2024 NBA Playoffs Round 1 Game 1: (5) Orlando Magic at (4) Cleveland Cavaliers

[The-Stallion70]

Trae makes 43, 46, and 49 mil the next 3 years and will take 4+ picks and possibly AB and Jett to land him. He is just wildly overrated by his FO. Most hardcore nba fans get it but the Atlanta Hawks’ FO is delusional.

I suspect it will take less. We shall see though.

You are pretty delusional if you all think we can get Trae **** Young for that garbage.

Just because they're young doesn't mean they will get better.

[SOUL]

AB getting minutes is totally warranted if we want to see him over Fultz.

Goga/WCJ are interchangable depending on what looks you want. Although I'd argue if you want to play Goga, you can't play Moe. Or you have to start Goga and bench Isaac now. You can't have two guys operating inside at the same time.

This whole "we won 9 straight games because of AB/Goga" is just unfounded crap. It's happenstance. Our bench was literally ON fire and AB played decent while Goga was a steadying center and played well.

We won 7 games in a row last year with Fultz/Bol Bol starting. Doesn't mean schit.

[MagicMatic]

Black getting minutes would be nice since Fultz is done and these minutes would be great for his development, but I doubt he'd make much difference, he's been out of the rotation for too long and still pretty raw.

A bad as Cole was, we need to play him since him getting hot is one of the very few plausable roads to a good offensive performance in the playoffs against a good team for us.

The problem is that AB should've never STOPPED playing.... He earned the minutes and didn't play bad enough to be played off the floor or to rack up DNPs... It was decision based off trust and not production on the floor

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Reinstating Fultz in January over Black with a 9 game win streak against good competition was a monumental error on Moselys part. There is zero upside to playing Fultz at any point this season. People don’t want to believe that, but it’s just true.

Why spend a lotto pick on a guy, give him success in his minutes, and then take that away for a flawed player that won’t and shouldn’t be here next year? Even as a rookie AB has more dimension to his game as well as an actual upside.

I’m not even saying he’s the solution to this offense.. It’s just a logical decision that makes me question Mosely.

[Last Guardian]

PHX lost by more than we did. Man, the Western Conference is trash.

[KillMonger]

AB getting minutes is totally warranted if we want to see him over Fultz.

Goga/WCJ are interchangable depending on what looks you want. Although I'd argue if you want to play Goga, you can't play Moe. Or you have to start Goga and bench Isaac now. You can't have two guys operating inside at the same time.

This whole "we won 9 straight games because of AB/Goga" is just unfounded crap. It's happenstance. Our bench was literally ON fire and AB played decent while Goga was a steadying center and played well.

We won 7 games in a row last year with Fultz/Bol Bol starting. Doesn't mean schit.

I disagree, they are part of what won us those games whether it's due to chemistry, playstyle or whatever intangible....what makes that irrefutable to me is, that was the best stretch of basketball we've played all season and we have yet to get back to that... It just so happens that when we replace those two guys in the lineup we go back to playing uneven basketball? Dunno.... Hey maybe it is happenstance, c'est la vie.......cant do anything about it now

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[Optimus_Steel]

Weltman has been here 7 years and has been completely incapable of adding 3-point shooting (really any shooting) to this team.

He totally blew the 2023 draft. We didn't need more 20-year-old rookies, but he drafted two of them anyway. Worse, neither is good enough to even make the rotation, even though Orlando has the absolute worst backcourt in the NBA (and second-worst isn't close). He should've traded the picks to address obvious weaknesses on this roster. Now we have two stiffs who probably don't even have much trade value (certainly not as much value as they had as numbers 6 and 11 on draft night).

Then he let the trade deadline pass despite having several expiring contracts and guys on rookie deals, in additional to future firsts. He's never added a top-tier free agent, so this summer's cap space is useless. It just feels like all windows have closed while he sat on his hands.

How is this summer free agency useless??? Some of these takes lol. Black has shown things so he is clearly not a stiff. We haven’t seen Jett in real minutes so we don’t know. Now that they’ve seen the team is competitive they will be aggressive.

