Official Speculation & Free Agency Thread (Pt IV Mods Close)

[Def Swami]

I hope we can keep our team competitive after trading him. As much as I hate it, I might swallow my pride and take Bynum and Gasol or Odom if we could add another perimeter player like Iggy or Monta.

[sonny_1313]

This was all over at that BVW press conference for his retirement. Otis went up there and basically said that he made championship moves and the players failed to produce like they should have. He thought his trades were golden. Dwight didn't. We lose both ways.

That idiot thought he made championship moves? Looooooooool, he's a bigger fool than I thought

If I remember correctly the team he built did go to the finals.

I think people have short term memory. The team was a championship contender for several years. They spent the money and went to the Finals in '09 and were a missed layup and some missed free-throws by Dwight away from winning. They went to the ECF in '10 and lost to a Boston team with three future hall-of-famers that were playing out of their minds.

Dwight, or anyone, can't say that the team didn't make moves to put the Magic in position to win. They were there. A top four seed in the East for three years in a row. They finished with the second best record in the NBA in '09-'10.

The bottom line is that all the young players see Lebron, Wade, and Bosh in Miami and want to form these "dream teams." How long did it take Dallas to experiment with different players, many that were overpaid, to put around Dirk before he finally won? The bottom line is that even if the Magic could get under the cap no one will sign here because Dwight won't commit. Why would any other superstar player want to play in a place with an uncertain future? Otis made some bad deals. He made some good ones. But you can't blame him for Dwight wanting out.

[dsg2021]

I don't think Kobe and other stars were happy with their GMs when they ended up staying after anyways too.

I think we have professional enough GM and star here to make it work if the team has a great playoffs and Dwight changes his mind in those months ahead after the playoffs.

[TSKD000]

No way we should trade with NJ. They have NOTHING to offer. Bulls, OKC, Lakers or LAC.

[wepr3]

Whatever. If you tell me Monday that Dwight and Otis are gone, fine by me. But don't lay it all on the FO, Dwight wanted to go, just like Shaq wanted to go.

that's cool if Dwight was always going to go. the problem lies with the FO for not putting together a strong enough contender in the window we had.

you can't assume your window will stay open forever, and that's what Otis did. he had no foresight to sign deals that would expire at a timely fashion so we could chase one of the big FA's last season. he didn't have the foresight to sign deals that would expire next summer. he continuously chose to chase washed up, former all stars and former Warriors, and he thought THOSE were championship moves?

at least Dallas added Jason Kidd, Shawn Marion, Caron Butler and Tyson Chandler. we added VC, Arenas, Jason Richardson and Hedo.

this goes way back to the Shard signing. we should have been positioning ourselves then and there to find a second fiddle to Dwight. instead we sign Rashard to a massively overpriced deal when we had NO competition.

i know hindsight is great and all, but a little foresight is just as valuable.

Very well said, I don't disagree. And the moves made for Arenas & JRich were panic moves, no doubt. I just wanted to express that there's blame to go around.

[AgEnT50]

Lets make it happen!

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/fire-otis-smith/

signed

[Idunkonyou2]

The Nets still suck and they have no guarantee of getting Howard. No guarantee of Williams staying either.

The Lakers are pathetic. If not for the league licking their a$$, they would be Kobeless right now.

The only team out of those 3 that has really made the right moves, although they made a lot of bad moves along the way to get there, are the Mavs and they did it legit.

we were just knocked out of the 1st rd by the freaking Hawks! we don't have a legit 2nd option. we don't have ANY flexibilty to add a second option. we have been taking backwards step after backwards step since our finals run.

we don't even have a GM who can shed contracts - he just signs ridiculous deal after ridiculous deal.

The trade Otis made for Carter and Anderson was a step up, I don't care what any one says. We ran into a Celtics team that was playing top notch ball and we still were a play here or there from making that a 7 game series.

And yeah we lost to the Hawks last year. The Mavs lost to the Warriors when they were the 1st seed with 68 wins and an MVP season from Dirk. You act as if since we have Howard we should be in the finals every year, LOL! Maybe you and Howard should get a condo together because obviously you have never failed at anything in your life, while us normal people learn from our failures and move on.

