2023-2024 Preseason Season Game 1: Orlando Magic (0-0) at New Orleans Pelicans (0-0) - 8pm

[tiderulz]

Black's handle and defense looked good. I think his shot will get better with experience because he was just putting himself in bad positions to get shots off.

Ingles will probably take Black's spot in the rotation. Black could bump Harris from the rotation by the end of the season.

Sent from my SM-G781U using RealGM mobile app

that hasnt really been the experience here

[tiderulz]

I cant believe Mosley once again tries this ridiculous Fultz/Suggs backcourt. Worst combo you can think of among all our guards. One guard who cant shoot and one who cant and wont. WCJ wont shoot 4/5 from 3 every game.
I hope its only becouse he wants to prove that this combination doesnt work to silence the critics.

Say what? That is easily our best backcourt and is hopefully here to stay this year. Franz and WCJ will have to provide spacing in that starting lineup.

We just don't have the personnel to have an above average offense, but we have the defenders to keep the opposing offense below average as well. That's what Mosley is going to have to work with.

not criticizing you on this, but its a little absurd that we would have to rely on our below average 3pt shooting center, to provide space. That is what your guards are for. thats their job description, unless you have some elite player that can come out of the post. WCJ shot just under 36% from 3 last year, which is great, but we dont know if its a fluke or not. And he isnt that elite at it, that he should be moved away from the basket. Let him work down low with his size and reach. but no, because people fixate that Fultz will become the player he looked like his 1 year in college going into his 7th year in the NBA, we have to figure out crazy things just to make it work. He just isnt that special a player that to ignore his faults.

and yes, its just 1 pre-season game, but if Suggs doesnt show improvement on his outside shot, he either needs to move to the bench as an energy role player or be moved. Maybe Portland would take him for SImons, both teams bringing the local guy in.

[Knightro]

Gary Harris is awful. Guy is non existent on both sides of the court 95% of the time. To suggest replacing Suggs with him to accommodate Fultz unwillingness to shoot whatsoever is ridiculous. I get the idea in theory, but you clearly didn’t watch the game if that was your main issue.

Gary should be traded for a better option if you are going to suggest someone challenging Suggs for minutes and can make the case they are more impactful. Good luck.

It really just depends on what the actual goal is this season.

If the Magic want to maximize their wins this year, then starting Harris and playing Ingles 20 MPG would accomplish that best. It would boost the starting lineup by providing a competent shooter *and* boost the bench as Cole/Suggs were a GREAT combo last year. Throw in the fact that Suggs/Isaac have a chance to overwhelm opposing bench units defensively and you see where I'm going with this.

If the goal is to just maximize player development, then keep starting Suggs at SG and don't even play Harris/Ingles at all. Give those minutes to Black and Jett and just live with the consequences of their rookie struggles.

My guess is that the "plan" is to try and do both (win games while also developing youth) for at least 25-30 games until one of the two paths become more obvious to take.

[VFX]

Gary Harris is awful. Guy is non existent on both sides of the court 95% of the time. To suggest replacing Suggs with him to accommodate Fultz unwillingness to shoot whatsoever is ridiculous. I get the idea in theory, but you clearly didn’t watch the game if that was your main issue.

Gary should be traded for a better option if you are going to suggest someone challenging Suggs for minutes and can make the case they are more impactful. Good luck.

It really just depends on what the actual goal is this season.

If the Magic want to maximize their wins this year, then starting Harris and playing Ingles 20 MPG would accomplish that best. It would boost the starting lineup by providing a competent shooter *and* boost the bench as Cole/Suggs were a GREAT combo last year. Throw in the fact that Suggs/Isaac have a chance to overwhelm opposing bench units defensively and you see where I'm going with this.

If the goal is to just maximize player development, then keep starting Suggs at SG and don't even play Harris/Ingles at all. Give those minutes to Black and Jett and just live with the consequences of their rookie struggles.

My guess is that the "plan" is to try and do both (win games while also developing youth) for at least 25-30 games until one of the two paths become more obvious to take.

