for all the people bashing otis

[cedric76]

Rashard and Nelsons contracts are SO damn idiotic.

idiotic? i still think nelson can be the right PG



I like the team, no doubt, but Otis makes bad business decisions.

like?

Otis is riding Weis and Dwights coattails.

lol,without otis+dave ,u'd be cheering for okafor right now

And by the way, isnt Darko exactly the kind of player we need right now?

He is putting up mediocre stats because he has no help and is a focal point. If he was playing with Dwight he would be right.

who knows?

[golfreak]

You have to understand that Otis did not put this team together...

He inherited it, and he inherited it in a hell of a position...Young talent, cap space, expirings, 3 lottery picks...Yet he has exhausted all of his assets with a bunch of bad business decisions.

Kind of like when Dungy left the Bucs and Gruden inherited a super bowl team, and Gruden got all the credit.

Yup, just like Larry Coker got Butch Davis team and won a championship.
Barry Switzer got JJ's team and won a Super bowl.

To me 4 main reasons why the Magic are much better this season.
1) Howard's improvement.
2) Stan van Gundy
3) Hedo playing out of his mind
4) Addition of Lewis.

SVG was plan B. Imagine this team right now with Donovan.
My grandmother could have signed Lewis.
I don't mind Lewis getting the max contract but to give Seatle a 2nd pick just so we can give him a 6th year was idiotic.
Giving Jameer the big contract was also idiotic.
Jameer is not a good PG and will never be unless he can miraclously learn to play defense.

The only good thing Otis did was getting rid of Francis for Ariza which became Evans and Cook.
The other good thing he did was trading Kelvin Cato and a 1st for Arroyo and Darko.
But of course Darko walked for free so its Arroyo for a 1st now.
And then we have a bunch of expiring contracts that we could have traded for someone but now all those will go to waste.

Sorry but Otis a a terrible GM.

[ProfX]

Otis is not a horrible GM, but not a great one either. I think he has gotten lucky a few times and thats really it.

SVG deserves the credit. He is the one whipping people into shape, made Hedo come alive. Overall I am pleased where we are, my biggest worry is Otis messing it up. We have the foundation for a dynasty, he just needs to not screw up this summer.

[craig01]

Otis is not a horrible GM, but not a great one either. I think he has gotten lucky a few times and thats really it.

SVG deserves the credit.

[NEM]

svg wouldn't be credited if he didn't get hired by......OTIS!

[mhectorgato]

svg wouldn't be credited if he didn't get hired by......OTIS!

Only if Billy Dee aka Lando didn't take the job.

[richboy]

Otis has done really nothing on this team except watch Dwight grow as a player and therefore take credit for team improvement. I remember reading a story years ago about how Kevin Mchale was a great gm for the same reasons. Its funny how having great players can make you look good. The twolves improved to a 50 win team at the time with really no real future outside of KG.

You could have posted this same thread in Cleveland as well. The cavs won 50 games with what appeared as a pretty mediocre roster. Does Danny Ferry become a great Gm because Lebron James keeps getting better.

I've said before that you evaluate the roster. Just because a team is loosing doesn't make it the gms fault and just because there winning doesn't mean he deserves the credit. Players play coaches coach Gms watch the games.

Nothing against Otis but if you ask me we had more talent in the past. and the only difference is Dwight, SVG, and the East somehow getting worse. I don't know where others have the Magic ranked but I have them as the 13th best team in the NBA. Thats barely ahead of Toronto. Last year I had them about 17. Let me ask others if just svg was coach last year how many games would this team would have won. I would say between 45-50 games.

Imo Otis job is not to be carried by Dwight. His job and job status should be determined by ability to build a team around Dwight. What I have seen to this point has been horrible.

PG and SG are in worse position than when Otis was brought on. Whats funny is either was all that great before so it shouldn't take much to improve them. They have gotten worse and whats crazy is they could get even worse. Dooling, Arroyo, Evans, Bogans, JJ all have no guarantees for the future.

The depth up front has also gotten worse. Really if not for Dwight the bigs on this roster would mirror the Tmac years. The day that d12 was drafted this team had Drew Gooden, Dwight, Varejao, Steven Hunter on the roster. Not to mention who let Zaza go in the expansion draft. Can't blame Otis for those. However, I'm not sure how Otis gets credit for the good things that happen before he was Gm but not for the bad. What was he saying when this team traded Varejao, Gooden, and Hunter for Tony Battie. When they passed on the Phoenix deal for Tmac and went with Steve Francis.

