Official Spec Thread: I guess now's the time to blow this dumpster fire up and bask in the glow!

[MartinsIzAfraud]

So after listening to Weltman, here's what I've gathered.

-The Magic believed this year's team fully healthy could compete for a top 4 seed in the Eastern Conference.

-The Magic knew this year's team was not a title contender even if they competed for homecourt in the first round.

-The Magic knew because of the impending luxury tax issues, it was unlikely they would be able to retain Fournier, which made "running it back" next season not possible.

-Given their place in the standings this year and the fact that next year's team was unlikely to be as good as what this year's team WOULD have been fully healthy, they decided to unload.

This raises some unanswered questions for me.

Weltman just told us he thought the Magic could contend for homecourt in the East, but that they felt they had to blow up what could/should have been a top-4 team in the conference because the owners are too cheap to pay the tax?

So was the plan to stay healthy this year, get home court in the playoffs, try and win a series, but and then cheap out and get worse in the summer?

The logic just doesn't make sense. I felt like Weltman was essentially trying to pitch this season as a "last hurrah" for this group and that change was inevitable no matter how well or poorly they performed.

I'll give it a shot to play the devil here I enjoy that lol.

Magic stay healthy, get top 4 seed win 1 round then get bounced. Fournier probably gets 3 or 4 year 60-80M, let's do 3/60M front loaded. With Markelle + Isaac + Fournier's deal the Magic are in the Tax while having AG for only 1 more year & Vuc for 2 more years.

Now let's look Cap Wise with those contracts above. You're screwed in 22-23 with Bamba + AG next contract.



Even if you renounce AG Bamba AFA MCW Clark Bacon everyone you're still over the cap by 1M with 3 open spots.



So you basically run it back and put yourself further into a hole for what is honestly a 1 year window to win. Not to mention continuing to pick middle 1st round hoping for the right role player. If that doesn't happen then you're trading expiring Vuc, TRoss & pieces further down the line for what value?

[ogmagicfan]

Although if he's (Harris) injured for the year it may help the tank.

Are you advocating tanking out the 2021/22 seasons ?!?!?!?


..

I think tanking next season is inevitable. Our team is going to be the youngest in the league and still lacking enough offensive weapons for a modern offense. It’s for the best if anything. We need talent enough to be flexible instead of forcing players to play outside their role like with the last rebuild.

2-3 year rebuild at minimum, we should have great cap space. We could be in a really good spot come 2023 IF everything falls into place.

[billy5783]

I doubt it. They'll probably have to go through some stupid covid protocols before being allowed to join the team

Tonight is gonna be ROUGH

Do we even have enough guys?

Covid protocols.. they get tested this morning and before the game.. ? or have to quarantine?

I think someone like Hampton could play potentially? I am not sure on all they have to do but he was already in Orlando/Tampa areas and probably had to go through it already. Which means Cliff would give him 2 or 3 minutes tonight.

[Knightro]

Some debate here is nothing but semantic.

4th seed sounds like contender... Than you figure current 4th seed are Hornets ,sitting at 22-21 record.

There is no doubt in my mind that healthy roster would have been top 4 seed on East this year. I mean, somebody has to. Celtics suck, Raptors sinked, for crying out loud, Hawks won 8 of last 10 yet only sit on 22-22 record.

But on greater scale, we would still not be contender.

If cards were dealth in different way and we had healthy roster, Gordon + Evan for star would make sense.

But now, it's just water under a bridge. We won't be playoff- relevant any time soon.

I don't disagree with you at all, they obviously weren't a contender and weren't going to be one with this group. But this is the needle that Weltman was trying to thread this morning.

What bothers me is that Weltman's original plan for this season was for the team to be as good as they could possibly be. Which in and of itself is fine, but that was theor plan knowing full well that they wouldn't be able to retain the same team next year because of the tax.

That part just doesn't work for me.

[Just Plain Mark]

I think its more of the owner wanting to pay lux tax if we can really be contenders.

lux tax then pretenders isnt gonna cut it.

Ok fair enough, but you have the CEO Martins and the President of Basketball Ops Weltman both within 10 days of each other suggesting publicly that they thought this team was good enough to compete for homecourt in the first round and that they were just killed by injuries.

If they really believed that is true, then why wouldn't they keep the team together give it another shot next year when everyone is healthy + a top 5 pick who might be able to come in right away and make a positive impact?

If the luxury tax was the primary concern, there would have been ways to get under via trades.

But for argument's sake, let's say avoiding the luxury tax was a no questions asked mandate from ownership.

They couldn't have predicted all these injuries.

So Weltman is telling us that the master plan was for the Magic to win as much as possible this year, but then they were willingly going to chose to be worse in 2021-2022 because of financial reasons.

