The Nikola poll. Where do you stand?

[tiderulz]

i still think we arent going to go far with Vooch as our starting center. Unless we find our own Ibaka-type player, which 80% of the league is looking for. His offense has high %, but is not efficient as his game does not draw fouls and he cant shoot 3's. Winning a title with a subpar defensive center has not been easy historically, whereas many teams have won with a defensive center that was not great on offense.

[BadMofoPimp]

This is honestly part of the problem...

The perimeter is supposed to be the strength of the defense and they've done a terrible job at keeping their men contained or pushing them out of their comfort zone. Don't get me wrong when it comes to 1on 1 situations they're pretty damn good. But their team defense/awareness is just terrible. Part of that I believe is the fact they're not seasoned enough to understand the underrated and integral intangibles/schemes of being an all around defender.

Exactly. Team defense is not born by obtaining a great one on one defensive player. It is a mindset for the whole team. Look at the Magic when they had a top 5 defense. They had Meer and Hedo as starters who were terrible one on one defensive players.

umm, yeah, they had ONE great defensive player behind them to cover up for their bad defense.

If Dwight was so great, then why has his teams defenses suck balls every where else he has played.

Because, those other teams DO NOT play Team Defense.

[j-ragg]

Or Dwight isn't nearly as good as he was in Orlando.

[tiderulz]

Or Dwight isn't nearly as good as he was in Orlando.

this is what i believe. He has been a shell of himself defensively. He was a complete game changer while in Orlando. LA and Houston, he is a shadow of how he used to be.

[p0peye]

Stan developed a perfect defensive system which used the strengths of our players and covered for their weaknesses. Having a rim protector does not guarantee a good defense, as we could have seen in many examples, Dwight as most recent.

[ezzzp]

Spoiler:

This defend Vuc at all coasts thing you guys have going is pretty neat. For sh*ts and giggles try it with Payton and see what you can come up with.

Both have their issues...right now EP is having a worse impact...

Payton On/Off
Vucevic On/Off

....doesn't mean Vuc is perfect or even ideal...but to shift Vucevic's offensive production to a PF requires the Magic to make two major acquisitions - a high calibre offensive PF and a high calibre defensive C. Proceeding with Vuc requires Magic to make one major acquisition - a high calibre defensive PF.

Or we change the focus of the offense to getting high caliber offense out of our wings?

OKC has two top 5 NBA players on their roster to manage that. Even with that incredibly unique firepower at the 1 and 3 position, they still have Kanter and Ibaka. Is there even 1 top five wing player available for the Magic to acquire?

What high caliber offensive front court player does OKC have in their starting lineup? Or Golden State?

Again OKC has Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. Even still, Kanter is a 23.3 PER and Ibaka who is having a terrible year is at 14.6PER - which btw is better than everyone on Magic except Vuc, Oladipo, Gordon and Harris. GSW have MVP Steph Curry and a barrage of great shooters; for the Magic to replicate that it would mean a total rebuild from scratch as this team only has 1 maybe 2 good not great (at least yet) shooters

We need to prioritise developing someone on the team into a volume go to scorer. That's gonna mean changing who's favoured on offense, and it's likely gonna mean a shift in on/off numbers.

You say that like Magic bigs are the only ones getting shooting opportunities, which is totally not true:

Point Guards [EP, Napier, Watson] 662 total FGA / 19.4 FGA per game
Wings [Oladipo, Fournier, Hezonja] 1263 total FGA / 27.7 FGA per game
Forwards [Gordon, Harris] 817 total FGA / 17.2 FGA per game
Total Non-Bigs [above listed] 2742 total FGA / 64.3 FGA per game

Bigs [Vuc, Smith, Frye, Dedmon, Nicholson] 1363 total FGA / 33.0 FGA per game

I think we've got just as much of a chance replacing Vuc's offensive input with an appropriately geared offense that gets the most out of Payton, Oladipo, Hezonja and Gordon, and getting by with bigs who are just decent at offense and defense.

See above

BUT, I agree it would be easier for the Magic to first try pairing him with some defensive big options, be it PF or another C. Because I'm liking his growing awareness on offense. And trading Fournier/Harris for one of those bigs shouldn't be a major task. It just likely won't look as sexy as many would like.

[JF5]

umm, yeah, they had ONE great defensive player behind them to cover up for their bad defense.

That Magic perimeter played GREAT rotational defense to hide their deficiencies as 1 on 1 defenders... Which was ALSO hidden by Dwight's rim protection... Even though we could **** on guys like Rashard/Nelson/Hedo/Redick/Anderson as individual defenders they knew where they had to be on defense to make that scheme effective.

[JF5]

Or Dwight isn't nearly as good as he was in Orlando.

this is what i believe. He has been a shell of himself defensively. He was a complete game changer while in Orlando. LA and Houston, he is a shadow of how he used to be.

I don't think him being a "Shadow" of himself would stop him from being a good rim protector. He still has more athleticism than the average big man... I just feel that he was put really good position to succeed compared to the other teams he's been apart of. It's not like he has the highest basketball IQ.

[OrlDave]

umm, yeah, they had ONE great defensive player behind them to cover up for their bad defense.

