season) - this is probably the best comp for Paolo. Keep in mind that Tatum was winning from day 1 playing behind Kyrie. It wasn't until Tatum's 3rd season that the keys were handed to him the way the Magic handed the keys to Paolo this season. Efficiency is on Tatum's side, but he wasn't phenomenally efficient that season. They were good enough to make the ECFs that season, and then drop to a .500 team the following season and a 1st round knockout. Imagine the outrage on this board if we have Paolo in year 4 his help was Kemba, Fournier and Theis off the back of a conference finals showing?

Tatum/Brown/Smart + Kemba + Hayward + Theis eventually became Tatum/Brown + White + JRue + KP + Horford and contenders, but they had some stormy waters in between.

Paolo/Franz/Suggs + (Fultz/Harris) + Ingles + Isaac + (WCJ/Moe/Goga) will eventually become something else, and it won't all be smooth sailing.

Silver lining though - Paolo's numbers are up across the board in efficiency, even if it's not at the level you'd like to see, it's trending the right direction. Tatum didn't crack 60% TS% until his 6th season (last season). Tatum's personal game has hit its peak over the last 2 seasons, right as Boston is primed to contend. They still managed to pull out some conference finals appearances in the lead up to that. I think we should feel good about Paolo's trajectory to date.

Great post. I feel like people want rapid success when this is a process. I may be off by a couple of seasons but I believe it took the magic 9 years from the season they Dwight to make the finals. People really need to be patient, this is going to take time.

[SOUL]

Great post. I feel like people want rapid success when this is a process. I may be off by a couple of seasons but I believe it took the magic 9 years from the season they Dwight to make the finals. People really need to be patient, this is going to take time.

Dwight was only on the Magic 8 years.

However, it took him until his 4th season to even make the playoffs, and that was on a 40-42 record.

[shadrock]

This was actually such a depressing loss. We have a top 4 seed RIGHT AT OUR FINGERTIPS and cant sort out **** out and win it vs a bottom 5 team. Its made worse because it seemed like it was due to low effort/care factor.

[shadrock]

I feel like there is always an overreaction after each win or loss. This team is not a finished product, pretty certain that the front office knows this. This is only year three of the rebuild guys.

We have no guarantees that we will get back to a top 4 spot next year. We are here NOW, we need to make the absolute most of being here.

[eyriq]

I would say if a team ranks 23rd in offense, they have a poorly built roster offensively.

Now if the argument back is that the two main guys are just young and we need to wait them out, I’m not against that, but the Magic could have supplemented the roster with better complimentary pieces and didn’t do it.

23rd best offense is a function of being young, not poorly built. You explained it

That's only true to a certain extent though.

The front office had tons of cap space this summer and could have upgraded the Fultz, Harris, Anthony, Ingles spots. They could have made a trade deadline acquisition.

There were a large number of things they could have done on the margins that would have helped and they chose to do none of them.

Ok, here is an analysis that gets at the relationship between a core's age and their offensive performance as measured by their relative offensive rating. To identify a team's core I took the top three in minutes played. To get at that core's age I took a weighted average age by minutes. For example, Orlando's top 3 is Paolo, Franz, and Suggs, their weighted age is 21.6 years old, and their relative offensive rating is -2.43.

I then bin these weighted ages into deciles, create a flag for a positive relative offensive rating, and calculate the probability of a core in that age range having an above average offense. It falls out exactly how I'd expect. The more experienced the core, the better the offense. Time will improve our offense.

(20, 23.55]: 27.42%
(23.55, 24.58]: 38.21%
(24.58, 25.32]: 47.15%
(25.32, 25.89]: 50.00%
(25.89, 26.41]: 43.90%
(26.41, 26.98]: 42.28%
(26.98, 27.74]: 64.52%
(27.74, 28.64]: 61.79%
(28.64, 29.85]: 64.23%
(29.85, 35.08]: 69.35%

[Rainwater]

Great post. I feel like people want rapid success when this is a process. I may be off by a couple of seasons but I believe it took the magic 9 years from the season they Dwight to make the finals. People really need to be patient, this is going to take time.

Dwight was only on the Magic 8 years.

However, it took him until his 4th season to even make the playoffs, and that was on a 40-42 record.

lol, couldn’t remember and was too lazy to look it up but I stand corrected. But yes, it took six years to make the finals and a few years to make the playoffs. There is no overnight success.

[Rainwater]

I feel like there is always an overreaction after each win or loss. This team is not a finished product, pretty certain that the front office knows this. This is only year three of the rebuild guys.

We have no guarantees that we will get back to a top 4 spot next year. We are here NOW, we need to make the absolute most of being here.