Now the biggest strength on this roster was probably SF prior to Otis. This team had Grant and Hedo. Would soon have Grant, Hedo, and Ariza. They have changed that to Hedo and Rashard Lewis. One isn't that much better than the other. The fact that SVG decided to play a front line of Hedo and Rashard has gone along way.

What Otis has done as Gm was to trade the guys that were starting for bench players or lost them all together. What has occured is the bench which was a strength is now a weakness. The starters are not all that good. We only clearly win one matchup day in and day out and that is at center.

What has simply amazing is that Otis has had 30 million dollars in expiring contracts over the last 2 seasons and has made not 1 trade. If a gm isn't doing it on the floor with adding talent you would hope that the future looks bright with draft picks and cap space. Not with Otis. We have added zero future first round picks to this roster. This offseason were likely to be near or above the luxury tax and have 1 all-star player on our roster. It doesn't get better as we already have commited a lot of salary in the future to what remains just a few roster spots. You do the math. 7 roster spots to fill next summer and already 55 million commited. How good you think those 7 players are going to be. It appears to me that this team will have to increase its payroll to one of the highest in the league to put a true championship contender out there. Believe me this team isn't close to being a contender.

[richboy]

Otis is not a horrible GM, but not a great one either. I think he has gotten lucky a few times and thats really it.

SVG deserves the credit. He is the one whipping people into shape, made Hedo come alive. Overall I am pleased where we are, my biggest worry is Otis messing it up. We have the foundation for a dynasty, he just needs to not screw up this summer.

If you rank Gms were would you rank Otis. I ask that of all the Otis supporters.

http://hoopshype.com/general_manager.htm

You can get the list and all there moves there. Even if you love Otis I would have a tough time putting him in the top 20. Otis isn't the worst GM in the league but you don't have to be the worst to be not good at your job.

[drsd]

On May 3, 2006, the Magic promoted Otis Smith to general manager. So, everything after that date is solely on this GM. Before that, on June 27, 2005 the Magic promoted Dave Twardzik and Otis Smith to assistant general manager, effectively having a co-GM.

Dwight - Weisbrod call
Lewis - signed by Otis
Hedo - retained by Otis, despite being a trade asset
Evans - attained by Otis
Nelson - retained by Otis

Battie - retained by Otis
Bogans - i'm not even sure TBH. could be a Weis thing
Dooling - Weis? not sure
Arroyo - attained by Otis
Cook - attained by Otis
Foyle - attained by Otis
JJ - drafted by Otis
Auggie - Otis
Gortat - Otis
Garrity - RDV

July 12, 2007: Sign Dwight Howard to contract extension.
July 13, 2006 Sign free agent Keith Bogans.



And of course:
June 7, 2007: Name Stan Van Gundy head coach



Before May 3, 2006:
March 22, 2006 Signed Tony Battie to a contract extension.

[mattyBoi]

so now you want to credit Weisbrod with building this team?

let's see what Otis can be credited for.

Dwight - Weisbrod call
Lewis - signed by Otis
Hedo - retained by Otis, despite being a trade asset
Evans - attained by Otis
Nelson - retained by Otis

Battie - retained by Otis
Bogans - i'm not even sure TBH. could be a Weis thing
Dooling - Weis? not sure
Arroyo - attained by Otis
Cook - attained by Otis
Foyle - attained by Otis
JJ - drafted by Otis
Auggie - Otis
Gortat - Otis
Garrity - RDV

Come on bro that was so biased towards Otis.

Dwight- Drafted by Weisbrod.
Lewis- Signed by Otis to what many consider the worst contract in NBA history.
Hedo- Signed by Weisbrod.
Evans- Acquired by Otis.
Nelson-Acquired by Weisbrod.

Battie- Acquired by Otis/Dave in exchage for 2 key players of a NBA finals team.
Bogans- Acquired by Otis-Chucker
Dooling- Acquired by Otis-Solid
Arroyo- Acquired by Otis-Horrible
Foyle- Acquired by Otis
JJ- Horrible waste of a lottery pick
Auggie-Garbage
Gortat-Garbage
Garrity-Who cares

Fran- See JJ
1st round pick sent to Detroit- Rather give it away then get embarrassed.
Darko- Wonder why were short a big man? Gotta love creative financing.
Ariza- Wasnt this guy the potential all star, man alot changes in 6 months.
Grant- HUGE mistake letting him go...We WOULD be contenders with Hill and Darko added to this team.
Donovon- Man, this was a stoke of genius.
SVG- Talk about luck.