That Magic perimeter played GREAT rotational defense to hide their deficiencies as 1 on 1 defenders... Which was ALSO hidden by Dwight's rim protection... Even though we could **** on guys like Rashard/Nelson/Hedo/Redick as individual defenders they knew where they had to be on defense to make that scheme effective.

Yeah I think a pretty huge part of our defensive issues revolve around the fact training camp was months ago and those habits are still not 2nd nature and guys are still out of place too often. We saw a huge spike early in the year and it's be degrading ever since. Maybe the All Star break will let Skiles retrain the guys for the 2nd half. I don't know.

[ezzzp]

i still think we arent going to go far with Vooch as our starting center. Unless we find our own Ibaka-type player, which 80% of the league is looking for. His offense has high %, but is not efficient as his game does not draw fouls and he cant shoot 3's. Winning a title with a subpar defensive center has not been easy historically, whereas many teams have won with a defensive center that was not great on offense.

You're jumping the gun a bit no?...first this team has to make the playoffs and the core need to be at least in their early prime before we can even begin to start thinking about who or what will work in a championship run. With most of the key core at 23 or below, that is at least 2 to 5 years away.

2-3 years ago, absolutely no one thought Curry would ever be a league MVP or that the GSW's roster was built for a championship and be on their way to surpassing the Bulls 72 win season...

[Bensational]

Or we change the focus of the offense to getting high caliber offense out of our wings?

OKC has two top 5 NBA players on their roster to manage that. Even with that incredibly unique firepower at the 1 and 3 position, they still have Kanter and Ibaka. Is there even 1 top five wing player available for the Magic to acquire?

What high caliber offensive front court player does OKC have in their starting lineup? Or Golden State?

Again OKC has Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. Even still, Kanter is a 23.3 PER and Ibaka who is having a terrible year is at 14.6PER - which btw is better than everyone on Magic except Vuc, Oladipo, Gordon and Harris. GSW have MVP Steph Curry and a barrage of great shooters; for the Magic to replicate that it would mean a total rebuild from scratch as this team only has 1 maybe 2 good not great (at least yet) shooters

We need to prioritise developing someone on the team into a volume go to scorer. That's gonna mean changing who's favoured on offense, and it's likely gonna mean a shift in on/off numbers.

You say that like Magic bigs are the only ones getting shooting opportunities, which is totally not true:

Point Guards [EP, Napier, Watson] 662 total FGA / 19.4 FGA per game
Wings [Oladipo, Fournier, Hezonja] 1263 total FGA / 27.7 FGA per game
Forwards [Gordon, Harris] 817 total FGA / 17.2 FGA per game
Total Non-Bigs [above listed] 2742 total FGA / 64.3 FGA per game

Bigs [Vuc, Smith, Frye, Dedmon, Nicholson] 1363 total FGA / 33.0 FGA per game

I think we've got just as much of a chance replacing Vuc's offensive input with an appropriately geared offense that gets the most out of Payton, Oladipo, Hezonja and Gordon, and getting by with bigs who are just decent at offense and defense.

See above

BUT, I agree it would be easier for the Magic to first try pairing him with some defensive big options, be it PF or another C. Because I'm liking his growing awareness on offense. And trading Fournier/Harris for one of those bigs shouldn't be a major task. It just likely won't look as sexy as many would like.

Yeah, we don't have Durant, Westbrook or Curry, but we've got Payton, Oladipo, Hezonja and Gordon and only one of those guys has the offense appropriately geared towards his skill set.

Our current offense suits Vuc, Fournier, Frye and Smith and that's about it, and for others to get touches they need to become more adept at playing like that guys in those roles, rather than embracing the strengths of their own game.

OKC had Jeff Green putting up comparable numbers to Vuc, too, but they shipped him out. GSW had Monta putting up comparable numbers, but they shipped him out. And I'm not saying we need to ship Vuc out. There's no reason he couldn't be out Kanter off the bench.

And why are you showing how many shots our bigs take? Vuc and Smith are the only ones that seem to dominate FGAs on the floor. You take Vuc's 16FGAs or whatever he's on away, give maybe 6 to his replacement who scores mostly off put backs and give 10 more shots to Payton/Gordon/Hezonja and with Gordon's ability to get to the rim and Hezonja's ability to hit 3's I'm sure we'll still get the 16ppg that Vuc gives us.

But again, the offense needs to be matched to their games. We can't just expect them to score by standing in the corner.

[tiderulz]

i still think we arent going to go far with Vooch as our starting center. Unless we find our own Ibaka-type player, which 80% of the league is looking for. His offense has high %, but is not efficient as his game does not draw fouls and he cant shoot 3's. Winning a title with a subpar defensive center has not been easy historically, whereas many teams have won with a defensive center that was not great on offense.

You're jumping the gun a bit no?...first this team has to make the playoffs and the core need to be at least in their early prime before we can even begin to start thinking about who or what will work in a championship run. With most of the key core at 23 or below, that is at least 2 to 5 years away.

2-3 years ago, absolutely no one thought Curry would ever be a league MVP or that the GSW's roster was built for a championship and be on their way to surpassing the Bulls 72 win season...

Just my opinion of Vuc and his game.