Sure, make the most of it. However, this team is not a contending team they are far from it. They are still rebuilding.

In sports, there is typically a growth phase, a contending phase, then a decline phase (that is if you are building through the draft, you can skip phases with trades and f/a). This team is still growing. Even though I expect a small decline next year, because I believe the magic are somewhat playing over their actual abilities, the idea is that as a young team the magic should be a good team in the future. This should not be their last time in the playoffs. Very rarely do teams with talent like the Magic just stop being good.

[MagicMatic]

The original point I was making…

Is that they had Gary Harris, Isaac, Carter, Fultz, Cole etc. PRIOR to drafting their main core of Paolo, Franz, and Suggs.

The argument is that they have not ADDED a supporting cast of players knowing who their core was beforehand - hence “building backwards”.

To assume they had all their supporting role players BEFORE without knowing HOW things like offense were going to be run. That’s the point.

Drafting players and not playing them isn’t really contributing to that point. They have moved nobody out of those original players. They have made no additions aside from Goga, who doesn’t play, and Ingles who is a mediocre addition in the second unit.

Nobody has been added and they haven’t “constructed” anything post knowing who makes up the core . I’m not really even saying something that is an opinion… it’s just a fact based in reality.

Its hard not to agree with you, but they try If facts dont fit, too bad for facts.
Its mostly semantics. You can call everything you do "constructing", but thats not what you meant.
The most important thing is that we are not done "constructing, we are not even close. Its possible we will leave 3-4 players from our rotation next year.
Yes we can agree this year we are done "constructing" roster, but our goal was never maximizing wins. We wanted to keep the team together and develop young players. I think roster was constructed OK for this. Yes we need PG badly, but we reached play ins without it so who cares.

What are you even talking about?

Of course we want to maximize wins, we are not a damned farm team, lol. Are you a Lakers fan? We are not just trying to develop players, the Magic are here to kick some ass now

And we literally have home court advantage in the playoffs, we are way ahead of just getting lousy play-ins. Are you delusional man?

See this is exactly the problem with the mentality of the front office.
We overachieve in the wasteland that is the Eastern Conference. Yes. we are AHEAD of schedule in the rebuild based off the talent of Paolo/Suggs/Franz and the fact that Isaac actually sees the court this season.

That being said... There are plainly obvious things wrong with the roster and the record isn't indicative that they should forgo addressing those issues because they have success right now as I write this coming off piss poor performances against Portland and Charlotte bottom dwellers at a pivotal time in the schedule.

I'm sure Weltman will echo your talking point of:
"we are in X year of the rebuild and won Y more games than last season therefore there's no reason to fix anything and we can rely on internal growth"

Nah. They have only done their job in terms of drafting lotto picks and have kept deteriorating assets around because its ultimately been convenient to not make decisions. We know this because they were all here before they even knew how the offense was going to look without the correct personnel. The result is exactly what we saw in this game and most nights in general. Ass bottom 5 offense and a top defense that struggles when Isaac isnt available to match up other teams 6'8 + forwards and bigs.

No team is going to go into a season expecting losses. They are going to maximize wins regardless of their circumstances. However, just because you make the playoffs doesn't mean you are built as a "playoff team". If teams can pick the Magic apart with a simple zone they are going to get embarrassed. Which is exactly what I expect due to the FO not being prepared in the offseason by making decisions. Cool I guess? Maybe they need to be humbled with a gentleman's sweep so they have to actually make decisions.

[eyriq]

See this is exactly the problem with the mentality of the front office.

I'm sure Weltman will echo your talking point of:
"we are in X year of the rebuild and won Y more games than last season therefore there's no reason to fix anything and we can rely on internal growth"

I actually agree with this talking point. There is no reason to rush things.

[MagicMatic]

See this is exactly the problem with the mentality of the front office.

I'm sure Weltman will echo your talking point of:
"we are in X year of the rebuild and won Y more games than last season therefore there's no reason to fix anything and we can rely on internal growth"

I actually agree with this talking point. There is no reason to rush things.

You believe that they have no reason to upgrade the roster? You think Anthony Black in his rookie season was enough for playoff aspirations? You thought Joe Ingles was the appropriate bench depth for a playoff run?

Either the FO had significantly lower standards for this group, or they decided it wasn’t the right time to add veteran talent while developing. We will see when the season ends how big their plans were.

[Skybox]

See this is exactly the problem with the mentality of the front office.

I'm sure Weltman will echo your talking point of:
"we are in X year of the rebuild and won Y more games than last season therefore there's no reason to fix anything and we can rely on internal growth"

I actually agree with this talking point. There is no reason to rush things.

You believe that they have no reason to upgrade the roster? You think Anthony Black in his rookie season was enough for playoff aspirations? You thought Joe Ingles was the appropriate bench depth for a playoff run?

