When do the seats of Weltham heat up?

[neuraldarwinism]

who exactly, besides fultz, are these "young guys" in our rotation right now who will also be in our rotation say 2 years from now?

[fendilim]

who exactly, besides fultz, are these "young guys" in our rotation right now who will also be in our rotation say 2 years from now?

Isaac. lol

[Magic_Kingdom]

Weltman & Hammond have absolutely bombed the draft three years straight. Their only draft pick who has shown *any* potential is Isaac, and he can't stay healthy.

Isaac has played in 134 games out of a possible 246 over 3 seasons (assuming he misses the remainder of this season). That means he is available to play only 54% of the time. When he does play he exhibits most of his potential on defense in a league that values offense and shooting. He was only averaging 12.0 ppg in Year 3, so it's not like he was on a clear path to stardom.

Bamba has shown no improvement, which is *stunning* because his rookie season was so mediocre. The bar was about as low as it could be and he can't seem to step over it. He plays with no energy, which is not something that players typically improve.

Okeke was a seriously injured first-round draft pick who won't even see the court this year. Who knows what he will be but at this point he and Isaac are contributing the same amount -- nothing.

Three first-round picks over the last three drafts who are currently contributing 5.5 points and 5.0 rebounds to this year's team.

All of this is way more frustrating because of what the Heat have been able to do with their draft picks over the past few years, none of whom were Top 3 picks. Meaning, you can't use the excuse, "well we didn't tank hard enough and didn't win the lottery."

[WeAreVenom]

Weltman & Hammond have absolutely bombed the draft three years straight. Their only draft pick who has shown *any* potential is Isaac, and he can't stay healthy.

Isaac has played in 134 games out of a possible 246 over 3 seasons (assuming he misses the remainder of this season). That means he is available to play only 54% of the time. When he does play he exhibits most of his potential on defense in a league that values offense and shooting. He was only averaging 12.0 ppg in Year 3, so it's not like he was on a clear path to stardom.

Bamba has shown no improvement, which is *stunning* because his rookie season was so mediocre. The bar was about as low as it could be and he can't seem to step over it. He plays with no energy, which is not something that players typically improve.

Okeke was a seriously injured first-round draft pick who won't even see the court this year. Who knows what he will be but at this point he and Isaac are contributing the same amount -- nothing.

Three first-round picks over the last three drafts who are currently contributing 5.5 points and 5.0 rebounds to this year's team.

All of this is way more frustrating because of what the Heat have been able to do with their draft picks over the past few years, none of whom were Top 3 picks. Meaning, you can't use the excuse, "well we didn't tank hard enough and didn't win the lottery."

WeHam is a joke. We should have known when they said they were taking an "Evaluation Year"...What the hell is there to evaluate? We sucked then and suck now and they are doing next to nothing to fix it.

This last 8 years has to be the worst stretch in Magic history with literally no end in sight.

[cedric76]

In weham i trust

[dsg2003mach1]

When they do get the axe I can't wait to hear how the team is finally gonna do things the right way for umpteenth time <roll eyes>

[Furinkazan]

who exactly, besides fultz, are these "young guys" in our rotation right now who will also be in our rotation say 2 years from now?

Iwundu dont forget we develop Iwundu and coach favourite MCW

[Knightro]

Bamba has shown no improvement, which is *stunning* because his rookie season was so mediocre. The bar was about as low as it could be and he can't seem to step over it. He plays with no energy, which is not something that players typically improve.

Just can't agree with you here. I have been super hard on Bamba, but even I would agree he's made tangible progress this season

Last year he was one of the worst players in basketball. His RPM was -4.56. That ranked 60th among 60 centers. Dead friggin last.

This year he's a -0.02. 35th out of 65 centers.

Last year his Plus/Minus Per 100 Possessions on Court was -14.1 and his Plus/Minus Net Per 100 Possessions was a historically bad -18.8.

This year? Plus/Minus Per 100 Possessions on Court is +2.1 and Plus/Minus Net Per 100 Possessions is +5.1

He's getting better.

[dsg2021]

What's scary is that there actually are teams who found 1-2 All Stars (I'm forgetting what those are as a Magic fan, at least, lol), and still can't get out of the basement, or into a respectable playoff seed. It is not an easy job for sure.

[KillMonger]

Are the young guys even involved in the offense when it matters? 4th quarters fultz is standing in the corner, issac? No plays called for him in year 3.....and bamba can't even get more minutes than a g league player who he has been outplaying recently..... Clifford is not really involving the youth

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[Def Swami]

Are the young guys even involved in the offense when it matters? 4th quarters fultz is standing in the corner, issac? No plays called for him in year 3.....and bamba can't even get more minutes than a g league player who he has been outplaying recently..... Clifford is not really involving the youth

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That's where I disagree with Weltman on this "develop young players in winning environment" idea. I don't know the value to a playoff series against the Bucks that would assuredly end in an embarrassing sweep do for Fultz if he's just sitting in a corner while Fournier and Vucevic run pick n' roll, Bamba plays a minor 15 mpg, and Isaac sits on the bench for the rest of the year. I don't mind letting young players grow in a competitive context. But, we're not the Memphis Grizzlies where the youth are actually carrying this team forward, and we're not the older Raptors where vets like DeRozan and Lowry can actually lead them through meaningful games in the playoffs.