Ok, forget about our opinions, if Coach Mosley thought Black and Jett had any ability to help, don't you think they would get some minutes? I don't think it's asking too much for your lottery picks to AT LEAST be good enough to make the rotation. They don't have to make the all-rookie team, just make the freaking rotation. Mosley watches these guys practice every day and his opinion is that they aren't better than Fultz, Anthony, Suggs and Harris (who were 4-33 combined from the floor today, 1-16 from three). I think it's fair to say they're not very good.

Summer free agency is useless if your GM is too timid to make a move. The sample size is large enough and Welt has had cap space before. I wouldn't expect much.

They weren’t trying to compete before, intentionally, whereas the team exceeding expectations this year has now expedited that mindset. They will be active this summer. On the rookies, why they didn’t play more, once they started seeing they were more competitive trying to play too many young guys is not conductive to being a playoff team. The main guys on this team are already very young, they needed some veteran presence around them.

[Bensational]

Imagine writing that much in defense of a collective 0-17 performance from 3 guards in 57 minutes of court time.

Imagine not being able to write a logical reply

So I'd like to ask again... everyone outside of Paolo should be benched for giving nothing today, right?

Should we run the deep bench more next game?

Also, is Anthony Black a better offensive player than Gary Harris and Cole Anthony?

Why bench everyone when 0-17 in the backcourt can be addressed?

Do you actually think 0-17 in 57 minutes on the court is the best that could have been achieved? Do you actually think that standard of play which leads to a loss is more valuable than whatever results come from getting our rookies play time? Do you actually value that production from 2 guys who could very likely be off the team in a matter of weeks over the rookies we're developing? (Oh, and they’re most definitely in the future plans because who was the last player WeHam drafted and traded before their rookie contract was up? None that I can think of).

I don’t have to think Black is a better offensive player, I just have to think that his development is a higher priority than protecting 0-17 performances from guys who have questionable futures with the team. YOU are the one trying to make a case that 0-17 is a calibre of play that shouldn’t be questioned and that is just laughable.

[thelead]

Trae makes 43, 46, and 49 mil the next 3 years and will take 4+ picks and possibly AB and Jett to land him. He is just wildly overrated by his FO. Most hardcore nba fans get it but the Atlanta Hawks’ FO is delusional.

I suspect it will take less. We shall see though.

You are pretty delusional if you all think we can get Trae **** Young for that garbage.

Just because they're young doesn't mean they will get better.

I don't expect Atlanta to trade him anyway because they owe the Spurs their next 3 1st round picks. I bet they try to trade Dejounte for someone like Ingram and try to make something work with Trae. I personally think Trae is wildly overrated and isn't a player worth building around but they, and many, think otherwise. The package above would be an overpay IMO for an overpaid Trae Young.

[MagicMatic]

How is this summer free agency useless??? Some of these takes lol. Black has shown things so he is clearly not a stiff. We haven’t seen Jett in real minutes so we don’t know. Now that they’ve seen the team is competitive they will be aggressive.

Ok, forget about our opinions, if Coach Mosley thought Black and Jett had any ability to help, don't you think they would get some minutes? I don't think it's asking too much for your lottery picks to AT LEAST be good enough to make the rotation. They don't have to make the all-rookie team, just make the freaking rotation. Mosley watches these guys practice every day and his opinion is that they aren't better than Fultz, Anthony, Suggs and Harris (who were 4-33 combined from the floor today, 1-16 from three). I think it's fair to say they're not very good.

Summer free agency is useless if your GM is too timid to make a move. The sample size is large enough and Welt has had cap space before. I wouldn't expect much.

They weren’t trying to compete before, intentionally, whereas the team exceeding expectations this year has now expedited that mindset. They will be active this summer. On the rookies, why they didn’t play more, once they started seeing they were more competitive trying to play too many young guys is not conductive to being a playoff team. The main guys on this team are already very young, they needed some veteran presence around them.