That is indefensible, right?

Who would have been REALLY better than us if healthy?
MIL, PHI and BRK, Those for sure. Who has shown to be that much better than us with Vuc, Evan, AG and Fultz?

If there are only a few teams in the East that better than the Magic in then, like Knightro said, it doesn't make sense to blow the team up. Keep the team, add the draft pick and the team will be even better.

[basketballRob]

Beat of Sports radio show reaction to the Vuc trade.


https://www.iheart.com/podcast/default-slug-26936826/?cmp=android_share&sc=android_social_share&pr=false

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[Def Swami]

If you watch the Weltman interview, it kind of sounds like all three of those guys (Vucevic, Gordon, and Fournier) were frustrated and requested trades. There was something to Gordon's "others feel the same" comment.

[The Real Dalic]

If you watch the Weltman interview, it kind of sounds like all three of those guys (Vucevic, Gordon, and Fournier) were frustrated and requested trades. There was something to Gordon's "others feel the same" comment.

Yeah, it sounds like Gordon and Fournier were the first to step up and when Vuc caught wind of that, he decided it would be best for him to move on as well.

I don't blame any one of them. A move needed to be made a couple of years ago anyway. We couldn't keep going on our current trajectory. We were starting to stagnate hard. With no cap flexibilty on top of that.

[JBSouthpaw]

Ok fair enough, but you have the CEO Martins and the President of Basketball Ops Weltman both within 10 days of each other suggesting publicly that they thought this team was good enough to compete for homecourt in the first round and that they were just killed by injuries.

If they really believed that is true, then why wouldn't they keep the team together give it another shot next year when everyone is healthy + a top 5 pick who might be able to come in right away and make a positive impact?

If the luxury tax was the primary concern, there would have been ways to get under via trades.

But for argument's sake, let's say avoiding the luxury tax was a no questions asked mandate from ownership.

They couldn't have predicted all these injuries.

So Weltman is telling us that the master plan was for the Magic to win as much as possible this year, but then they were willingly going to chose to be worse in 2021-2022 because of financial reasons.

That is indefensible, right?

Who would have been REALLY better than us if healthy?
MIL, PHI and BRK, Those for sure. Who has shown to be that much better than us with Vuc, Evan, AG and Fultz?

If there are only a few teams in the East that better than the Magic in then, like Knightro said, it doesn't make sense to blow the team up. Keep the team, add the draft pick and the team will be even better.

Evan was gone at the end of the year, and AG made a trade request. It was about where we actually stand for this year.
Evan leaves, we are still over the cap.
Now we have assets, and Cap room.

[The Real Dalic]

Does anyone know the status of Gary Harris and his injuries? I know Cole Anthony just started non-contact drills again recently, but I don't know anything about Harris.

I would assume it will be at least 2 weeks for both players to get back. Which should also hopefully mean that we will be seeing a lot of Hampton.

[Blue_and_Whte]

If you watch the Weltman interview, it kind of sounds like all three of those guys (Vucevic, Gordon, and Fournier) were frustrated and requested trades. There was something to Gordon's "others feel the same" comment.

Yeah, it sounds like Gordon and Fournier were the first to step up and when Vuc caught wind of that, he decided it would be best for him to move on as well.

I don't blame any one of them. A move needed to be made a couple of years ago anyway. We couldn't keep going on our current trajectory. We were starting to stagnate hard. With no cap flexibilty on top of that.

And it’s done now so we should move on. They aren’t Magicians anymore. Time to focus on who’s here and what we should do moving forward. Hopefully we’ll be watching what Mo, RJ, Okeke, and WCJ can do with more minutes and opportunities. I have zero issues with coach Cliff but It’s a youth movement and if he can’t get on board with that then they should move on from him, and I honestly wouldn’t blame him if he did.

[jonbob17]

I just don't understand how anyone could say they believed this is a top 4 team in the East this season prior to the season. We didn't add anything but a couple of rookies from last season, and we knew Isaac was out for the season. This team was 7 games off of .500 last year. We won 5 games last season against winning teams. We did not get better. We got worse.

Generally a top 4 team is going to be 15 games or so over .500.

Now I can see how someone could look at this year's standings and say see the Hornets are the 4th seed and they are a game over .500. This is not a normal year. Nearly every team has had issues with keeping players on the court due to COVID and rest. Being without your best player is usually a loss in this league. None of our losses can be blamed on that. The schedule is condensed. Good teams are resting their players.

I think that is just talk to cover their previous strategy. To cover Martins previous comments. It's not in the realm of reality.
This front office made the right decision yesterday. I am pretty happy with all the trades. That last team was not a top 4 seed in a normal year, without huge jumps in productivity by Fultz and Isaac.