Richboy you are on point with alot of what you said man.

But you know what there is obviously ALOTTTTT of blind faith going around here and just some overall die hard fans who will support any GM and try to be optimistic about everything...Either that or they are just clueless about basketball and business in general.

Im done trying to convince people...Its obvious to me and pretty much every NBA fan(Non magic fans) that Otis is a below average GM.

Ignorance is bliss i guess.[/quote]

[drsd]

GM Smith has had his job for less than two years. There is no possibility to conclude anything about his "greatness."

[mhectorgato]

so now you want to credit Weisbrod with building this team?

let's see what Otis can be credited for.

Dwight - Weisbrod call
Lewis - signed by Otis
Hedo - retained by Otis, despite being a trade asset
Evans - attained by Otis
Nelson - retained by Otis

Battie - retained by Otis
Bogans - i'm not even sure TBH. could be a Weis thing
Dooling - Weis? not sure
Arroyo - attained by Otis
Cook - attained by Otis
Foyle - attained by Otis
JJ - drafted by Otis
Auggie - Otis
Gortat - Otis
Garrity - RDV

Come on bro that was so biased towards Otis.

Come on bro, you're so biased against Otis

Dwight- Drafted by Weisbrod.
Lewis- Signed by Otis to what many consider the worst contract in NBA history.
Hedo- Signed by Weisbrod.
Evans- Acquired by Otis.
Nelson-Acquired by Weisbrod.

Many Magic fans, then yes. Many NBA fans, then no.

Marbury is at 20 mill.
Golden State is still paying CWebb.
Ben Wallace at 15 mill.

I'm sure there are others that are relatively more overpaid than Shard and that produce far less than 19ppg.

Battie- Acquired by Otis/Dave in exchage for 2 key players of a NBA finals team.
Bogans- Acquired by Otis-Chucker
Dooling- Acquired by Otis-Solid
Arroyo- Acquired by Otis-Horrible
Foyle- Acquired by Otis
JJ- Horrible waste of a lottery pick
Auggie-Garbage
Gortat-Garbage
Garrity-Who cares

If Gooden was/is such a key to Cleveland, why were they looking to move him every season he was there? Why has he been on 4 in 5.5 seasons?

But you know what there is obviously ALOTTTTT of blind faith going around here and just some overall die hard fans who will support any GM and try to be optimistic about everything...Either that or they are just clueless about basketball and business in general.

There are also many people who don't have blanket love or hate (such as yourself) to see that he's done good and bad.

Im done trying to convince people...Its obvious to me and pretty much every NBA fan(Non magic fans) that Otis is a below average GM.

[The Letter J]

Reasons for winning season:

1)Maturation of Dwight Howard
2)Coaching of SVG
3)Play of Hedo Turkoglu
4)Acquiring of Rashard Lewis

Otis Smith's involvment in each:

1)Weisbrod's selection (unanimous decision by entire draft team at the time)
2)Otis wanted to overpay the "NBA" unproven Billy Donovan who then bailed us out by backing out at the last minute. Luckily, Otis got SVG to sign with us instead of Sacramento. That probably has more to do with us having Dwight. (see edit info.)
3)Signed by Weisbrod.
4)Signed by Otis. Significantly overpaid.

So, IMO, Otis deserves some credit for how things have gone, but not the majority of credit. If Otis' plan for Donovan as head coach had gone through, we would be looking at a very different situation.

edit: http://www.boston.com/sports/basketball ... gic_coach/

In article, SVG also talks about the cap room we had last summer due to Grant Hill expiring.

[AdamTheGreek]

OTIS BRINGS THE FAN OWNAGE IN B.S.'s BLOG, NICE.

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/sports ... k-ing.html

[SFranklin]

I think the magic are similar to my Miami Hurricanes football team of 2001. Many of us could see that Larry Coker was an incompetent coach, however when anyone said something.. They were shot down, because after all, we were undefeated.

To say that Otis overpaid Shard would be a huge understatement. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the Shard signing was the worst deal in the history of free agency.

A max contract for 18 points and a few rebounds. Absurd.