[PrimeThyme]

Truly the biggest fraud in basketball. Weltman thinks he is this smarter than everyone else basketball messiah who is two steps ahead but really he is just a hack who is awful at his job. His philosophy of wanting to win as many games as possible and build this "winning culture" has only achieved one thing and that is it has stopped us from drafting the top talent in the draft.

He's like one of those con artists running a pyramid scheme trying to sell everyone on "positionless" basketball. He's loaded this roster up with long-armed forwards who can defend positions 1-5 but forgot the biggest component to why positionless basketball worked in the first place..and that's shooting. You have to be able to make shots no matter what lineup you have out there. GS's death ball lineup wasn't lethal bc they could defend positions 1-5, it was lethal because they had 5 more than capable 3pt shooters on the court at all times and the defense was forced to guard.

This team's ceiling even fully healthy was always the 7th seed. We didn't get **** from making the playoffs last year. Nothing has changed, we didn't build off of anything or get better. We are in the exact same position we were a year ago today except this time we won't have a flukey run to save face.

[WeAreVenom]

Are the young guys even involved in the offense when it matters? 4th quarters fultz is standing in the corner, issac? No plays called for him in year 3.....and bamba can't even get more minutes than a g league player who he has been outplaying recently..... Clifford is not really involving the youth

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That's where I disagree with Weltman on this "develop young players in winning environment" idea. I don't know the value to a playoff series against the Bucks that would assuredly end in an embarrassing sweep do for Fultz if he's just sitting in a corner while Fournier and Vucevic run pick n' roll, Bamba plays a minor 15 mpg, and Isaac sits on the bench for the rest of the year. I don't mind letting young players grow in a competitive context. But, we're not the Memphis Grizzlies where the youth are actually carrying this team forward, and we're not the older Raptors where vets like DeRozan and Lowry can actually lead them through meaningful games in the playoffs.

Agreed.

I really don't think we can have true success with Vuc/Gordon/Fournier there. 2 out of 3 of them need to go, unfortunately they chose to sign Vuc to that God-Awful contract so here we are.

[Max Power]

I’m not going to rip Weltman and Hammond hard like some of you guys. Some things they’ve done were good, like bringing in Fultz, others not so much like drafting Bamba. You could say the same for Hennigan. They’re both applying patience to a franchise who’s fan base is about to walk on them. It’s time to get bold, whether it’s then doing it or a new regime.

I honestly don’t have any faith in them. Any GM’s first job should be to acquire a star player. Hennigan at least drafted Oladipo. I don’t believe Weltman and Hammond have tried at all. They’ve been more concerned with keeping what’s in place that did work out of nowhere last year. It’s time to move on from this squad honestly. If they’re big offseason plan is to resign Evan Fournier, they both need to be fired to be plainly honest. Progress doesn’t happen if they keep him. You don’t reward a guy for leading a 35 win team in scoring when they were a division title winner the year prior. If we don’t acquire a star this summer, come hell or high water, the summer of 2021 we need a new GM. Period. The problem isn’t Steve Clifford, it’s the roster.

[WeAreVenom]

I’m not going to rip Weltman and Hammond hard like some of you guys. Some things they’ve done were good, like bringing in Fultz, others not so much like drafting Bamba. You could say the same for Hennigan. They’re both applying patience to a franchise who’s fan base is about to walk on them. It’s time to get bold, whether it’s then doing it or a new regime.

I honestly don’t have any faith in them. Any GM’s first job should be to acquire a star player. Hennigan at least drafted Oladipo. I don’t believe Weltman and Hammond have tried at all. They’ve been more concerned with keeping what’s in place that did work out of nowhere last year. It’s time to move on from this squad honestly. If they’re big offseason plan is to resign Evan Fournier, they both need to be fired to be plainly honest. Progress doesn’t happen if they keep him. You don’t reward a guy for leading a 35 win team in scoring when they were a division title winner the year prior. If we don’t acquire a star this summer, come hell or high water, the summer of 2021 we need a new GM. Period. The problem isn’t Steve Clifford, it’s the roster.

My worst fear for this team is that Clifford gets blamed for the roster he has inherited that no one seems to be willing to switch up for some reason.

