2024-2025 Regular Season Game 7: Orlando Magic (3-3) at Dallas Mavericks (3-2)

[OrlChamps2030]

Nope. This is different than what is going on in Philly.

The 76ers have 100 mill tied up in Embiid and Paul George this year - and neither have played a minute this season.

I'm not saying it's the exact same thing like for like.

Just the overarching point that when your best player doesn't play, it's a lot harder to win.

Why say it’s not any different than Philly then? That’s pretty misleading.

With Embiid and Pg13 out, no one really matters outside of Maxey. It’s him and a bunch of scrubs.

With Paolo out, we have Franz, Suggs, Isaac, WCJ, KCP, Cole all locked into multi year deals making decent money with draft capital invested in them. 2 sophomore lotto picks in Black and Jett.

Guys have to play better. Hopefully they turn it around

[Bensational]

Our offense only works when you have someone who can draw two defenders.... Paolo is the only one capable of that consistently

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I disagree. I think Franz, Suggs and even Black can get into the perimeter and draw help defense, but they either failed to find the open man in the overlap, or the man isn’t getting open, or they’re missing the shot. There have been a lot of missed shots and potential assists the last 2 games. Off-ball movement seems to die off after the first 5 minutes of each half, too.

[Rainwater]

Literally six days ago the Magic beat Indiana to improve to 3-1 and everyone was falling over themselves with happiness and excitement over how good Paolo looked as the No. 1, how good Franz looked as the No. 2 and how good Suggs looked as the No. 3 on top of the flashes guys like Black were showing.

And now Paolo gets hurt and everyone is freaking out because Franz isn't equipped to be a 1 and Suggs isn't equipped to be a 2? And Black is still 20 years old and will have his own ups and downs?

True, we maybe overreacting due to expectations, I will settle down but I never liked Franz as 2nd option. I always thought he was better as third and he is not helping himself right now and got a max contract. But you are right. We will see how he continues to play.

Franz is/was the 1A option for team GER that won yhe worlf cup last year and almost medalled in the Olynpics this year. He is fine as a #2 option.

Team us just reeling from the Paolo news and it doesnt help that we faced 2 high seed PO contenders

Dennis Schroeder was arguably the best player on that German team and he is a role player. Brogdon played well for the Serbs and he is also a role player. This statement doesn’t mean much.

[Rainwater]

Our offense only works when you have someone who can draw two defenders.... Paolo is the only one capable of that consistently

Sent from my [Hands] using RealGM mobile app

I disagree. I think Franz, Suggs and even Black can get into the perimeter and draw help defense, but they either failed to find the open man in the overlap, or the man isn’t getting open, or they’re missing the shot. There have been a lot of missed shots and potential assists the last 2 games. Off-ball movement seems to die off after the first 5 minutes of each half, too.

Yeah, they did miss a lot of open shots today that is what killed them.

[Knightro]

You are basically saying that this team is 100% with Paolo.

It’s not.

This team last season was poor offensively with a healthy roster of players for the most part. Paolo will not score 50 points a night.

The FO gave a bunch of money to guys that either can’t stay healthy or haven’t proven they belong on the court so far this season. That’s a problem.

The issue isn’t Paolo/Franz/Suggs.

The issue is making a real offense work without leaning entirely on one guy.

So do you not believe Paolo was in the process of a "level up" before the injury?

Because if Paolo's really gonna be an efficient 25-28 PPG guy, which doesn't seem totally out of the question based on what we saw in the first five games, then the calculus changes significantly.

If that's what Paolo is, then you can throw last year's stats out of the window because they become immediately irrelevant.

Paolo 29 PPG on .495/.344/.644 as the 1st option.

Franz 20 PPG on .536/.440/.917 as the 2nd banana.

Suggs 17 PPG on .450/425/.929 as the 3rd option.

Is that not exactly what we all wanted to see? Clearly defined pecking order with everyone in their optimal spot for success. That's what we saw the first 5 games.

But when you take Paolo away and tell Franz and Suggs "ok Franz, go be Paolo" and "Ok Jalen, go be Franz" and then we're shocked when Franz is 14/34 FG Suggs is 14/33 FG in the two games?

[eyriq]

We were expected to lose these last two with Paolo healthy. We haven't had time to practice without Paolo. We have another starter injured. This team will get better.