Either the FO had significantly lower standards for this group, or they decided it wasn’t the right time to add veteran talent while developing. We will see when the season ends how big their plans were.

I'm counting on organic development of Joe Ingles next year...just in case our PGOTF only improves from DNP to 4ppg.

I really like Anthony Black - but I can't see even a hint of why people believe he's in need of "protection" from outside free agents or trade targets that are actually already very good...and that we just so happen to have built our entire financial profile to put us perfectly in position to do something this summer (or last summer...). Black will get there, but no way do we slam the brakes on this team's potential ascendance to wait for that.

[MagicMatic]

I actually agree with this talking point. There is no reason to rush things.

You believe that they have no reason to upgrade the roster? You think Anthony Black in his rookie season was enough for playoff aspirations? You thought Joe Ingles was the appropriate bench depth for a playoff run?

Either the FO had significantly lower standards for this group, or they decided it wasn’t the right time to add veteran talent while developing. We will see when the season ends how big their plans were.

I'm counting on organic development of Joe Ingles next year...just in case our PGOTF only improves from DNP to 4ppg.

I really like Anthony Black - but I can't see even a hint of why people believe he's in need of "protection" from outside free agents or trade targets that are actually already very good...and that we just so happen to have built our entire financial profile to put us perfectly in position to do something this summer (or last summer...). Black will get there, but no way do we slam the brakes on this team's potential ascendance to wait for that.

I like AB too. He’s going to be good. But like 90-95% of rookies they aren’t doing much in their first two seasons. He will just take time. A veteran point guard while ditching Fultz was the correct move that they didn’t make.

[zaymon]

The original point I was making…

Is that they had Gary Harris, Isaac, Carter, Fultz, Cole etc. PRIOR to drafting their main core of Paolo, Franz, and Suggs.

The argument is that they have not ADDED a supporting cast of players knowing who their core was beforehand - hence “building backwards”.

To assume they had all their supporting role players BEFORE without knowing HOW things like offense were going to be run. That’s the point.

Drafting players and not playing them isn’t really contributing to that point. They have moved nobody out of those original players. They have made no additions aside from Goga, who doesn’t play, and Ingles who is a mediocre addition in the second unit.

Nobody has been added and they haven’t “constructed” anything post knowing who makes up the core . I’m not really even saying something that is an opinion… it’s just a fact based in reality.

Its hard not to agree with you, but they try If facts dont fit, too bad for facts.
Its mostly semantics. You can call everything you do "constructing", but thats not what you meant.
The most important thing is that we are not done "constructing, we are not even close. Its possible we will leave 3-4 players from our rotation next year.
Yes we can agree this year we are done "constructing" roster, but our goal was never maximizing wins. We wanted to keep the team together and develop young players. I think roster was constructed OK for this. Yes we need PG badly, but we reached play ins without it so who cares.

What are you even talking about?

Of course we want to maximize wins, we are not a damned farm team, lol. Are you a Lakers fan? We are not just trying to develop players, the Magic are here to kick some ass now

And we literally have home court advantage in the playoffs, we are way ahead of just getting lousy play-ins. Are you delusional man?

When a beautiful women looks your way for the first time, you fall on your knees and ask for her hand or you ask her for a dinner ?
When play offs look at you for the first time, you use most of your assets before you even get there or you make small adjustments and keep assets until your stars are ready and you know what they need to succed ?

[eyriq]

See this is exactly the problem with the mentality of the front office.

I'm sure Weltman will echo your talking point of:
"we are in X year of the rebuild and won Y more games than last season therefore there's no reason to fix anything and we can rely on internal growth"

I actually agree with this talking point. There is no reason to rush things.

You believe that they have no reason to upgrade the roster? You think Anthony Black in his rookie season was enough for playoff aspirations? You thought Joe Ingles was the appropriate bench depth for a playoff run?

Either the FO had significantly lower standards for this group, or they decided it wasn’t the right time to add veteran talent while developing. We will see when the season ends how big their plans were.

I think they have reason to upgrade the roster. We have injury prone players on expiring contracts, easy upgrades. We have holdovers from the re-tool period that are not obvious fits. There is overlap between the two sets of players, so even more obvious who is out and where we should upgrade.

I think these upgrades will happen. How they happen is a different matter. The momentum is on AB and Jett replacing Fultz and Harris. There are some other logical candidates.

The re-tool era players are Isaac, Fultz, Cole, and Okeke.

The expiring contracts are Fultz, Harris, Goga, and Okeke.

The injury prone players are Fultz, Harris, JI, and WCJ.

- Fultz checks all three boxes.
- Okeke, Isaac, and Harris check two.