[rcklsscognition]

They keep talking about something that happened in the summer that contributed to dwight's decision... has that been leaked yet?

He went to Russian and met with the Nets' owner. That was when the Morrow and D-Will video surfaced.

[Bensational]

+1
Dwight wants to be in a place that is committed to winning. He sees the Nets took an aggressive risk in trading for D-Will, knowing Dwight wants to play with him. They've gone out of their way to lure Dwight in every capacity they can. And say what you want about the Lakers, but they get guys that help build a championship; the Lakers expect titles and they expect bring in players that win them.

How can Dwight see those teams, then come to Orlando and see Otis fail hard time and time again?

Is this a joke? A team who has sucked for the last 5 or so years > than a team who has been to the finals and ECFs over the last 3 years?

GTFO with that logic. Otis has put Howard in position to win titles. Maybe if Howard would have made a few more FTs and got a few less Ts, we would have won a title by now. If I remember correctly, 2 of the 4 games we lost to the Lakers was due to missed layups and FTs, otherwise, we may have won the title.

The only things I can really blame Otis for was the snap trades of last year. Again he was trying to create a spark that the team was obviously lacking. His timing sucked though. So because of that 1 YEAR, Howard and the fans are now saying Otis didn't do his job? I guess you could say that about every GM in the league then because lighting doesn't happen in a bottle EVERY F'ING YEAR.

Howard will find this out no matter where he goes.

lol, you want to blame the guy who's the SOLE REASON we were in the finals because he has an achilles heal??? you want to blame our lack of a ring on the fact Dwight has never been able to hit FTs? is his 3/4 times DPOTY not enough for you?

maybe if Otis had given him SOME LEGIT FREAKING HELP we wouldn't be relying on Dwight making his free throws and playing the perfect game.

heck, when Dirk had his cold moments in the finals he at least had Jason Terry backing him up.

here's another thing - if Dwight comes back this season and is capable of making FTs because of his new FT coach, then why the heck didn't the FO bring him in a long time ago?

GTFO if you want to pretend Otis made winning moves. the only reason Otis' team made the finals was because he was lucky enough to have Dwight doing ALL THE FREAKING WORK.

[TSKD000]

The decision to amnesty Arenas now instead of summer is debatable but the JRich signing was of great value. If we let him walk and we trade (omg please no) Howard/Hedo for Lopez we would have...

Jameer
JJ
QRich
BBD
Lopez

Wow, that's really bad...

[G-Heel]

At the time, I actually thought it was bad, future-wise, that we went to the finals. I was happy, trust me, but I knew that we were lucky. Celtics didn't have KG, Cavs were just a bad matchup. We never had talent to be the best team in the league.

Also, because we went to the finals, management thought Otis was actually a competent GM. I wanted Otis fired the moment he signed Rashard Lewis. It doesn't matter that Lewis helped us into the finals, we can never go all the way with all the money tied to Lewis. Which was proven. Instead of step by step building a championship team, Otis opted to go all in and shot himself in the foot.. then shot himself in the foot again (Arenas) and again (Hedo).

And we lost Nelson that year, who was playing at an allstar level. The injury excuse is just that. An excuse. You can go back 30 years and see how teams took advantage of better teams injuries to win titles, their conference, division, whatever.

I'm not discrediting that team for going to the finals, if we went all the way I would be fkin ecstatic no matter who were injured on the other teams.

I'm just saying that we never had the talent to go all the way, which proven to be true; and that final run only strengthen otis job security and allow him to continue to make stupid moves.

[Idunkonyou2]

They keep talking about something that happened in the summer that contributed to dwight's decision... has that been leaked yet?

He went to Russian and met with the Nets' owner. That was when the Morrow and D-Will video surfaced.

In other words, they tampered.

[ChosenSavior]

So has Dwight been traded yet? Cause after going through the last 10 pages of this thread, it sure sounds like we already traded him.

[TheDarkKnight]

If I remember correctly the team he built did go to the finals.

I think people have short term memory. The team was a championship contender for several years. They spent the money and went to the Finals in '09 and were a missed layup and some missed free-throws by Dwight away from winning. They went to the ECF in '10 and lost to a Boston team with three future hall-of-famers that were playing out of their minds.