[dsg2021]

Are the young guys even involved in the offense when it matters? 4th quarters fultz is standing in the corner, issac? No plays called for him in year 3.....and bamba can't even get more minutes than a g league player who he has been outplaying recently..... Clifford is not really involving the youth

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That's where I disagree with Weltman on this "develop young players in winning environment" idea. I don't know the value to a playoff series against the Bucks that would assuredly end in an embarrassing sweep do for Fultz if he's just sitting in a corner while Fournier and Vucevic run pick n' roll, Bamba plays a minor 15 mpg, and Isaac sits on the bench for the rest of the year. I don't mind letting young players grow in a competitive context. But, we're not the Memphis Grizzlies where the youth are actually carrying this team forward, and we're not the older Raptors where vets like DeRozan and Lowry can actually lead them through meaningful games in the playoffs.

Agreed.

I really don't think we can have true success with Vuc/Gordon/Fournier there. 2 out of 3 of them need to go, unfortunately they chose to sign Vuc to that God-Awful contract so here we are.

If I had to lose two of those three like you say, I would actually want to keep Vooch..

[Xatticus]

Are the young guys even involved in the offense when it matters? 4th quarters fultz is standing in the corner, issac? No plays called for him in year 3.....and bamba can't even get more minutes than a g league player who he has been outplaying recently..... Clifford is not really involving the youth

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Yeah. This really bothers me. I have no idea what he is talking about when he goes on about developing the youth. Our young players are simply out there to do the dirty work so that Vucevic and Fournier can get paid to orchestrate this **** offense.

It's not lost on me that Isaac got injured making a selfish basketball play. He isn't part of the offense. He is being taught that the only way for him to score is to go out and get points outside of the framework of the offense, so every time he gets a transition opportunity, he calls his own number.

Competitive? What the hell is Weltman talking about? We aren't competitive. We have the worst winning percentage in the NBA against top 10 teams according to Sagarin's rankings:

http://sagarin.com/sports/nbasend.htm


We are 1-19 against such teams. That lone win was against the Lakers. How the hell are we supposed to string together four wins in a playoff series?

We are gatekeepers. We pad our win total by beating the teams that aren't really committed to winning games. The only reason we have been in the playoff hunt in each of the last two seasons is because an inordinate percentage of the conference is dysfunctional at present.

It's frustrating to hear an interview where Weltman doesn't really appreciate the situation. He seems to think that this is all part of his plan and that this plan is going to work. He is rationalizing away any obvious indicators to the contrary. I think Weltman is in over his head.

[Bensational]

When Weltman can say, 2.5 years into his rebuild "we don't have our lead scorer or go to option yet", after he's just come off an offseason where he handed out over $50M and crippled our cap space for at least 4 years, then we have reason to be concerned.

At the moment we're rebuilding in the vein of Toronto when their main pieces were just Lowry and DeRozan, and even those two as main pieces are significantly better than Vuc and Fournier as a duo capable of carrying a team to regular season wins. But Toronto were absolute paper tigers before they traded for Kawhi and Siakam emerged.

So then is the plan for Magic fans to just wait through 5 years of first round outs before 'the right opportunity' opens us to land a lead scorer for 1 year? Maybe not. Weltman and Hammond weren't around for the years Toronto and Milwaukee got good so that might be a lesson in building a contender that they skipped.

[jjohns828]

Are the young guys even involved in the offense when it matters? 4th quarters fultz is standing in the corner, issac? No plays called for him in year 3.....and bamba can't even get more minutes than a g league player who he has been outplaying recently..... Clifford is not really involving the youth

Sent from my SM-G960U using RealGM mobile app

That's where I disagree with Weltman on this "develop young players in winning environment" idea. I don't know the value to a playoff series against the Bucks that would assuredly end in an embarrassing sweep do for Fultz if he's just sitting in a corner while Fournier and Vucevic run pick n' roll, Bamba plays a minor 15 mpg, and Isaac sits on the bench for the rest of the year. I don't mind letting young players grow in a competitive context. But, we're not the Memphis Grizzlies where the youth are actually carrying this team forward, and we're not the older Raptors where vets like DeRozan and Lowry can actually lead them through meaningful games in the playoffs.

Agreed.

I really don't think we can have true success with Vuc/Gordon/Fournier there. 2 out of 3 of them need to go, unfortunately they chose to sign Vuc to that God-Awful contract so here we are.

I would agree that we need to move 2 of the 3 but I would more say it needs to be AG and 1 of Vuc and Fournier. Isaac needs to be a full time PF and AG as SF isn’t going to work long-term and we need to break up the buddy ball duo.


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[Bergmaniac]

I wonder how much of this is WeHam's fault and how much of it is the owners and Martin's. How much freedom do WeHam have to take risks? I could be wrong, but my impression is that the owners and Martins sees afraid to take any risks and would rather have the team be on the treadmill for years than tank properly or give the green light for any risky trades.