Official Trade Discussion Thread

[tooler]

I edited my comment above to say the team does have some talent, it just isnt a very well put together team

I agree, and I think moving Tobias is the first step toward trying to bring better balance to the team. I don't think we're done unless certain players make big steps next year. (And hopefully the guys we do move bring in better returns than simply dumping contracts for nothing.)

I'm hoping they're fun to watch again at least. It would be nice if this ignited some energy into the team for the last 30 games. Just give me something.

[BadMofoPimp]

I don't think he is overrated just think he is what he is . I think getting rid of him doesn't really affect us at all long term or short term and if he isn't part of our future I don't have a problem
Getting rid of his contract so we can use that money to try to find someone else who may fit better . I like our young guys and want them to grow together but Harris was the odd man out in the rotation. We get to keep the young guys and at the same time have more options in the summer

I wonder how Magic fans here will react when Dwight comes back as a FA this summer . . .

I wonder how Detroit fans will react Jennings comes back as a FA this summer

I am pretty certain the majority would welcome him back with open arms. Most fans there liked him.

[LBPTarHeel27]

so now we are aiming for 2nd or 3rd tier players?

While I don't think we are aiming for 2nd or 3rd tier players...when it comes to FA, that is likely all we are going to get. The biggest reason being that there is only one top tier player available. Henny will do his due diligence but I think we can all agree there is about a 99.9999% chance of losing out there. Outside of Durant...it is only 2nd tier players.

I believe our approach in FA will be similar to this last summer when we went after Millsap. He is a good player that fit a need.

I can see us looking at guys like Nicolas Batum, Hassan Whiteside, Terrence Jones, Mike Conley, Harrison Barnes, Festus Ezeli, Timofey Mozgov, Ian Mahinmi.

From that list alone, I think our best case scenario in FA this offseason will be landing Batum or Barnes + Jones + one of Ezeli, Mozgov, or Mahinmi, while bringing back Jennings for cheap.

PG Payton / Jennings
SG Fournier / Oladipo
SF Batum / Hezonja
PF Gordon / Jones
C Vucevic / Ezeli

We bring in some proven names that should be able to be had at more reasonable rates. We maintain a lot of flexibility while filling needs. We don't bring in guys that have to get minutes over our young guys.

I think that is the direction we are heading this summer. That is a roster that makes the playoffs as a lower seed in the East but it is a much more attractive roster to join, if you are a stud on the outside looking in. It is also easier to retain a disgruntled star that we may be able to trade for.

my worry about that, Fournier has not played well as a SG, he plays better at SF. And how this would affect chemistry, moving the last team captain to the bench, decreasing his minutes.

Now we are just talking semantics...I'm a big believer that Dipo is destined for a 6th MOY role, so I plug him in there. Depth chart would vary for all of us but the general idea fits.

[darthcheech2000]

repeating myself here...

If we walk into a 23-29 record at the all-star break, most of us would have been ok with that. That track would have us on par with the (more realistic) consensus season record, +/-36 wins and just missing the playoffs.

The problem with ALL of this is the massive fall in January. Thats it, nothing else.

We peeked too early...

Just like our 09 team that made the finals and couldn't get back the following year.

I just hope that our youth can progress alittle faster so we dont end up with the same mess we had. We have a good thing going here.

[Blue_and_Whte]

So what would you have done differently ?!

you can do things right and still have a not so great team. First thing i would do, find a different center. Maybe that means we try out Vuc at PF, i dont know. But we need a better center presence apparently since our "all-world" perimeter defenders cant stop them blowing past them. While i dont think the Harris trade return was good, i can see the need to play Gordon and Hezonja more (though Harris shouldnt have been stopping Gordon from playing due to our lack of PF situation). I will reserve judgement on salary dump until I see how Hennigan uses the space this summer. I can agree in moving Harris since Skiles obviously had no interest in using Harris' strengths. I havent ripped moving Harris, just underwhelmed at what we got back. especially if we brought in Jennings when we could have picked up up from the FA pile during the summer. dont tell me we get an early look at him, he is still slightly damaged goods and recovering from his injury. Whatever we see now would not be Jennings of next year.

I can agree with most of that , I just don't think Harris was going to get us much more than that unfortunately , even with the new cap situation , teams still seemed reluctant to trade for him . New Orleans rather keep Ryan Andersen and possibly lose him for nothing than trade him to get Tobias . As far as Jennings , i think we did that to try to help us out this year and also adding ily adds to our PF depth and gives us a slightly better version of frye with out the long term contract . I like Vuc and think he brings a lot but I. Understand he has some flaws , especially defensively but the reality is there isn't a lot of better options at center , if we can find an upgrade than I'm all for it but I just don't know who would be an upgrade that's available . Whitesides name gets brought up a lot (and not necessarily by you ) but I think whiteside is fools gold , he literally only cares about his stats , he gets blocks but he gambled on almost every play and most times it hurts their defense , hence the reason Miami plays better without him .

