2021-2022 Regular Season Game 72: Oklahoma City Thunder (20-50) at Orlando Magic (18-53) - 3/20/22 - 6pm ET

[pepe1991]

We didn't need to win this, nor we played to win. But OKC menaged to play worst. On to a next.

This is an embarrassing win and by far the worst win of the season for the Magic (and I don't mean in a tank way; as all wins are good wins).

Look: OKC had a roster that would resemble a really, really good- G-league team. Given that Orlando played a "fully" healthy roster, this should have been a dominating win for Orlando. And it starts with TOs. How on gash-green Earth does Orlando rack up 21 TOs against this roster. Add to that the horrible FG% numbers, and one would think that Orlando jus played the best defensive team in the league.

Awful game all around. But players don't tank. And OKC is willing to go through lenghts of tanking other teams simply aren't.

Anyway, i understand concept of tanking if there is somebody worth tanking for. What i don't understand is tanking for... Jabari Smith or Paulo Banchero ( or even Chet Holmgren) or falling out of top 3 to figure you tanked for Jaden Ivey or AJ Griffin.
Late Edit: i don't think Banchero is bad passer, i think, much like it was case with Cade, people mistake okey passer to playmaker, there are bunch of solid nba passers but very few playmaker

Those guys may or may not turn into some stars and have unexpected, exponentional growth in their game, but today all of them are, at least in my eyes, projected starters and nothing more.


When you start slicing prospects you get conclusions like: Paulo Banchero is taller Cade Cunningham. Not plus shooter, not plus passer, probably not very good defender, and him being PF as minus defender will be even bigger issue.

Jabari is pick&pop option in nba. NBA teams wont' be running offense for him isolating on elbow so he can take awful, contested, long twos. And if they do, they are doomed anyway. So we can look at Markannen, at apolute best less mobile Rashard. Realistic option and highest ceiling are both complimentary peaces.

Chet COULD turn into very ,very good player because he understands game better than other prospects and has mobility and insticts. But you also have to be fine with notion that he may just as easly end up looking like Pokuševski. He is not backing down against contact today, but once he takes 15 bumps in single game against some beefty 260 pounds center or gets crushed into some fatty Marcus Smart after screen, how willing he will be to expose his body to so much contact and will he turn into glorified corner 3 point specialist on offense because of it?
At the end of a day you are drafting 7 footer who weights 200 pounds.

[fendilim]

And the 2 teams that out-tanked us last year picked 1 and 2....

Yup. It is luck.

Sure... but if we beat OKC on Wednesday and end up with worse odds because we fall to 4th worst, I don't want to hear about 'luck'. It then becomes math.

Can also jump. 3rd and 4th overall last year didnt have the best odds either.

Lets all not overreact until the lottery is over.

[drsd]

Can also jump. 3rd and 4th overall last year didnt have the best odds either.

Lets all not overreact until the lottery is over.

Respectfully, the 3rd worst team actually does have the same lottery odds. And the 4tth worst team has nearly similar odds. (the 5th worst team also has good lottery odds).

[cedric76]

i d take WCJ over any of those so-called "top 3" draft prospects

I wouldn't cry if we get the 4th pick

HOWEVER, I d rather be lucky (yes, it s a lottery) and land the 1st pick, which would give us more options

And guess what, by finishing bottom 3, you have the same odds to land the 1st pick

so stop with this non stop crying

[LDNMagic90]

Hate the win for the purpose of the Tank.

Love the game from Wendell because I've become a huge fan of his lol.

[Magic_Kingdom]

We were one of the three with best odds last yr, ended up with Suggs.

It is luck, or bad luck.

And the 2 teams that out-tanked us last year picked 1 and 2....

Yeah but you know that had nothing to do with math under the new system. It was just bad luck. We had the *exact* same odds as Houston and Detroit of winning picks 1, 2, 3 and 4. Their numbers came up, ours didn't. So finishing third-worst last season was only relevant to our floor (lowest we could pick), and it didn't even impact that because first and second-worst both won top-4 picks. That is why the odds of picking #5 are so high -- if you are one of the three worst teams and don't win a top-4 pick, the odds of the other two worst teams *also* not winning top-4 picks are fairly low.

If you want to talk "out-tanking", think of it this way -- last season Detroit and Houston out-tanked us and it didn't matter in the odds. All three teams had the same odds but they were lucky, we weren't. And, we out-tanked Cleveland and Toronto but it didn't matter in the results. We had better odds of winning a top-4 pick than they did, but they got lucky and we didn't. One reason for that is because under the new system the odds are so flattened that we are only talking percentage points for any individual pick. Cleveland (#5 pre-lottery) and Toronto (#7 pre-lottery) did not have significantly worse odds for those two picks than we did.