[basketballRob]

I hope we lose the rest of the games this year and somehow get into the bottom 2. That would nearly guarantee us a top 5. I'd be okay with Ross and Harris taking the rest of the year off

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[fendilim]

Tonight is gonna be ROUGH

Do we even have enough guys?

Covid protocols.. they get tested this morning and before the game.. ? or have to quarantine?

I think someone like Hampton could play potentially? I am not sure on all they have to do but he was already in Orlando/Tampa areas and probably had to go through it already. Which means Cliff would give him 2 or 3 minutes tonight.

I saw in ig that roy parry said none of the new guys will play

[The Real Dalic]

Do we even have enough guys?

Covid protocols.. they get tested this morning and before the game.. ? or have to quarantine?

I think someone like Hampton could play potentially? I am not sure on all they have to do but he was already in Orlando/Tampa areas and probably had to go through it already. Which means Cliff would give him 2 or 3 minutes tonight.

I saw in ig that roy parry said none of the new guys will play

We should have:

PG: MCW/Randle
SG: Bacon/Mane
SF: Ennis
PF: Okeke
C: Bamba/Birch

That's 8. I think you only need 8 suited up to play. If it's 9, we can have either Ross or Anthony dressed to play without playing them if needed.

[JBSouthpaw]

I just don't understand how anyone could say they believe this is a top 4 team in the East this season prior to the season. We didn't add anything but a couple of rookies from last season, and we knew Isaac was out for the season. This team was 7 games off of .500 last year. We won 5 games last season against winning teams. We did not get better. We got worse.

Generally a top 4 team is going to be 15 games or so over .500.

Now I can see how someone could look at this year's standings and say see the Hornets are the 4th seed and they are a game over .500. This is not a normal year. Nearly every team has had issues with keeping players on the court due to COVID and rest. Being without your best player is usually a loss in this league. None of our losses can be blamed on that. The schedule is condensed. Good teams are resting their players.

I think that is just talk to cover their previous strategy. To cover Martins previous comments. It's not in the realm of reality.
This front office made the right decision yesterday. I am pretty happy with all the trades. That last team was not a top 4 seed in a normal year, without huge jumps in productivity by Fultz and Isaac.

Now I will concede this. At the start of the season, NO WAY any of us considered us top 4.
We knew MIL, PHI and BKN,
Most also thought BOS and MIA would be the top5.

[fendilim]

I think someone like Hampton could play potentially? I am not sure on all they have to do but he was already in Orlando/Tampa areas and probably had to go through it already. Which means Cliff would give him 2 or 3 minutes tonight.

I saw in ig that roy parry said none of the new guys will play

We should have:

PG: MCW/Randle
SG: Bacon/Mane
SF: Ennis
PF: Okeke
C: Bamba/Birch

That's 8. I think you only need 8 suited up to play. If it's 9, we can have either Ross or Anthony dressed to play without playing them if needed.

I’ll guess i’ll tune in tonight for bamba haha

[The Real Dalic]

I saw in ig that roy parry said none of the new guys will play

We should have:

PG: MCW/Randle
SG: Bacon/Mane
SF: Ennis
PF: Okeke
C: Bamba/Birch

That's 8. I think you only need 8 suited up to play. If it's 9, we can have either Ross or Anthony dressed to play without playing them if needed.

I’ll guess i’ll tune in tonight for bamba haha

I'm tuning in for sure. We're going to see a drastically different team tonight. I'll be keeping a close eye on Okeke and Bamba tonight. I'm hoping Bamba starts, but you know Cliff, he'll probably end up starting Birch. But I can't wait to see the new look team. Because we now have no one to throw the ball to to save us anymore.

[cedric76]

not sure anymore that Weham like Otto that much, he barely mentioned Otto and Harris during the [ress conference

But he is correct we are now loaded with plenty weapon

Picks
Cap
Assets
Young talented players
Vet on friendly contracts

we ll be back in playoff next season

Go magic

[fendilim]

We should have:

PG: MCW/Randle
SG: Bacon/Mane
SF: Ennis
PF: Okeke
C: Bamba/Birch

That's 8. I think you only need 8 suited up to play. If it's 9, we can have either Ross or Anthony dressed to play without playing them if needed.

I’ll guess i’ll tune in tonight for bamba haha

I'm tuning in for sure. We're going to see a drastically different team tonight. I'll be keeping a close eye on Okeke and Bamba tonight. I'm hoping Bamba starts, but you know Cliff, he'll probably end up starting Birch. But I can't wait to see the new look team. Because we now have no one to throw the ball to to save us anymore.

Bacon will be having the time of his life. Lol