Magic do NOT extend a Qualifying Offer to Mo Bamba

[Knightro]

it definitely means this FO has a #1 target in FA and will be throwing some money quickly then maybe trying to circle back for Mo at a lower dollar amount.

I tend to agree with you here. There wouldn't be any pressing reason to clear out Bamba's cap hold if they had absolutely no intention of signing any free agents.

IMO the likelihood of them signing *someone* has certainly increased. What caliber of player and for how much money remains to be seen.

[pepe1991]

The idea of a 7' center with a 7'10" wing span that can spread the floor, is going to make sense to a lot of teams in a lot of drafts. Clearly it didn't work out. But there was a reason he was drafted where he was.

With a Center as the focal point of your offense that plays 30mpg in 2017-2018 and 32mpg in 2018-2019?

No, thats doesn't make sense for a 25-57 team with limited upside on offense and DJ Augustine as a starting point guard.

Vuc averaged 16.5 points, 31% from 3, with a block as a 27 year old in 2017-18. His TS% was 53% , that is pretty bad for a center.
Nobody thought he was anything but a starter on a bad team back then. He certainly wasn't impacting who we drafted that year.

It's same season where Gordon had 53% TS, platoed on 50% eFG, just pumped counting stats and they were like "yep, that's our 4 years, $80M guy right there", right after drafting Isaac year prior, who played same position.
Let's not pretend that anything Weltman and Hammond did from 2017-2019 ( or past that) made any logical sense.
They pretend positions don't matter and their rosters never make any logical sense.

They had no issues exstending Fultz to draft Suggs, with same skillset, 10 months later. All that on heels of drafting and team starting Cole, who happends to play execlly same position, and much like them, showed execlly 0 capability playing anything but that position.

Oh and once they got rid of Gordon their praised asset was.... another point guard, Hampton.

[Skin]

didnt we just go through no knowledge coming out of our front office? but now info is?

In this situation, they are not the only ones in control of the information. I'm sure Bamba's camp would want to spread this out to the market asap.

[BadMofoPimp]

it definitely means this FO has a #1 target in FA and will be throwing some money quickly then maybe trying to circle back for Mo at a lower dollar amount.

I don't know. Some teams seem to think Mo has more talent and ambition than he actually has while feeling that the Magic didn't develop him enough. Some dumb GM will overpay and learn the hard way.

[jezzerinho]

Great usage of 6th overall pick that was....

Biggest **** waste ever.

Imagine selecting Mikal Bridges or SGA instead of this guy. Pick didn't make sense in 2018.

I disagree. Maybe the first part if we don't get anything for him/or if he signs elsewhere, but not the second part.

This was the 3 years Vuc averaged 18-14-16 and wasn't shooting threes. I think the writing was on the wall for Vuc until he had an all-star season which nobody really saw coming. Completely did a 180 on his image.

Bamba was also mocked widely very highly, most people had him going to Dallas at 5. Trae was a very late riser and was mocked to us a lot, MPJ was mocked higher before injury stuff made him drop, even Kevin Knox had some early hype.

Mikal/SGA were pretty much widely 9-15 on a lot of boards. We obviously *could've pivoted and selected them, but we're using the benefit of hindsight. It would be the equivalent of like, someone picking Sochan or Johnny Davis instead of Ivey and Mathurin at 4-5.

i

It doesn't matter what his wingspan was, where he was mocked or what other teams liked him. FOs are paid to get this shït right and - more often than not - WeltHam get it wrong.

Isaac was a bad pick
Bamba was a bad pick
Fultz was a bad trade (compared to Maxey it's not close)
Suggs so far has been a poor pick, tho there's time to resurrect things.
Okeke was a meh at best pick

Cole was an ok pick
Wagner was a great pick
The Vooch trade was a slam dunk.

More red.than black so far. Let's see which side Paolo ends up. At least it was a gutsy pick with some thought behind it.

[jonbob17]

It's kind of funny we are probably losing our two best 3pt shooters (by a wide margin) from last season. Bamba and Harris both at 38% on decent volume. And by funny a terrifying reminder of how awful our guys shot last year.

[BadMofoPimp]

If the Magic would have given him the $22 mil qualifying offer, he would have signed it seconds later jumping for joy at getting a $22 mil payday as opposed to signing elsewhere for $8 to $12 mil a year.

[cedric76]

Biggest **** waste ever.

Imagine selecting Mikal Bridges or SGA instead of this guy. Pick didn't make sense in 2018.

I disagree. Maybe the first part if we don't get anything for him/or if he signs elsewhere, but not the second part.