[Knightro]

Nope. This is different than what is going on in Philly.

The 76ers have 100 mill tied up in Embiid and Paul George this year - and neither have played a minute this season.

I'm not saying it's the exact same thing like for like.

Just the overarching point that when your best player doesn't play, it's a lot harder to win.

Why say it’s not any different than Philly then? That’s pretty misleading.

With Embiid and Pg13 out, no one really matters outside of Maxey. It’s him and a bunch of scrubs.

With Paolo out, we have Franz, Suggs, Isaac, WCJ, KCP, Cole all locked into multi year deals making decent money with draft capital invested in them. 2 sophomore lotto picks in Black and Jett.

Guys have to play better. Hopefully they turn it around

A lot of people in this very forum are suggesting Franz isn't worth his contract because he's not capable of leveling up to be a No. 1 option when the team's clear No. 1 option isn't playing.

I think that's completely ridiculous personally.

The Sixers are 1-4 and Maxey's TS% is .503. Is he not worth his max contract because he hasn't been able to level up into a No. 1 option through the first week of the season?

Of course he's worth his contract. He's a damn good basketball player, just like Franz.

But right now both guys are simply being asked to do more offensively than they're capable of doing at an efficient level.

[thelead]

We were expected to lose these last two with Paolo healthy. We haven't had time to practice without Paolo. We have another starter injured. This team will get better.

We will get better. But we also will need WCJ or Goga to play. Mo isn't it.

[Redwood]

4 games into the season Franz was averaging over 20 PPG on a .536/.440/.917 slash as Paolo's 2nd banana.

Then the guy gets sick and has a couple of meh low minute games and then Paolo gets hurt during the second of those games.

So then in the last two games Franz - coming off the illness against two good playoff teams on the road - has a USG rate well over 30 in the two games and he struggles because he's being stretched far beyond his ideal role?

But we're pissed off because he's not capable of becoming Paolo at the drop of a hat? He's no longer worth his contract?

I don't get it.

Children throwing tantrums.

Make believe is far more child-like. And we're lying to ourselves if we say this roster, outside of PB, looks competent. Wave your pom poms al you'd like, but losing your best player ALWAYS shows the depth you have. What kind of depth do we have? Zero.

Harris, KCP, and Cole are barely even NBA players (I legitimately don't believe Cole even is). One of them is a starter who's playing like a D league bench player.

[thelead]

I'm not saying it's the exact same thing like for like.

Just the overarching point that when your best player doesn't play, it's a lot harder to win.

Why say it’s not any different than Philly then? That’s pretty misleading.

With Embiid and Pg13 out, no one really matters outside of Maxey. It’s him and a bunch of scrubs.

With Paolo out, we have Franz, Suggs, Isaac, WCJ, KCP, Cole all locked into multi year deals making decent money with draft capital invested in them. 2 sophomore lotto picks in Black and Jett.

Guys have to play better. Hopefully they turn it around

A lot of people in this very forum are suggesting Franz isn't worth his contract because he's not capable of leveling up to be a No. 1 option when the team's clear No. 1 option isn't playing.

I think that's completely ridiculous personally.

The Sixers are 1-4 and Maxey's TS% is .503. Is he not worth his max contract because he hasn't been able to level up into a No. 1 option through the first week of the season?

Of course he's worth his contract. He's a damn good basketball player, just like Franz.

But right now both guys are simply being asked to do more offensively than they're capable of doing at an efficient level.

Maxey is working with A LOT less than Franz is.

Maxey has 38 year old Kyle Lowry starting next to him for goodness sakes

[CocoaFan]

Last year on East almost every single mid tear team lost it's best or second player for near half of a season.
Non of them looked like this.

Sure they did.

Philadelphia went 31-8 when Embiid played last year and 16-27 without him.

It sucks that this Paolo injury happened right before arguably the toughest road trip of the season, but it is what it is.

I know it has only been two games but Maxy put a better effort in those games without Embiid than Franz has without Paolo.

Hell, look at the effort that Paolo put in while Franz was gone. It’s night and day.