Word?

Yeah those vets really stepped up today. Glad they decided to bench their investments over guys that should be in China next year. Looks like it paid off for them.

[JF5]

Black getting minutes would be nice since Fultz is done and these minutes would be great for his development, but I doubt he'd make much difference, he's been out of the rotation for too long and still pretty raw.

A bad as Cole was, we need to play him since him getting hot is one of the very few plausable roads to a good offensive performance in the playoffs against a good team for us.

The problem is that AB should've never STOPPED playing.... He earned the minutes and didn't play bad enough to be played off the floor or to rack up DNPs... It was decision based off trust and not production on the floor

Sent from my [Hands] using RealGM mobile app

Reinstating Fultz in January over Black with a 9 game win streak against good competition was a monumental error on Moselys part. There is zero upside to playing Fultz at any point this season. People don’t want to believe that, but it’s just true.

Why spend a lotto pick on a guy, give him success in his minutes, and then take that away for a flawed player that won’t and shouldn’t be here next year? Even as a rookie AB has more dimension to his game as well as an actual upside.

I’m not even saying he’s the solution to this offense.. It’s just a logical decision that makes me question Mosely.

You do realize Fultz only started 10 games during that time and went 7-3, right?

[thelead]

JI played 29 minutes today... had 3 steals, 3 blocks, and shot 2-4 from deep and we still lost. The guards were just straight trash today. Nothing could overcome how bad the backcourt was on offense.

[CocoaFan]

Fact or fiction…

The Magic win today's game with Trae Young starting at PG.

If we can keep Franz, Paolo, Suggs and JI yes

[KillMonger]

This defence we can bring to game 2 but the offense....i hate to just say "make shots" lineup change? Death lineup? Franz at the 2? When Franz switched on Mitchell few times didn't look too bad defensively....

Suggs
Wagner
Banchero
JI
Dell

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[MagicMatic]

The problem is that AB should've never STOPPED playing.... He earned the minutes and didn't play bad enough to be played off the floor or to rack up DNPs... It was decision based off trust and not production on the floor

Sent from my [Hands] using RealGM mobile app

Reinstating Fultz in January over Black with a 9 game win streak against good competition was a monumental error on Moselys part. There is zero upside to playing Fultz at any point this season. People don’t want to believe that, but it’s just true.

Why spend a lotto pick on a guy, give him success in his minutes, and then take that away for a flawed player that won’t and shouldn’t be here next year? Even as a rookie AB has more dimension to his game as well as an actual upside.

I’m not even saying he’s the solution to this offense.. It’s just a logical decision that makes me question Mosely.

You do realize Fultz only started 10 games during that time and went 7-3, right?

What is your point?

I’m saying that Black is a better investment and had early success as a rookie starter. It doesn’t matter what Fultz does if he’s not here next season and the team looks like **** when he’s in the game.

[Bergmaniac]

AB getting minutes is totally warranted if we want to see him over Fultz.

Goga/WCJ are interchangable depending on what looks you want. Although I'd argue if you want to play Goga, you can't play Moe. Or you have to start Goga and bench Isaac now. You can't have two guys operating inside at the same time.

This whole "we won 9 straight games because of AB/Goga" is just unfounded crap. It's happenstance. Our bench was literally ON fire and AB played decent while Goga was a steadying center and played well.

We won 7 games in a row last year with Fultz/Bol Bol starting. Doesn't mean schit.

Yeah, that win streak was mostly about the bench. We were winning the Isaac minutes by some absurd margins (28.3 net rating), Cole was on a hot streak and averaged 16 PPG and shot over 40% from 3, Harris was playing very well off the bench, Ingles still had juice in his legs and looked great as the main playmaker on the second unit and Moe looked really good too. Goga was doing very well as a starter, true, but Black was decent at best, he had his moments on D but he was quite dreadful on offense (4.0 PPG on 35 % from the field and 18% from 3 and very little playmaking) and was the only player in the rotation with negative net rating.