The will do both.

If the argument is that they need to balance out the starting lineup with shooting, then Gary Harris isn’t really a great example.

[Knightro]

The will do both.

If the argument is that they need to balance out the starting lineup with shooting, then Gary Harris isn’t really a great example.

Ehhh I dunno if I agree with that. Harris is the only capable shooter they have at guard. Whether he's has "floor spacing gravity" or not, he makes threes and no other guard they have does, so he has to play.

I love Suggs and he obviously is a guy we all like more than Harris, but it's undeniable the starting lineup last night was propped up by Wendell shooting 80% from 3PT which is gonna happen like once a month

Otherwise it generally looked like a clogged mess in the halfcourt when the starters were in the game.

Now if they don't *actually* care about maximizing their wins, then of course keep starting Suggs because it doesn't matter anyway. And even if that isn't their best possible combination, they'll still be able to win games with defense and depth.

[VFX]

The will do both.

If the argument is that they need to balance out the starting lineup with shooting, then Gary Harris isn’t really a great example.

Ehhh I dunno if I agree with that. Harris is the only capable shooter they have at guard. Whether he's has "floor spacing gravity" or not, he makes threes and no other guard they have does, so he has to play.

I love Suggs and he obviously is a guy we all like more than Harris, but it's undeniable the starting lineup last night was propped up by Wendell shooting 80% from 3PT which is gonna happen like once a month

Otherwise it generally looked like a clogged mess in the halfcourt when the starters were in the game.

Now if they don't *actually* care about maximizing their wins, then of course keep starting Suggs because it doesn't matter anyway. And even if that isn't their best possible combination, they'll still be able to win games with defense and depth.

I guess I’ll rephrase.

If the idea is that you need to balance the starting lineup by having a shooter in the mix in place of Suggs, then they should acquire one that actually does that job better than Gary Harris. Ideally that person is Jett Howard in 2-3 seasons, but we both know that’s not really how it works.

The spacing has always been an issue and ultimately in a macro long term view of this roster I think the FO needs to come down to a decision on either Fultz or Suggs. IMO Cole has his role carved out whether he accepts it or not.

[Residual-Heat]

Black basically performed as i thought he would. Mostly played SF. Like Ive said before, expect a Dyson Daniels type of role from him this season. I wasnt a big fan of the pick, but whatever i wasnt really a big fan of anyone in the draft range.

Paolo will be an improved player. The USA basketball experience i think improved his transition game, defense, and rebounding.

Suggs-Fultz is still questionable. I dont know if theyre going to start the whole season together. Love their defense, love that they push the pace, but the shooting isnt going to work. I hope im wrong.

Franz ist gut.

Mo sucked. Goga is better.

WCJ and Cole were great.

Isaac still missing his explosiveness, but thats no surprise, he may never fully recover.

[JBSouthpaw]

The will do both.

If the argument is that they need to balance out the starting lineup with shooting, then Gary Harris isn’t really a great example.

Ehhh I dunno if I agree with that. Harris is the only capable shooter they have at guard. Whether he's has "floor spacing gravity" or not, he makes threes and no other guard they have does, so he has to play.

I love Suggs and he obviously is a guy we all like more than Harris, but it's undeniable the starting lineup last night was propped up by Wendell shooting 80% from 3PT which is gonna happen like once a month

Otherwise it generally looked like a clogged mess in the halfcourt when the starters were in the game.

Now if they don't *actually* care about maximizing their wins, then of course keep starting Suggs because it doesn't matter anyway. And even if that isn't their best possible combination, they'll still be able to win games with defense and depth.

we were 24th in 3pt % for the regular season, 3 teams were worse than us made the playoffs, and 3 other playoff teams shot less than 1% better than us. I want to shoot better 3s too, but that isn't what is keeping us from the playoffs.
All 6 of those teams mentioned above had better Turnover numbers by 1 whole TO a game.
Rebound a bit better, shoot a bit better from the field, shoot FT a bit better and less turnovers will turn the -2.6 pt Diff around real quick.

