Official Speculation Thread '19-'20 V: Purgatory

[Def Swami]

The Isaac injury was a seismic blow on multiple levels. It effectively ended our season this year and removed the single most interesting part of this team. The 3 games Isaac did play in the bubble were probably the most excited I was watching this team in a very long time. I was genuinely having a great Sunday afternoon watching the Magic run the Kings out of the gym by 30 while watching Isaac round out into form. Isaac's injury was the Red Wedding of injuries smh. I can't remember the last time an injury gutted our franchise like that. Maybe Grant Hill?

Not only does it remove the single most relevant facet of our team this season, but it impacts what was in store for next season. I believe Isaac becoming a legitimate 2 way player that the team could build with would open up the possibility for Weltman/Hammond to make a move with Gordon or Vucevic or Fournier that would better balance the team and move into a more competitive direction. I'm not sure how the Isaac injury changes their plan for the roster, but it definitely limits the team's ceiling going into next year.

All of that combined, and I understand why fans are pretty despondent. We had a game last week where we started Wes Iwundu, Gary Clark, and James Ennis. Weltman and Hammond didn't really do a lot to improve the ceiling of the team. I get losing Isaac is a blow, but that can't be the end all of your team after 3 seasons of work. I thought the bubble would be a good opportunity to allow Fultz and Bamba to get some experience in meaningful games, but the it feels like the team has other priorities that seem futile.

It's a big offseason for Weltman and Hammond. It was going to be regardless of whether they had Isaac healthy or not. Front offices usually don't last more than 3 seasons without some sort of substantial improvement. Maybe the Magic ownership is content with some .500 basketball and low seed playoff appearances. But your point is important in that it doesn't do much for fan engagement and eyeballs if this is the product. I've always been skeptical of the front office, but I think there will be grounds for changes after this off-season if they just run the same team out there again next season. They'll need some luck to make it back to the playoffs in '20-'21.

Side note: Weltman and Hammond's 3 draft picks are all out of commission for one reason or another lol (Isaac - knee, Bamba - COVID, Okeke - knee).

At least when Grant Hill was injured having a top 5 player in the NBA and one of the best pure scorers of all time In T-Mac helped soften the blow. What was so crushing about the Isaac injury, is he was pretty much all we had to look forward to. Bamba has shown close to nothing up until this point and has been dealing with injuries as well. Fultz has been dealing with injuries and is still reluctant (or just can't) to attempt a pull-up jumper beyond 15 feet. Chuma is an absolute unknown.

The rest of this roster consists of vets who would most likely be suited as 4th options on even borderline championship-contending teams. If you put AG on a team like GSW surrounded by floor spacers, elite scorers, and one of the best offensive systems in the NBA I think he would absolutely flourish, but obviously we have nothing close to any of those things here which leads me to believe that his ceiling is pretty much capped on this roster and that he will be moved. Everyone else including our mediocre coaching staff isn't even worth talking about.

I'm with you in thinking that this is a huge offseason for Weham but Ive just seen nothing up until this point that leads me to believe that they will do anything worth getting excited about.

The worst part about Weham and this coaching staff imo is the only thing they leave me feeling as a fan is apathy. I don't hate them like I hated Rob by the end or Vogel and I certainly don't love them like I did Stan and his staff. They are just so mediocre that it's hard to care about anything that they do.

That just sucks the passion as a hardcore fan right out of you.

If the status quo is the plan for '20-'21, then I think we the fans have the right to get the pitchforks out.

[pepe1991]

Issue with We-Ham tearing thing down and giving team to young players comes from simple fact that all young players have fat medical record and can't be trusted.
Fultz - TOS, player with condition that does not allow him to shoot in era of shooting.
Isaac- left leg medical book, can't stay on the court at all
Bamba- poor conditioning for years now, poor stamina, questionable desire, questionable basketball skills
Okeke- torn ACL before even turning pro

We can enter 2020-21 with , on roster, 5 first round pick still on rookie scale contracts , 3 of them being lottery picks, yet only the last, 2020-21 pick can be guy who is injury- free, without pre-existing issues.