A slightly better version of Frye?

I think he brings a lot more than that.

[Mc-o]

you can do things right and still have a not so great team. First thing i would do, find a different center. Maybe that means we try out Vuc at PF, i dont know. But we need a better center presence apparently since our "all-world" perimeter defenders cant stop them blowing past them. While i dont think the Harris trade return was good, i can see the need to play Gordon and Hezonja more (though Harris shouldnt have been stopping Gordon from playing due to our lack of PF situation). I will reserve judgement on salary dump until I see how Hennigan uses the space this summer. I can agree in moving Harris since Skiles obviously had no interest in using Harris' strengths. I havent ripped moving Harris, just underwhelmed at what we got back. especially if we brought in Jennings when we could have picked up up from the FA pile during the summer. dont tell me we get an early look at him, he is still slightly damaged goods and recovering from his injury. Whatever we see now would not be Jennings of next year.

I can agree with most of that , I just don't think Harris was going to get us much more than that unfortunately , even with the new cap situation , teams still seemed reluctant to trade for him . New Orleans rather keep Ryan Andersen and possibly lose him for nothing than trade him to get Tobias . As far as Jennings , i think we did that to try to help us out this year and also adding ily adds to our PF depth and gives us a slightly better version of frye with out the long term contract . I like Vuc and think he brings a lot but I. Understand he has some flaws , especially defensively but the reality is there isn't a lot of better options at center , if we can find an upgrade than I'm all for it but I just don't know who would be an upgrade that's available . Whitesides name gets brought up a lot (and not necessarily by you ) but I think whiteside is fools gold , he literally only cares about his stats , he gets blocks but he gambled on almost every play and most times it hurts their defense , hence the reason Miami plays better without him .

A slightly better version of Frye?

I think he brings a lot more than that.

Hahaha I was trying to be modest but this proves we added some talent .

[Shady Franchise]

"We" weren't saying anything. The board isn't some monolithic entity for you to lawl at. Different people have different opinions.

Personally I thought it was too high but it didn't matter one bit because of the rising cap, so it didn't bother me. He didn't make a leap, but he also didn't collapse. That's important. It means we didn't have to eat his salary or give up assets to dump his contract when the GM identified he wasn't a good fit. See Detroit's Josh Smith, for example.

Nobody was complaining about Harris's contract while he was here. The moment he was traded, Harris became an overrated player on a horribly bad contract. Just typical Magic fans.

Nobody was complaining because we knew it would be easy to move (if necessary) without having to eat the salary like Josh Smith or attach an asset. I still think he's a solid pickup for Detroit.

I don't recall anyone saying he was "an overrated player on a horribly bad contract." Maybe you can cite one or two goofballs, but go yell at them instead of generalizing the entire board.

Just a typical RealGM poster yelling at clouds.

This person is clearly confused with the Trade Boards. Other team fans were saying congrats to Orlando for getting rid of Harris' "bad" contract. A lot more negativity about his contract came from the Trade Boards, than here.

[jezzer45]

I think one thing that is flying under the radar is the ability to absorb contracts. This may be just as important landing a top tier player

so now we are aiming for 2nd or 3rd tier players?

Not quite but it should be on the table in the main strategy this offseason because other than durant every decent fa is a rfa.

Imagine teams trying to position themselves to sign durant or aquire griffin lets say a team like the cavs. We could in theory absorb love into our cap space without touching any of our core hence aquiring an upper tier player without signing them in fa.

[Shady Franchise]

thats fair, though the key players on their title run were trades not FA's. Im just saying, even a owner that players have publicly said they want to play for, didnt go there when Dallas had cap space, so people here need to slow down on this summer for us

Well that's true. I still don't think we need to slow down with a once in a generation talent available. Also how do you not think this isn't a good young core? Because we don't have Tobias? This is clearly a good young core group of players.

is it? it isnt showing in the W/L column

yes, i do agree they have talent, but they might just not play well together because of their individual shortcomings

Losses up to this point have been part of the plan. Losses up to this point have nothing to do with the team having a good or bad core. The team is the closest to .500 and the 8 playoff spot since the rebuild started. That's progress, and it doesn't happen overnight. Next year make a splash in the playoffs, and in a couple of years contend. Oh, and maybe they aren't playing well together yet because they are still all new to each other. This team has been adding pieces and restructuring since Dwight left. This core of Vuc, Vic, Payton, Gordon, Fournier and Mario have only had this season together, really. It's the difference between playing well together, and becoming familiar with each other. I mean come on, they lost to SA by 2 points a week and a half ago, without their "Superstar". Sounds like a good core to me.