[Knightro]

we were 24th in 3pt % for the regular season, 3 teams were worse than us made the playoffs, and 3 other playoff teams shot less than 1% better than us. I want to shoot better 3s too, but that isn't what is keeping us from the playoffs.
All 6 of those teams mentioned above had better Turnover numbers by 1 whole TO a game.
Rebound a bit better, shoot a bit better from the field, shoot FT a bit better and less turnovers will turn the -2.6 pt Diff around real quick.

You can be a low volume, high accuracy 3PT team and still have success. Denver and Cleveland didn't attempt many threes and each had success.

You can be a high volume, low accuracy 3PT team and still have success. Memphis and Miami didn't shoot threes that well and each had success.

What you really can't really be is low volume *and* low accuracy from 3PT, which is what the Magic were (27th in volume, 24th in accuracy) and have success. One way or another the Magic have to take or make more threes, or both!

Only one NBA team was low volume, low accuracy from 3PT and made the playoffs. That was the Lakers who have two Hall of Famers and led the league in FT rate by a mile. Not a team that probably should be attempted to replicate

[Fortune Teller]

I wasn't able to watch -- how bad was Black offensively? What did his shot look like against NBA defense (non-summer league)?

[tiderulz]

The will do both.

If the argument is that they need to balance out the starting lineup with shooting, then Gary Harris isn’t really a great example.

Ehhh I dunno if I agree with that. Harris is the only capable shooter they have at guard. Whether he's has "floor spacing gravity" or not, he makes threes and no other guard they have does, so he has to play.

I love Suggs and he obviously is a guy we all like more than Harris, but it's undeniable the starting lineup last night was propped up by Wendell shooting 80% from 3PT which is gonna happen like once a month

Otherwise it generally looked like a clogged mess in the halfcourt when the starters were in the game.

Now if they don't *actually* care about maximizing their wins, then of course keep starting Suggs because it doesn't matter anyway. And even if that isn't their best possible combination, they'll still be able to win games with defense and depth.

when Franz and Paolo look to leave, because this front office wont surround them with players that can shoot, thus hampering their game and development, i dont want to hear any of the front office supporters come complain about why they wouldnt stay. and we see these young players more and more are willing to leave to get to what they believe is a better place. And they see here the front office wont address problems that the fans have seen for years.

[jonbob17]

The will do both.

If the argument is that they need to balance out the starting lineup with shooting, then Gary Harris isn’t really a great example.

Ehhh I dunno if I agree with that. Harris is the only capable shooter they have at guard. Whether he's has "floor spacing gravity" or not, he makes threes and no other guard they have does, so he has to play.

I love Suggs and he obviously is a guy we all like more than Harris, but it's undeniable the starting lineup last night was propped up by Wendell shooting 80% from 3PT which is gonna happen like once a month

Otherwise it generally looked like a clogged mess in the halfcourt when the starters were in the game.

Now if they don't *actually* care about maximizing their wins, then of course keep starting Suggs because it doesn't matter anyway. And even if that isn't their best possible combination, they'll still be able to win games with defense and depth.

Suggs defense > Gary Harris making 2 3s a game. Harris doesn't have any gravity, other than his man standing around near him at the 3 point line. NO team is going to use a second player to worry about Gary Harris. Teams can also close out hard against Harris, because he's not going to attack. Much rather have Suggs at 33% from 3 than Gary Harris at 38%, because Suggs does more.

[eyriq]

The will do both.

If the argument is that they need to balance out the starting lineup with shooting, then Gary Harris isn’t really a great example.

Ehhh I dunno if I agree with that. Harris is the only capable shooter they have at guard. Whether he's has "floor spacing gravity" or not, he makes threes and no other guard they have does, so he has to play.

I love Suggs and he obviously is a guy we all like more than Harris, but it's undeniable the starting lineup last night was propped up by Wendell shooting 80% from 3PT which is gonna happen like once a month

Otherwise it generally looked like a clogged mess in the halfcourt when the starters were in the game.