[zaymon]

At this point i dont really care about our positioning. We wont move past 4th worst standing. Its not worth the energy. 5-7 is a toss up. I like prospects in late lottery.

[Blue_and_Whte]

I’m a fan of WCJ’s Horace-Esque goggles

[pepe1991]

At this point i dont really care about our positioning. We wont move past 4th worst standing. Its not worth the energy. 5-7 is a toss up. I like prospects in late lottery.

This is where i stand as well.
I don't think draft is all that worth going ba** out and in same time what if 7th and 8th worst team take 1,2 spots, will people than complain that team didn't compete enough ( happened when Zion & Morant got drafted).

I'm not even sure teams necessary want to draft first overall due probably unrealistic expetations that come from 1# pick.

Magic drafting much better player with 8th pick than with 5th pick , Dasmond Bane drafted 30, being better than probably 28 players drafted before him is best example of "pointlessnesses" of whole concept of lottery.

There is soccer term on defense " you can either defend player or space" people tend to ovethink draft proscess in general. You can either gun for particular player and build system around him OR you can have system in play and aim for player that fits it.
And in most cases , most teams who sucks DON'T have player to build team around, so only logical decision should be second.
However , main issue with that comes from fact that vast majority of coaches on bad teams are easly manipulated, easly replaced yes-men who hide behind flosses like " defense, pace and space, right energy, hard competing". That's why after tanking, every team has to change coach to actually start winning games or pass playoffs.

[Bergmaniac]

This was a train wreck of the game, both teams were so bad. But at least OKC had the excuse that they were missing pretty much all of their top players, we had almost everyone playing. WCJ was the only one who had a good game. Mo Wagner was a disaster on both ends. But OKC outtanked us, it's pretty hard to lose against a team which has Pokushevski and Tre Mann as their first two options offensively, both have a TS% of well below 50.

Fultz with a third bad game in a row, the talk about him being on the verge of stardom after his first few good games back was way premature. He is shooting 29.6% on jumpshots for the season despite barely taking any 3s. Small sample size and all, It will probably improve somewhat, but without 3 ball he needs to be automatic from mid range to be an efficient scorer and he really doesn't seem to be that.

[thelead]

This was a train wreck of the game, both teams were so bad. But at least OKC had the excuse that they were missing pretty much all of their top players, we had almost everyone playing. WCJ was the only one who had a good game. Mo Wagner was a disaster on both ends. But OKC outtanked us, it's pretty hard to lose against a team which has Pokushevski and Tre Mann as their first two options offensively, both have a TS% of well below 50.

Fultz with a third bad game in a row, the talk about him being on the verge of stardom after his first few good games back was way premature. He is shooting 29.6% on jumpshots for the season despite barely taking any 3s. Small sample size and all, It will probably improve somewhat, but without 3 ball he needs to be automatic from mid range to be an efficient scorer and he really doesn't seem to be that.

Fultz without a 3 is a bench player. The FO giving him that contract knowing that there was no progress on his long-range jumper is VERY concerning.

[anothermagicfan]

That was definitely an ugly win. Wcj had a pretty good game. He had a few ugly plays himself though. I like his determination and grit to keep fighting.

What really stood out to me was chuma okeke. He didn't have a great Stat line but watching him on defense was impressive. On ball, on his man, his help, his rebounds, he takes away angles. He might just turn out to be our best defender. Could even see him yelling to teammates about there positioning a couple of times. Add to that his 3s that don't go in look damn good. He's gonna get a lot of minutes next year

[drsd]

That was definitely an ugly win. Wcj had a pretty good game. He had a few ugly plays himself though. I like his determination and grit to keep fighting.

What really stood out to me was chuma okeke. He didn't have a great Stat line but watching him on defense was impressive. On ball, on his man, his help, his rebounds, he takes away angles. He might just turn out to be our best defender. Could even see him yelling to teammates about there positioning a couple of times. Add to that his 3s that don't go in look damn good. He's gonna get a lot of minutes next year

And-1

If Okeke can provide that sort of bench effort game in and game out, next to Mr. chucker Anthony as the secondary PG, those two could be a useful pair on the second unit.

[jonbob17]

Read on Twitter

Will be a stunner if the Magic don't pick up win No. 19 tonight.

Sam Presti committed to draft capital.

Seems like a lifetime ago that we were winning the race to the bottom. 8 and 39 17% winning percentage

We're just going to have to get lucky and hit top 4. Were going to end up with a 45% chance of picking 6th or worse. A coin flip for a gut punch. I mean i guess all these teams are a coin flip, but 5th just seems so much more palatable than 7th.