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With last season being so tragically awful, how much of it was in your opinion actually because of the acquisition of Serge Ibaka?

Our pace and offense was slow and non-functional often. We didn't hustle enough and honestly it was a bore often to watch, especially when we were getting constantly beaten and blown out.

I'm not sure how much truth there is to it but there was also apparently the behind closed doors fiasco of teammates being unhappy with one another more or less stemming from or around Ibaka. Wanting different players in lineups and things of that sort.

So in retrospect, how much of last season's failures do you think were caused by a coasting ibaka, inefficient spacing and offense with him in the lineup, and potentially morale issues involving him.

Could last season have been way more effective with oladipo instead, or even if ibaka was removed from the roster in a bubble?

Acquiring Ibaka was part of a bigger plan built around the idea of making AG a SF. Brining in Ibaka as a 3D PF made sense if you believed AG could take his game to a new level at the SF position. Henny obviously believed enough in that idea to gamble his own career. This was a topic of heated debate around here and one I struggled to firmly side on. But clearly we have learned that AG is a PF.

In short, I blame last season on the belief that AG could be a star SF. Ibaka was simply a byproduct of that.

I think Ibaka was the problem in the locker room. He seemed like he didn’t care and was entitled.


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I don't think you can put it on one player, but I do think Ibaka was trying to come to be a go-to player and get a big paycheck. To me, a big difference this year is that we brought in players who love basketball and have intangibles. Plus, a change in the offensive system and another year of maturity and chemistry building.

Magicfan101 is right in that AG at SF probably contributed a lot. I think AG himself preferred being a SF. But ultimately, PF is clearly his best position. Wasn't there something out there that Ibaka wanted to move to C? Vuc as a 3 pt shooting center is giving us the range that Ibaka at C would have given us.

If Gordon was a 40%+ 3-ball shooter last year, Ibaka probably works. former-GM Hennigan bet the farm on something he did not know: how is Gordon's shot in an NBA game?
Presumably he saw the practices and the rain was being made. But the gym is not the game.

More conceptually, Orlando had HORRIBLE spacing last year. And that was not about Gordon bricking 3-balls.



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Besides the apparent chemistry issues, another problem with last year's plan is the fact that Ibaka's mobility and defense has declined to the point where he's absolutely at his best as a center.

The issue with that as we all know is the Magic had/have almost 30M tied up in two other guys that can ONLY play center.

The trickle down effect went on from there with Gordon having to play out of position, Uncle Jeff had to play way more SF than he deserved etc etc etc.

It's very difficult to succeed playing slow with two bigs on the floor in the pace and space era of the NBA unless one (or both) of the bigs are really special talents.

Knightro wrote:Besides the apparent chemistry issues, another problem with last year's plan is the fact that Ibaka's mobility and defense has declined to the point where he's absolutely at his best as a center.

The issue with that as we all know is the Magic had/have almost 30M tied up in two other guys that can ONLY play center.

The trickle down effect went on from there with Gordon having to play out of position, Uncle Jeff had to play way more SF than he deserved etc etc etc.

It's very difficult to succeed playing slow with two bigs on the floor in the pace and space era of the NBA unless one (or both) of the bigs are really special talents.

Even if those two are special talents(Cousins and AD) that in itself isn't enough anymore. You need an elite group of wings(3D) to reach relevancy if your going to go 90s twin tower in this era.

It's pretty amazing how Isaac at 20 is already everything we wanted Ibaka to be for us defensively last year.

His effort was always lacking. It was plain as day.

Other than a handful games he always gave less than 100%

shouldn't have made that trade maybe? idk at that time everything was fluid. i'll tell you what though, i'm feeling the sabonis loss...he's playing well right now

Didn't like Ibaka or Jeff Green's energy level on the floor

It was all together:
1. Vogel : playing big, slow pace, not adjusting to roster
2. Ibaka & Jeff Green effect (we basically traded Dipo & Tobias to be able to have these two + Biyombo)
3. AG as SF
4. No spacing with EP, AG, Biyombo and no 3pt shooting Vučević
5. Benching Vučević for Biyombo

Solid Snake wrote:shouldn't have made that trade maybe? idk at that time everything was fluid. i'll tell you what though, i'm feeling the sabonis loss...he's playing well right now

Management made many mistakes over the last few years, but honestly i'm fine. If they didn't, then would we be where we're at now? Got a great looking team so far (knock on wood), with a legit prospect in Isaac, our guys are finally starting to break out, mainly AG. A great leader in Simmons on a great contract. I couldn't be much happier.

Yep. Ag at sf affected the way we played.

But its not that. Vogel clearly didnt know how to use his players last year. You can clearly see that last year, the second lineup solely depended on iso plays of dj and jeff green.

Ive said it before, the team doesnt have enough firepower to rely on isolation plays. We need to run more set plays. And we can see that now.

We basically did everything wrong last season... and putting so much hope into a non-star player who was forced here and probably didn't want to be here was a big part of that. Problems created by trading for Ibaka: got rid of the heart of our team in Dipo, reduced our ballhandlers in the SL from 3 to 2, forced Fournier into too big of a role which made him less efficient, forced AG out of position where he couldn't make much of an impact, Ibaka playing lazily at a position that previously had a hustler, prevented us from playing fast, killed team chemistry, locker room cancer.

p0peye wrote:It was all together:
1. Vogel : playing big, slow pace, not adjusting to roster
2. Ibaka & Jeff Green effect (we basically traded Dipo & Tobias to be able to have these two + Biyombo)
3. AG as SF
4. No spacing with EP, AG, Biyombo and no 3pt shooting Vučević
5. Benching Vučević for Biyombo

Number 2 gets me down! I know there is no knowing we get #5 pick last year with Harris and Dipo, but the balance of the team would be off and Vucevic wouldn’t have developed spacing. Saying we got #5 imagine

Payton/Augustine
Oladipo/Hezonja
Fournier/Harris
Gordon/Isaac
Vucevic/Speights

That 10 is nice! We’d miss Ross’s spacing, but what a rotation that is


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I was frustrated DeVos decided to double down after tossing away Harris. I’m convinced DeVos was behind Otis’ decision to trade Carter and Lewis for Turk/J-Rich/Arenas, and I regard DeVos’ willingness to interfere with gm-ing as the greatest threat to our team’s success.