Now if they don't *actually* care about maximizing their wins, then of course keep starting Suggs because it doesn't matter anyway. And even if that isn't their best possible combination, they'll still be able to win games with defense and depth.

Suggs defense > Gary Harris making 2 3s a game. Harris doesn't have any gravity, other than his man standing around near him at the 3 point line. NO team is going to use a second player to worry about Gary Harris. Teams can also close out hard against Harris, because he's not going to attack. Much rather have Suggs at 33% from 3 a game than Gary Harris at 38%, because Suggs does more.

Bingo

[pepe1991]

The will do both.

If the argument is that they need to balance out the starting lineup with shooting, then Gary Harris isn’t really a great example.

Ehhh I dunno if I agree with that. Harris is the only capable shooter they have at guard. Whether he's has "floor spacing gravity" or not, he makes threes and no other guard they have does, so he has to play.

I love Suggs and he obviously is a guy we all like more than Harris, but it's undeniable the starting lineup last night was propped up by Wendell shooting 80% from 3PT which is gonna happen like once a month

Otherwise it generally looked like a clogged mess in the halfcourt when the starters were in the game.

Now if they don't *actually* care about maximizing their wins, then of course keep starting Suggs because it doesn't matter anyway. And even if that isn't their best possible combination, they'll still be able to win games with defense and depth.

Suggs defense > Gary Harris making 2 3s a game. Harris doesn't have any gravity, other than his man standing around near him at the 3 point line. NO team is going to use a second player to worry about Gary Harris. Teams can also close out hard against Harris, because he's not going to attack. Much rather have Suggs at 33% from 3 a game than Gary Harris at 38%, because Suggs does more.

This literally is gravity in basketball

[Knightro]

I wasn't able to watch -- how bad was Black offensively? What did his shot look like against NBA defense (non-summer league)?

His shooting numbers are a little skewed.

He took and missed a halfcourt heave at the end of a quarter which was one of his 3PT misses.

He also got the ball twice on "9-1-1 shots" aka he received a pass with like 1 on the shot clock and had to throw up a quick shot that had no chance.

But he didn't look super comfortable creating anything for himself off the dribble in his first game.

[VFX]

Ehhh I dunno if I agree with that. Harris is the only capable shooter they have at guard. Whether he's has "floor spacing gravity" or not, he makes threes and no other guard they have does, so he has to play.

I love Suggs and he obviously is a guy we all like more than Harris, but it's undeniable the starting lineup last night was propped up by Wendell shooting 80% from 3PT which is gonna happen like once a month

Otherwise it generally looked like a clogged mess in the halfcourt when the starters were in the game.

Now if they don't *actually* care about maximizing their wins, then of course keep starting Suggs because it doesn't matter anyway. And even if that isn't their best possible combination, they'll still be able to win games with defense and depth.

Suggs defense > Gary Harris making 2 3s a game. Harris doesn't have any gravity, other than his man standing around near him at the 3 point line. NO team is going to use a second player to worry about Gary Harris. Teams can also close out hard against Harris, because he's not going to attack. Much rather have Suggs at 33% from 3 a game than Gary Harris at 38%, because Suggs does more.

This literally is gravity in basketball

Which doesn’t matter because Gary Harris is invisible for games at a time.

[jonbob17]

Ehhh I dunno if I agree with that. Harris is the only capable shooter they have at guard. Whether he's has "floor spacing gravity" or not, he makes threes and no other guard they have does, so he has to play.

I love Suggs and he obviously is a guy we all like more than Harris, but it's undeniable the starting lineup last night was propped up by Wendell shooting 80% from 3PT which is gonna happen like once a month

Otherwise it generally looked like a clogged mess in the halfcourt when the starters were in the game.

Now if they don't *actually* care about maximizing their wins, then of course keep starting Suggs because it doesn't matter anyway. And even if that isn't their best possible combination, they'll still be able to win games with defense and depth.