Hedo is a MUCH better player than Shard, and he makes nearly 1/3 of what Shard does... This contract is going to handicap us for years to come. Many of you guys are talking about getting this player or that player in the off-season.. The fact of the matter is that it's not happening, because we won't have any cap space what so ever.. and get used to it. It's bad when halfway through the first year of his contract Shard is ALREADY making excuses for his lack of production... It's going to be a long 6 years guys.

And for those of you saying, "well, he got the best player available"... Tell me this, who in their right mind would have paid him a max contract other then the magic????? All I have to say is that Shard has one dang good agent.

[The Letter J]

OTIS BRINGS THE FAN OWNAGE IN B.S.'s BLOG, NICE.

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/sports ... k-ing.html

(picture)

Wow. The troubling thing from that article is this sentence, "Smith has said his roster is set, although I'm waiting a reply about Ratliff.".

Please god, tell me that isn't true. We're going to get abused in the half court game of the playoffs. Teams are going to destroy us when Dwight is on the bench. Lay-up line.

[KingRobb02]

We are a solid team, but I don't think that this is because of anything that Otis did or didn't do. I think the problem with Otis is that he is greedy. He sees the thing he wants and then remains focused until he gets it. This is why he threw a lot of money at Donovan and Lewis. In his mind, if either of those guys end up on another team, then that's bad so he made them offers that no one else would beat. I think that this may his problem in trade negotiations. He seems like he always wants to get more than the other guy in any deal. Trading Ariza's potential for 2 contributors was a good move in his mind. Some other GMs may have been weary of trading a young guy with upside like Ariza for 2 guys who won't be around in 5 years.

The Van Gundy hiring was good, but it's not like he was really going out on a limb and using his intuition to hire the best coach on the market. Drafting Fran was a mistake caused by not doign proper research, and drafting JJ was more of a reaction to his first gaffe, since he didn't want to take any chances. Overall I would say that he hasn't really done a good job, buthe does seem to get along with ownership. Having a Gm who is afraid to take chances may be worse than having one who always takes chances.

[mhectorgato]

We are a solid team, but I don't think that this is because of anything that Otis did or didn't do. I think the problem with Otis is that he is greedy. He sees the thing he wants and then remains focused until he gets it. This is why he threw a lot of money at Donovan and Lewis. In his mind, if either of those guys end up on another team, then that's bad so he made them offers that no one else would beat. I think that this may his problem in trade negotiations. He seems like he always wants to get more than the other guy in any deal. Trading Ariza's potential for 2 contributors was a good move in his mind. Some other GMs may have been weary of trading a young guy with upside like Ariza for 2 guys who won't be around in 5 years.

Trading a player who was getting hardly any playing time and who likely was going to opt out for 2 contributors, including 1 effective starter, still seems like a good deal to me.

The Van Gundy hiring was good, but it's not like he was really going out on a limb and using his intuition to hire the best coach on the market. Drafting Fran was a mistake caused by not doign proper research, and drafting JJ was more of a reaction to his first gaffe, since he didn't want to take any chances. Overall I would say that he hasn't really done a good job, buthe does seem to get along with ownership. Having a Gm who is afraid to take chances may be worse than having one who always takes chances.

Fran gave every indication that he was coming over. He and his agent played us, plain and simple.

[MagicNolesFSU]

i guess even when you win 50 games people have to find something to complain about.

If orlando won the championship people would want svg fired because it took 7 games instead of 6.

[maginno]

Many Magic fans, then yes. Many NBA fans, then no.

Marbury is at 20 mill.
Golden State is still paying CWebb.
Ben Wallace at 15 mill.

I'm sure there are others that are relatively more overpaid than Shard and that produce far less than 19ppg.

Someone needs to lay off the Otis juice. That signing was considered by many people outside of Orlando as one of the worst signings ever. Your examples don't fit. Its not what a player does after signing that makes it a bad contract. Crystal balls are not required going into a signing. Its what the reasonable value was going into the contract. Chicago's Wallace signing was pretty bad but in terms of years and escalation to what the team needed the sheer dollars of the Shard contract edge it out. In the end Chicago was able to move Wallace at that contract to another team. If Shard can be moved then it certainly wouldn't be the worse signing because it would indicate at least another market participant willing to pay the price. Cwebb was once a great player. marbury near the same. rashard is a nice good piece but not great.