[Howard Mass]

The second round pick is Cleveland's own in 2020.

Any protection?

No.

[Skin]

http://espn.go.com/nba/insider/story/_/id/14802623/5-5-experts-oklahoma-city-thunder-los-angeles-clippers-biggest-winners-losers-trade-deadline-nba

Who has the most uncertain future going forward?

Haberstroh: Orlando Magic. Are they trying to win now? Dealing a 23-year-old for two veterans makes sense for a team looking to contend, but their deadline drew the most head scratches in the Casa Haberstroh. If they're trying to land a big-time free agent this summer, I can think of at least 20 better destinations than what they have in Orlando.

WHAT. AN. IDIOT.

He's not wrong though. What's the draw that Orlando will have over other teams this off-season or others to come? If we had a main attraction or star player on the team, I could see it happening. But that draw just isn't there. And that's my biggest issue with this strategy. I think they're trying to turn the tide too fast and may come out empty on the other end.

Appreciate the response. The issues I have on his opinions are that...

1) He's confused on our win now mindset - I mean yeah, we weren't contenders before the deadline, and we aren't some now... but don't we still want to win and take the next step forward in trying to make the playoffs?

2) He describes our situation like we lost some valuable youth or something... "Dealing a 23-year-old for two veterans"... It's not like we acquired 30+ year old veterans. We exchanged our 23 year old for a 26 year old and our 32 year old for a 28 year old... We didn't flip the script from being a young team to an old and having to "win now" team with a short window of opportunity.

3) His interpretation of our cap space is that we created it so that we can blow it all this summer. Why does that have to be the case? We might've created an opportunity to chase, but it doesn't mean we fail if we don't use it all up right away. Who says that's the plan anyways?

4) 20 other teams can't afford to bring in 2 max contracts in FA. So his snarky little remark about us not being a preferred destination is a little off the mark. Cap space is power. Believe there are only 4 other teams that can do that. That said, I don't think that is our plan anyways. FA is weak if you consider the names that will actually be available. But if you think a young up and coming team is an unattractive destination, with no state taxes and warm weather then you are not the FA we are looking for anyways.

[seeingstars]

Well that's true. I still don't think we need to slow down with a once in a generation talent available. Also how do you not think this isn't a good young core? Because we don't have Tobias? This is clearly a good young core group of players.

is it? it isnt showing in the W/L column

yes, i do agree they have talent, but they might just not play well together because of their individual shortcomings

Losses up to this point have been part of the plan. Losses up to this point have nothing to do with the team having a good or bad core. The team is the closest to .500 and the 8 playoff spot since the rebuild started. That's progress, and it doesn't happen overnight. Next year make a splash in the playoffs, and in a couple of years contend. Oh, and maybe they aren't playing well together yet because they are still all new to each other. This team has been adding pieces and restructuring since Dwight left. This core of Vuc, Vic, Payton, Gordon, Fournier and Mario have only had this season together, really. It's the difference between playing well together, and becoming familiar with each other. I mean come on, they lost to SA by 2 points a week and a half ago, without their "Superstar". Sounds like a good core to me.

Believe....

[Blue_and_Whte]

I can agree with most of that , I just don't think Harris was going to get us much more than that unfortunately , even with the new cap situation , teams still seemed reluctant to trade for him . New Orleans rather keep Ryan Andersen and possibly lose him for nothing than trade him to get Tobias . As far as Jennings , i think we did that to try to help us out this year and also adding ily adds to our PF depth and gives us a slightly better version of frye with out the long term contract . I like Vuc and think he brings a lot but I. Understand he has some flaws , especially defensively but the reality is there isn't a lot of better options at center , if we can find an upgrade than I'm all for it but I just don't know who would be an upgrade that's available . Whitesides name gets brought up a lot (and not necessarily by you ) but I think whiteside is fools gold , he literally only cares about his stats , he gets blocks but he gambled on almost every play and most times it hurts their defense , hence the reason Miami plays better without him .

A slightly better version of Frye?

I think he brings a lot more than that.

Hahaha I was trying to be modest but this proves we added some talent .

No worries. The kid can give us damn near what Tobias did but with an actual outside shot and he doesn't need the ball to do his damage. Tobias is EXACTLY the player I've been saying he is for the last couple of years. Demarre Carrol, Tobias, Ersan, J.Green... all the same tier of players.

[MoMM]

The pick that we received is Portland 2nd in 2020? Any protection?

[RickB-Orlando]

I know he's taking some heat, but I'm still 100% on board with henny


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I like Henny too and also like both of these moves.

The only thing that has not worked with this strategy is they have not done that well in The Draft Lottery.

There are a few other small things but it's mostly about The Lottery.

I totally agree. I think we've actually done well in the draft given our pick positions from the lottery.