Suggs defense > Gary Harris making 2 3s a game. Harris doesn't have any gravity, other than his man standing around near him at the 3 point line. NO team is going to use a second player to worry about Gary Harris. Teams can also close out hard against Harris, because he's not going to attack. Much rather have Suggs at 33% from 3 a game than Gary Harris at 38%, because Suggs does more.

This literally is gravity in basketball

Ok it is in the sense that a guy guards Harris, but nothing else Harris does, impacts the gravity of other players on the court. The other 4 defenders on the court can ignore Harris. And the gravity of Harris's own defender is meh...i mean nobody is ignoring him but nobody is up in Harris's grill because they can close out on him aggressively, and he doesn't move around so they know where he is.


Last year Harris took 4.5 threes a game and made two of them. Thats's 43% Muy impressivo.

According the NBA tracking:
2.0 of his attempts were wide open closest defender was 6 feet or further away. He made one of those.
2.1 of his attempts were open, closest defender 4-6 feet away and he made 0.8 of those.
Harris made 0.1 of 0.4 attempts a game where he was being guarded.

The reason Harris was getting open looks was because of the gravity of the other playmakers he shared the court with. Fultz (believe it or not), Franz, and Paolo. Harris's defender helped out against these other playmakers leaving Harris open for a three.

Can't believe a perimeter starter that makes 3 shots a game, and is just ok on defense gets this much love and support.
All Harris did last year was stand outside the three point line. and ocassionally shoot it...granted he didn't get the ball much either, but he wasn't doing anything else like running off screens...or setting them..or anything.

[eyriq]

This post makes me wish the mobile app had an and1 option, or whatever that is called. Bravo! Harris sucks

[Knightro]

Which doesn’t matter because Gary Harris is invisible for games at a time.

Come on now. Don't you get lost in the raw stats sauce either.

The Magic played better offensively when Gary Harris was on the floor compared to when he wasn't last year. He might not have taken a lot of shots or been involved in the action all that much, but he made a lot of the shots he did take and his man couldn't completely ignore him when he was out there like they could and can do with other guys. Gary also consistently made teams pay when they did ignore him.

[Knightro]

Ok it is in the sense that a guy guards Harris, but nothing else Harris does, impacts the gravity of other players on the court. The other 4 defenders on the court can ignore Harris. And the gravity of Harris's own defender is meh...i mean nobody is ignoring him but nobody is up in Harris's grill because they can close out on him aggressively, and he doesn't move around so they know where he is.

Last year Harris took 4.5 threes a game and made two of them. Thats's 43% Muy impressivo.

According the NBA tracking:
2.0 of his attempts were wide open closest defender was 6 feet or further away. He made one of those.
2.1 of his attempts were open, closest defender 4-6 feet away and he made 0.8 of those.
That mean Harris made 0.2 of 0.4 attempts a game where he was being guarded.

The reason Harris was getting open looks was because of the gravity of the other playmakers he shared the court with. Fultz (believe it or not), Franz, and Paolo. Harris's defender helped out against these other playmakers leaving Harris open for a three.

Can't believe a perimeter starter that makes 3 shots a game, and is just ok on defense gets this much love and support.
All Harris did last year was stand outside the three point line. and ocassionally shoot it...granted he didn't get the ball much either, but he wasn't doing anything else like running off screens...or setting them..or anything.

And I'm here to tell you Gary's man helping off him less liberally than say Anthony Black or Jalen Suggs' man would help off them is a significant factor in how much easier of a time Fultz and Paolo and Franz have driving to the basket when Gary is on the floor.

And when Gary's man does help off, a 43% 3PT shooter is a lot more impactful than a 30% 3PT shooter.

I am flabbergasted how easily people are writing off shooting and spacing because the raw stats aren't very high.

Ultimately, it's not about what Gary does. He isn't asked to move a lot, so he's not a traditional "gravity" off-ball player in the respect like a Curry or Klay is. i

But having a 43% 3PT shooter on the floor willing to shoot every time he gets a ball swing does instead of having a 30% 3PT shooter who doesn't want to shoot and often drives into traffic instead of shooting is a lot more impactful than some of y'all seem to realize.