Dwight, or anyone, can't say that the team didn't make moves to put the Magic in position to win. They were there. A top four seed in the East for three years in a row. They finished with the second best record in the NBA in '09-'10.

The bottom line is that all the young players see Lebron, Wade, and Bosh in Miami and want to form these "dream teams." How long did it take Dallas to experiment with different players, many that were overpaid, to put around Dirk before he finally won? The bottom line is that even if the Magic could get under the cap no one will sign here because Dwight won't commit. Why would any other superstar player want to play in a place with an uncertain future? Otis made some bad deals. He made some good ones. But you can't blame him for Dwight wanting out.

+1

[Def Swami]

+1
Dwight wants to be in a place that is committed to winning. He sees the Nets took an aggressive risk in trading for D-Will, knowing Dwight wants to play with him. They've gone out of their way to lure Dwight in every capacity they can. And say what you want about the Lakers, but they get guys that help build a championship; the Lakers expect titles and they expect bring in players that win them.

How can Dwight see those teams, then come to Orlando and see Otis fail hard time and time again?

Is this a joke? A team who has sucked for the last 5 or so years > than a team who has been to the finals and ECFs over the last 3 years?

GTFO with that logic. Otis has put Howard in position to win titles. Maybe if Howard would have made a few more FTs and got a few less Ts, we would have won a title by now. If I remember correctly, 2 of the 4 games we lost to the Lakers was due to missed layups and FTs, otherwise, we may have won the title.

The only things I can really blame Otis for was the snap trades of last year. Again he was trying to create a spark that the team was obviously lacking. His timing sucked though. So because of that 1 YEAR, Howard and the fans are now saying Otis didn't do his job? I guess you could say that about every GM in the league then because lighting doesn't happen in a bottle EVERY F'ING YEAR.

Howard will find this out no matter where he goes.

Yes, the Nets have sucked for the past 5 years. But they've made an ideal situation for Howard to slide right in. Dwight doesn't see a future here. Does he honestly have a chance at winning a ring here with this current roster? It's not likely, and because of Otis's past moves, the Magic are unable to make other moves that can improve this roster to prove to Dwight that this team will be competitive in the future. Dwight looks at NJN and sees an all-star point guard and lots of room for the team to add role players.

And don't get me wrong. I'm with you on that Dwight is being rash by bolting after one first round exit. But I think Dwight looks at his future in both situations and doesn't see it happening here.

[SUN]

Lets make it happen!

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/fire-otis-smith/

F It... why not.. I'll sign and promote any and everything to get that incessant blowhard out of office

Signed.

[WeAreVenom]

Lets make it happen!

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/fire-otis-smith/

signed

LOL, was this petition just started? Because it already has 15 signatures.

I really wish that the Devos family would see this.

[cb1115]

So has Dwight been traded yet? Cause after going through the last 10 pages of this thread, it sure sounds like we already traded him.

No. But we're going to.

[Idunkonyou2]

At the time, I actually thought it was bad, future-wise, that we went to the finals. I was happy, trust me, but I knew that we were lucky. Celtics didn't have KG, Cavs were just a bad matchup. We never had talent to be the best team in the league.

Also, because we went to the finals, management thought Otis was actually a competent GM. I wanted Otis fired the moment he signed Rashard Lewis. It doesn't matter that Lewis helped us into the finals, we can never go all the way with all the money tied to Lewis. Which was proven. Instead of step by step building a championship team, Otis opted to go all in and shot himself in the foot.. then shot himself in the foot again (Arenas) and again (Hedo).

And we lost Nelson that year, who was playing at an allstar level. The injury excuse is just that. An excuse. You can go back 30 years and see how teams took advantage of better teams injuries to win titles, their conference, division, whatever.

I'm not discrediting that team for going to the finals, if we went all the way I would be fkin ecstatic no matter who were injured on the other teams.

I'm just saying that we never had the talent to go all the way, which proven to be true; and that final run only strengthen otis job security and allow him to continue to make stupid moves.

Otis only made stupid moves last year or what I like to call panic moves. Getting Carter and Anderson for Lee and Alston was a great move for us period. We didn't get back to the finals, but overall I think we were a better team. It just didn't work out and sometimes that happens.

[Driguez]

Lets make it happen!

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/fire-otis-smith/

signed