This was the 3 years Vuc averaged 18-14-16 and wasn't shooting threes. I think the writing was on the wall for Vuc until he had an all-star season which nobody really saw coming. Completely did a 180 on his image.

Bamba was also mocked widely very highly, most people had him going to Dallas at 5. Trae was a very late riser and was mocked to us a lot, MPJ was mocked higher before injury stuff made him drop, even Kevin Knox had some early hype.

Mikal/SGA were pretty much widely 9-15 on a lot of boards. We obviously *could've pivoted and selected them, but we're using the benefit of hindsight. It would be the equivalent of like, someone picking Sochan or Johnny Davis instead of Ivey and Mathurin at 4-5.

i

It doesn't matter what his wingspan was, where he was mocked or what other teams liked him. FOs are paid to get this shït right and - more often than not - WeltHam get it wrong.

Isaac was a bad pick
Bamba was a bad pick
Fultz was a bad trade (compared to Maxey it's not close)
Suggs so far has been a poor pick, tho there's time to resurrect things.
Okeke was a meh at best pick

Cole was an ok pick
Wagner was a great pick
The Vooch trade was a slam dunk.

More red.than black so far. Let's see which side Paolo ends up. At least it was a gutsy pick with some thought behind it.

Lol

[OrlandoMagic]

Maybe it’s just me but when I see him play it seems like he is not interested in the game at all and has no passion for basketball. Almost like he was told as a kid your tall your going to play basketball even if it’s not what he wanted to do.

[tiderulz]

If the Magic would have given him the $22 mil qualifying offer, he would have signed it seconds later jumping for joy at getting a $22 mil payday as opposed to signing elsewhere for $8 to $12 mil a year.

it wasnt $22mil. I believe his QO would be $10.1 million

[SOUL]

It doesn't matter what his wingspan was, where he was mocked or what other teams liked him. FOs are paid to get this shït right and - more often than not - WeltHam get it wrong.

Isaac was a bad pick
Bamba was a bad pick
Fultz was a bad trade (compared to Maxey it's not close)
Suggs so far has been a poor pick, tho there's time to resurrect things.
Okeke was a meh at best pick

Cole was an ok pick
Wagner was a great pick
The Vooch trade was a slam dunk.

More red.than black so far. Let's see which side Paolo ends up. At least it was a gutsy pick with some thought behind it.

This isn't how you evaluate the nuances of picks though.

If Tim Duncan or LeBron or Zion or whoever mega-hyped stars who produced in college/high school were drafted #1 and they get injured, something happens, they don't fulfill their hype.. I am not going to bash a GM for making that pick.

Bennett is a bad pick because nobody slotted him #1 and he never showed any sort of talent to be deserving of that pick. There are differences.

Oden was the "right" pick at #1 because of what his talent had shown, and if he wasn't injured, you don't know what his career could've been. It's an unfortunate pick now because obviously Durant's career and even if Oden was uninjured, Durant probably still has a better career.. but you get the logic in it.

[Magic_Kingdom]

This is the right move, although they should have traded him prior to last season. Then you could have blamed his under-achievement on Clifford and maybe gotten something for him.

Some people are speculating that this means the Magic are going to make a big move in free agency this summer, but I don't think that's necessarily so. Even if they want to spend money next summer (2023), you still wouldn't want a bunch of money tied up in Bamba. They are already paying Wendell $14.2 million next season, so any other centers on the roster should just get journeyman money. Spend the dollars at a more important position.

They've seen Mo up-close for 4 years. They know what he is.

[Knightro]

If the Magic would have given him the $22 mil qualifying offer, he would have signed it seconds later jumping for joy at getting a $22 mil payday as opposed to signing elsewhere for $8 to $12 mil a year.

Qualifying offer was only 10M. His cap hold was 22M. Different things.

[basketballRob]

Maybe we're going to offer Ayton the max. I think we'd still have stretch Ross to do that.

Ayton
WCJ
Banchero
Franz
Suggs

Sent from my SM-G950U using RealGM mobile app

[pepe1991]

If the Magic would have given him the $22 mil qualifying offer, he would have signed it seconds later jumping for joy at getting a $22 mil payday as opposed to signing elsewhere for $8 to $12 mil a year.

IT's cap hold , not his QO.

Cap holds are designed to be much bigger than salary to prevent teams from influencing free agency ( and create superteams) by tanking seasons/freeing all salary cap year prior.

[SOUL]

In the "who would you be disappointed the Magic drafting 2018 thread....

JJJ, or “reaching” for Sexton, SGA, etc without trading down. Wouldn’t be entirely thrilled with Bamba, but I could see him making more sense than JJJ.