So let's say they break out all vets in some salary dump trades. What happends if Isaac is out for a year, Fultz still can't shoot, Bamba is still busting out, now just with way more exposure that kills his trade value, Okeke is rookie and still isn't in great shape after year long recovery ? Where to go from there ?
Being bottom feeder in next year or two is disaster from financial perspective, nobody knows what salary cap will even look like, everybody just know it will go down in near future, arenas will stay closed for at least another half of the season, with crap product tv ratings will hit rock bottom.

Bleeding money for more than 2 years could easly force ownership into selling. Hint, Seattle has new sports arena, KG is talking how his dream is to bring them team back... New TV deal won't save anybody because current one is there to stay up until 2025.

259 games at $1.2 million in gate receipts is a little over $310 million for the league. That revenue is lost.

The average number of playoff games in an NBA postseason is roughly 83. With each game generating about $2 million, that’s another $166 million.

It’s not hard to see that the NBA will lose somewhere between $400 and $500 million in ticket revenue due to the coronavirus pandemic that halted play back in March.

Next year? Two scenarios
1) pushing start of the season to January or February ( problem: Olympic games . Problem solution: shorter season- shorter season = even less money to go around)
2) starting season in December = time between seasons is around 2 and half months long, players have to return 2 weeks before to be tested and/or in isolation, 15 days of training camp means players will only have about 6-8 weeks for rest


No matter how you slice it, this are not times when nba team can elect to just go into full blown rebuild. And that does not even take in account lottery reform where worst record has best odds to draft 5th...

[J-Mezzy]

Any chance we move for Fred VanVleet? He gives us the shooting and off the ball play that could work nicely with Markelle

[rcklsscognition]

Pretty telling we're waiting on basically an emergency game thread for our first playoff game of the season. T-minus 3 hour 25 minutes. I think we were spoiled last year with the memorable game winner from DJ to steal a game, but things are not looking good on the depth chart for this one.

[zaymon]

It would be exciting if half of our team was not injured. From heaven to hell in one season.

[dsg2021]

Any chance we move for Fred VanVleet? He gives us the shooting and off the ball play that could work nicely with Markelle

Makes too much sense

[thelead]

Any chance we move for Fred VanVleet? He gives us the shooting and off the ball play that could work nicely with Markelle

Makes too much sense

And we can't do it because we resigned Vuc and added to to the cap with Aminu. No foresight with this management.

[dsg2021]

Any chance we move for Fred VanVleet? He gives us the shooting and off the ball play that could work nicely with Markelle

Makes too much sense

And we can't do it because we resigned Vuc and added to to the cap with Aminu. No foresight with this management.

[thelead]

Makes too much sense

And we can't do it because we resigned Vuc and added to to the cap with Aminu. No foresight with this management.

Imagine, we wouldn't have the waste that is Aminu, would likely have a lotto pick because Vuc does help us win games, and money to sign someone like FVV... and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see this all play out. More than half of us were begging not to resign Vuc for this very reason.

[zaymon]

And we can't do it because we resigned Vuc and added to to the cap with Aminu. No foresight with this management.

Imagine, we wouldn't have the waste that is Aminu, would likely have a lotto pick because Vuc does help us win games, and money to sign someone like FVV... and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see this all play out. More than half of us were begging not to resign Vuc for this very reason.

I dont think lotto pick this year is very different from our 15 pick. Similar level of players 1-20. Not signing Aminu and Vucevic to sign FVV ? I dont see any logic behind this. I was all in for signing FVV last time when he was worth mle, but now its not the case.

[pepe1991]

And we can't do it because we resigned Vuc and added to to the cap with Aminu. No foresight with this management.

Imagine, we wouldn't have the waste that is Aminu, would likely have a lotto pick because Vuc does help us win games, and money to sign someone like FVV... and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see this all play out. More than half of us were begging not to resign Vuc for this very reason.

Imagine scenario where championship level role player has zero desire to sign with team that wins 25 games a year.
Oh wait, we don't need to imagine it, we were in situation where Ibaka f*** Ibaka did not want to resign for + $20M a year because we had no future

or that time when we cleared cap space to sign Lebron, Durant, Drummond, Horford, Conley, Beal, Derozan, Wade, Dirk... and our big name FA was.... Bismack Biyombo.


If Magic let Vuc go, they would still atract no FA whatsoever like they always do. And they would have been as even bigger joke of a franchize after not paying first allstar player in 7 years.