Magic were 3-7 w/o Franz playing and 4-8 when Paolo didn't play last season. Paolo and Franz bring totally different skillsets to the table. Franz is not going to be the 1v1 scorer that Paolo is. Franz is more of a connector that moves the ball, slashes to the basket and plays better defense. Those 2 really complement each and adding in Suggs really makes a nice trio. It seems people here expect Franz to turn into Paolo when Paolo is out. Paolo's absence though really points out the Magic need for a 3rd scoring option.

[ORLMagicGirl15]

Sure they did.

Philadelphia went 31-8 when Embiid played last year and 16-27 without him.

It sucks that this Paolo injury happened right before arguably the toughest road trip of the season, but it is what it is.

I know it has only been two games but Maxy put a better effort in those games without Embiid than Franz has without Paolo.

Hell, look at the effort that Paolo put in while Franz was gone. It’s night and day.

Magic were 3-7 w/o Franz playing and 4-8 when Paolo didn't play last season. Paolo and Franz bring totally different skillsets to the table. Franz is not going to be the 1v1 scorer that Paolo is. Franz is more of a connector that moves the ball, slashes to the basket and plays better defense. Those 2 really complement each and adding in Suggs really makes a nice trio. It seems people here expect Franz to turn into Paolo when Paolo is out. Paolo's absence though really points out the Magic need for a 3rd scoring option.

Paolo only missed 2 games last season how were we 4-8 without him?

[CZ Eddie]

All the injuries have occured on our long road trip.
Looks like we won't be back home until Thursday.
Once they get home, that'll give the team some time to re-group and practice as a team without Banchero and figure things out.
And hopefully put us back on a winning path of some sort.

[eyriq]

I think we need big minutes from JI, Franz, and Suggs.

[MasterGMer]

I think tonight's loss is more due to lacking a dominate scorer and lack of making shots.

BTW AB did have 5 TOs and that is probably why he was sitting at the end of the game.

JI was not as dominate defensively when we needed his big performance tonight and he was 0-4 from the 3pt line

Another factor is we just missed a lot of bunnies.

Plus Dallas's offense and Doncic is just too much for us.

All in all, we got our rotation players some minutes tonight. But we have to realize this is going to be a long season. And I think our coaches were getting ready for that.

[Knightro]

I also don't want it to get lost in the fact that this is almost certainly on paper the toughest four consecutive games on the entire schedule.

There's never gonna be a good time for your best player to get hurt, but immediately ahead of four straight playoff teams on the road with a Dallas/OKC back-to-back mixed in there is particularly brutal.

This would have potentially been a 1-4 kind of road trip even with Paolo, ya know?

If they come out and get drilled by Charlotte and Washington at home this time next week, then it's time to panic

[CocoaFan]

About Jett, what did you expect from guy who nobody projected to be lottery pick, with some out of first round projections, who also spent whole rookie year playing hardly professional basketball?

From a moment they drafted him to today, i still can't find one logical reason why that pick wasn't traded on draft night.

He is slowfooted 6'7 PF. He wasn't even that good of a college player.

Really weird pick - one of those picks you knew would likely turn out bad the moment Silver announced it.

Non-basketball reasons had to be at play.. I think Jett agreed to spending the year in the G-League. Similar to this FO taking Okeke because he agreed to wait a year to sign his deal.

Gradey Dick has had 2 30 point games this week. Just saying

[richi_v25]

Oh no all the bandwagon fans are leaving

[MasterGMer]

I also don't want it to get lost in the fact that this is almost certainly on paper the toughest four consecutive games on the entire schedule.

There's never gonna be a good time for your best player to get hurt, but immediately ahead of four straight playoff teams on the road with a Dallas/OKC back-to-back mixed in there is particularly brutal.

This would have potentially been a 1-4 kind of road trip even with Paolo, ya know?

If they come out and get drilled by Charlotte and Washington at home this time next week, then it's time to panic

We came out with energy and got our lead in the first quarter.

We just couldn't sustain it and from then on, it was missed 3s after missed 3s plus Dallas went on FIRE

I have confident if we played the entire game like how we came out, we could hang with anybody even without Paolo

[thelead]

Oh no all the bandwagon fans are leaving

Nope. Just hoping the FO doesn't think that internal development alone will turn this team into a contender.

I'm hoping that all of these team option contracts were done specifically to try to work their 'magic' (lol) after December 15th.