This is how I feel too. Bamba was the correct pick, but it didn’t solve anything that has made this team bad in the first place. I’m praying trades are on the horizon to make sense of this.

Literally your posts in the 2018 thread, MM. Again, we could've traded down and utilized a pick for SGA or Bridges, but it wasn't a common or widely echoed statement. Nobody knew who would be good, or else we'd all be clamoring for quite a few of those guys right now.

I usually agree with you on most points, hell, even back then where you said "he was the right pick", which is what I'm arguing now. Locally it made sense, it just didn't work out here for various reasons.. so this isn't a "gotcha" post.

I don't know what you guys expected to happen once Doncic and Young were gone???
If they drafted Sexton or Alexander this forum would have total meltdown.

Bamba is is great prospect, not good- great. If you can land Gobert type defender with offensive upside who da hell would not take it in draft where nobody else looks like can be game changer. Gobert IS game changer, he makes Utah serious, balanced team, if they are on East they would be easly top 3 team.

I have lot of scepticism about Hammond and Weltman about their ability to make roster but i don't blame them for this pick. For other picks i do.
Right now roster is complete mess. Lot of bodies that do nothing. Trades need to follow.

Also pepe's draft night thoughts. This is what a lot of people generally felt so this isn't a "wrong" opinion.

Again, in hindsight, yes, not a good pick. Not what I'm arguing. But we just can't pretend to gaslight people on a forum who remember that night and where there are receipts.

Hell, pepe even wanted to trade Vuc for Schroder. That was his value at the time. But to be fair, Schroder came off of 19 ppg season.

[Knightro]

Some people are speculating that this means the Magic are going to make a big move in free agency this summer, but I don't think that's necessarily so.

I don't think this necessarily means the Magic plan to make a *big* move. But really this was a necessary outcome if they plan on making *any* move at all with their cap space.

They can get to 26-27M in cap space pretty easily. But if they had tendered Bamba his qualifying offer, his cap hold would have eaten up almost all of that.

[pepe1991]

Maybe we're going to offer Ayton the max. I think we'd still have stretch Ross to do that.

Ayton
WCJ
Banchero
Franz
Suggs

Sent from my SM-G950U using RealGM mobile app

Going for worst spacing in nba history?

[BadMofoPimp]

If the Magic would have given him the $22 mil qualifying offer, he would have signed it seconds later jumping for joy at getting a $22 mil payday as opposed to signing elsewhere for $8 to $12 mil a year.

Qualifying offer was only 10M. His cap hold was 22M. Different things.

I meant the $22,706,228 cap hold if the Magic offered the QO.

[pepe1991]

In the "who would you be disappointed the Magic drafting 2018 thread....

JJJ, or “reaching” for Sexton, SGA, etc without trading down. Wouldn’t be entirely thrilled with Bamba, but I could see him making more sense than JJJ.

This is how I feel too. Bamba was the correct pick, but it didn’t solve anything that has made this team bad in the first place. I’m praying trades are on the horizon to make sense of this.

Literally your posts in the 2018 thread, MM. Again, we could've traded down and utilized a pick for SGA or Bridges, but it wasn't a common or widely echoed statement. Nobody knew who would be good, or else we'd all be clamoring for quite a few of those guys right now.

I usually agree with you on most points, hell, even back then where you said "he was the right pick", which is what I'm arguing now. Locally it made sense, it just didn't work out here for various reasons.. so this isn't a "gotcha" post.

I don't know what you guys expected to happen once Doncic and Young were gone???
If they drafted Sexton or Alexander this forum would have total meltdown.

Bamba is is great prospect, not good- great. If you can land Gobert type defender with offensive upside who da hell would not take it in draft where nobody else looks like can be game changer. Gobert IS game changer, he makes Utah serious, balanced team, if they are on East they would be easly top 3 team.

I have lot of scepticism about Hammond and Weltman about their ability to make roster but i don't blame them for this pick. For other picks i do.
Right now roster is complete mess. Lot of bodies that do nothing. Trades need to follow.

Also pepe's draft night thoughts. This is what a lot of people generally felt so this isn't a "wrong" opinion.

Again, in hindsight, yes, not a good pick. Not what I'm arguing. But we just can't pretend to gaslight people on a forum who remember that night and where there are receipts.

Hell, pepe even wanted to trade Vuc for Schroder. That was his value at the time. But to be fair, Schroder came off of 19 ppg season.

I just wanted funcional PG... years later. Still do.
Schroder had very good 3 seasons after i wanted him, so i guess that was solid idea. He fell off map this year. After declining massive exstension.