[drsd]

Read on Twitter

[drsd]

Read on Twitter

Magic fan here:

I LOVED the over in this game, now I don't. This is why I never gamble !!!

The -13 for the Bucks now looks soft. Seriously this could emerge as a 30+ point blow-out WIN for the Bucks.


..

[thelead]

Read on Twitter

It's the right thing to do

[drsd]

Read on Twitter

[dsg2021]

Vooch has the modern game to stick around the Magic long-term. Gary Clark bought his spot for a long time, too. Lengthy shooters like Clark and Ennis in the back are helping us a ton. They don't compromise our team's identity, but bring much needed shooting. Again, our FO is easily an above average FO, but where is the big vision to avoid being a top 8 team and become a top 4 team instead!

[The Effect]

Not making any judgements, and everyone here should know im a huge AG fan and want him here long term

BUT, is it just me or does this offense and team overall look better the past couple of games without AG and JI?

I know its a tiny sample size (not even really applicable), but the last two games with Vuc being the guy, Fultz given SOME free reign, and a bunch of role players (Aka not fournier playing hero ball), this team has played amazing

Wouldnt be happy with this full time but has worked nice so far

[Tarheel]

Not making any judgements, and everyone here should know im a huge AG fan and want him here long term

BUT, is it just me or does this offense and team overall look better the past couple of games without AG and JI?

I know its a tiny sample size (not even really applicable), but the last two games with Vuc being the guy, Fultz given SOME free reign, and a bunch of role players (Aka not fournier playing hero ball), this team has played amazing

Wouldnt be happy with this full time but has worked nice so far

Vuc had a great game tonight and AG can be a ball stopper when he goes into Kobe mode, but I think a lot of our success tonight was due to Fournier playing a role over trying to be the guy. I don’t think the same extends to JI at all, he’s a great team guy - his only issue is staying on the court.

AG when he embraces his role is a great asset for the team, and Evan could be too if he embraces being a role player more often.

That said, if Clark and Ennis can keep firing away from 3 and playing good team ball (and good D), then I’d happily trade AG and Fournier for an upgrade at the 2 and roll out Fultz/trade/Ennis/Clark/Vuc until JI comes back with Ross, Okeke, Wes, Bamba and a rookie/FA PG off the bench (I don’t care for Aminu’s game, trade him if you can) next year.

We just work better when Fournier isn’t the guy. Hopefully Clifford begins to recognise this soon (though it seems he is starting to).

[The Effect]

Not making any judgements, and everyone here should know im a huge AG fan and want him here long term

BUT, is it just me or does this offense and team overall look better the past couple of games without AG and JI?

I know its a tiny sample size (not even really applicable), but the last two games with Vuc being the guy, Fultz given SOME free reign, and a bunch of role players (Aka not fournier playing hero ball), this team has played amazing

Wouldnt be happy with this full time but has worked nice so far

Vuc had a great game tonight and AG can be a ball stopper when he goes into Kobe mode, but I think a lot of our success tonight was due to Fournier playing a role over trying to be the guy. I don’t think the same extends to JI at all, he’s a great team guy - his only issue is staying on the court.

AG when he embraces his role is a great asset for the team, and Evan could be too if he embraces being a role player more often.

That said, if Clark and Ennis can keep firing away from 3 and playing good team ball (and good D), then I’d happily trade AG and Fournier for an upgrade at the 2 and roll out Fultz/trade/Ennis/Clark/Vuc until JI comes back with Ross, Okeke, Wes, Bamba and a rookie/FA PG off the bench (I don’t care for Aminu’s game, trade him if you can) next year.

We just work better when Fournier isn’t the guy. Hopefully Clifford begins to recognise this soon (though it seems he is starting to).

I agree that evans hero-ball play is what kills this team many nights and they are so much better when he accepts his role as a secondary player. I dont know if he will\could do that for extended periods of time and is why im really hoping they find a way to either move him or get him to turn down his options

AG i still love and hope fthey can make it work with him in the lineup, but again, he would need to understand that his role is to be a role player, not Lebron-lite

[swarlesbarkley]

With the emergence of Gary Trent Jr, I wonder if we could get Simons from Portland...