[Last Guardian]

JI played 29 minutes today... had 3 steals, 3 blocks, and shot 2-4 from deep and we still lost. The guards were just straight trash today. Nothing could overcome how bad the backcourt was on offense.

But do we rush it and make a trade or overpay someone, or do we just give AB and Jett a chance. Talking next year, of course.

[JF5]

Imagine writing that much in defense of a collective 0-17 performance from 3 guards in 57 minutes of court time.

Imagine not being able to write a logical reply

So I'd like to ask again... everyone outside of Paolo should be benched for giving nothing today, right?

Should we run the deep bench more next game?

Also, is Anthony Black a better offensive player than Gary Harris and Cole Anthony?

Why bench everyone when 0-17 in the backcourt can be addressed?

Do you actually think 0-17 in 57 minutes on the court is the best that could have been achieved? Do you actually think that standard of play which leads to a loss is more valuable than whatever results come from getting our rookies play time? Do you actually value that production from 2 guys who could very likely be off the team in a matter of weeks over the rookies we're developing? (Oh, and they’re most definitely in the future plans because who was the last player WeHam drafted and traded before their rookie contract was up? None that I can think of).

I don’t have to think Black is a better offensive player, I just have to think that his development is a higher priority than protecting 0-17 performances from guys who have questionable futures with the team. YOU are the one trying to make a case that 0-17 is a calibre of play that shouldn’t be questioned and that is just laughable.

So you're for benching players after one bad game? You'd totally make a great head coach. Hey next time I see Paolo shoot 1-15 or 2-16 I better see that same energy.

Regardless of players recent season averages and recent track record. We'll just bench them. Got it ....

Also, deep bench rookie development in the postseason. ... I've NEVER in my life watching basketball seen teams in the playoffs prioritizing those type of player unless said young player was a core player. You're trying to win games and fighting for your playoff life. Lmao

[Bensational]

AB getting minutes is totally warranted if we want to see him over Fultz.

Goga/WCJ are interchangable depending on what looks you want. Although I'd argue if you want to play Goga, you can't play Moe. Or you have to start Goga and bench Isaac now. You can't have two guys operating inside at the same time.

This whole "we won 9 straight games because of AB/Goga" is just unfounded crap. It's happenstance. Our bench was literally ON fire and AB played decent while Goga was a steadying center and played well.

We won 7 games in a row last year with Fultz/Bol Bol starting. Doesn't mean schit.

I disagree, they are part of what won us those games whether it's due to chemistry, playstyle or whatever intangible....what makes that irrefutable to me is, that was the best stretch of basketball we've played all season and we have yet to get back to that... It just so happens that when we replace those two guys in the lineup we go back to playing uneven basketball? Dunno.... Hey maybe it is happenstance, c'est la vie.......cant do anything about it now

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There’s nothing unfounded about it though, the proof is in the lineup data - in which they were net+ and one of our best lineups this season. Refuting that is just wilfully trying to ignore their success.

But that lineup did seem to run out of steam towards the end of their run so it’s equally hard to confirm how sustainable that would’ve been long term.

[KillMonger]

You're not going to get the same energy, people are more forgiving of Paolo and Franz because they're 2nd and 3rd year players respectively.... Patience is much shorter for veterans that are not performing

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[thelead]

JI played 29 minutes today... had 3 steals, 3 blocks, and shot 2-4 from deep and we still lost. The guards were just straight trash today. Nothing could overcome how bad the backcourt was on offense.

But do we rush it and make a trade or overpay someone, or do we just give AB and Jett a chance. Talking next year, of course.

Personally, I upgrade the roster via trade AND free agency. Let's say we sign IHart, sign Monk, and trade WCJ and a pick for Sexton. I would still hold onto AB, if I can, and continue to see it out with him but we should be accumulating as much talent as possible.

Imagine we do all of that and 3 or 4 months into next season, Booker requests a trade and has the magic on his list. Well, we now have additional assets to make a deal if PHX is forced to make a trade. This is not likely but we should be adding as much talent as possible. Always.