Fair to say only Isaac survives another season out of this group.

Cole and WCJ are two medium term role players. Good players on controllable and tradable contracts. The rest of the role players that aren't expiring are on short deals with team options; Ingles, Moe, and JI. Upgrade candidates.

My point is that upgrades are needed and we are set up to make them. We aren't locked into this current roster in the slightest.

[eyriq]

Read on Twitter

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[Bensational]

I'm sure Weltman will echo your talking point of:
"we are in X year of the rebuild and won Y more games than last season therefore there's no reason to fix anything and we can rely on internal growth"

Nah. They have only done their job in terms of drafting lotto picks and have kept deteriorating assets around because its ultimately been convenient to not make decisions. We know this because they were all here before they even knew how the offense was going to look without the correct personnel. The result is exactly what we saw in this game and most nights in general. Ass bottom 5 offense and a top defense that struggles when Isaac isnt available to match up other teams 6'8 + forwards and bigs.

No team is going to go into a season expecting losses. They are going to maximize wins regardless of their circumstances. However, just because you make the playoffs doesn't mean you are built as a "playoff team". If teams can pick the Magic apart with a simple zone they are going to get embarrassed. Which is exactly what I expect due to the FO not being prepared in the offseason by making decisions. Cool I guess? Maybe they need to be humbled with a gentleman's sweep so they have to actually make decisions.

How you’re so upset and miserable in middle of the team’s best season in over a decade is pretty pathetic, to the point that you’re actively rooting against the team just so you can see a PG and ortg improvements. When you’re angry at success, I think you’re the one who needs to be humbled.

[MagicMatic]

I'm sure Weltman will echo your talking point of:
"we are in X year of the rebuild and won Y more games than last season therefore there's no reason to fix anything and we can rely on internal growth"

Nah. They have only done their job in terms of drafting lotto picks and have kept deteriorating assets around because its ultimately been convenient to not make decisions. We know this because they were all here before they even knew how the offense was going to look without the correct personnel. The result is exactly what we saw in this game and most nights in general. Ass bottom 5 offense and a top defense that struggles when Isaac isnt available to match up other teams 6'8 + forwards and bigs.

No team is going to go into a season expecting losses. They are going to maximize wins regardless of their circumstances. However, just because you make the playoffs doesn't mean you are built as a "playoff team". If teams can pick the Magic apart with a simple zone they are going to get embarrassed. Which is exactly what I expect due to the FO not being prepared in the offseason by making decisions. Cool I guess? Maybe they need to be humbled with a gentleman's sweep so they have to actually make decisions.

How you’re so upset and miserable in middle of the team’s best season in over a decade is pretty pathetic, to the point that you’re actively rooting against the team just so you can see a PG and ortg improvements. When you’re angry at success, I think you’re the one who needs to be humbled.

K

[The-Stallion70]

Its hard not to agree with you, but they try If facts dont fit, too bad for facts.
Its mostly semantics. You can call everything you do "constructing", but thats not what you meant.
The most important thing is that we are not done "constructing, we are not even close. Its possible we will leave 3-4 players from our rotation next year.
Yes we can agree this year we are done "constructing" roster, but our goal was never maximizing wins. We wanted to keep the team together and develop young players. I think roster was constructed OK for this. Yes we need PG badly, but we reached play ins without it so who cares.

What are you even talking about?

Of course we want to maximize wins, we are not a damned farm team, lol. Are you a Lakers fan? We are not just trying to develop players, the Magic are here to kick some ass now

And we literally have home court advantage in the playoffs, we are way ahead of just getting lousy play-ins. Are you delusional man?

I really think you have made this assumption in your head that just because the Magic have home court advantage that the magic are done and ready to compete when this is far from the truth. In all honesty, most didn’t expect the Magic to be in this position and most are not expecting much in the playoffs. They are far ahead off schedule. Outside of Suggs, Paolo, and Franz this team has so much to fix. I am expecting big moves in the offseason.

We have things to fix but we have far fewer things to fix than those teams who peformed worse than we did this year! How else do you define success?

You lack perspective if you can only see the negative when the Magic have their best season in over a decade

You develop by winning games.

Did the fact that Boston won a lot of games early on in Tatum's and Brown's career somehow hurt their development? Hell no it didn't, it helped them along because they came to understand the kind of work it takes and the commitment needed in order to win.

Listen I'm not saying the Magic have no more work to do, I'm saying that as it stands right now, our team is better than 2 thirds of the Eastern conference and that it is okay to adjust your loser mentality accordingly. I never said that the team has no more work to do, I'm saying the REBUILD is over.

Gone are the days of twenty something wins and looking up draft prospects year to year.