Official 2023-2024 Magic General Season Thread

[Audi]

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5'11????

MF***r PR department was hyping him to be 6'3 with shoes

He's not 5'11 I would guess they are joking. In a game against D Rose last season, they hugged at the end and were the exact same height. He's at least 6'2 in shoes.

I think it comes from that recent “Joe Ingles and his grandkids”/“built like a substitute teacher” interview with Cole. He jokingly said something about being the tender height of 5’11 and the teammates being upset he was grabbing all the rebounds.

[Optimus_Steel]

Cole is def not 5”11. He is clearly taller than that. Jameer was listed at 6ft but he was like 5”10 and it was clear he was tiny. Cole looks taller than that, around 6”2. This probably is a joke as was mentioned, teammates griping he is taking rebounds away and Cole adding to that fire as a joke.

We don’t talk about it much but Cole is an elite rebounder at point guard.

[CZ Eddie]

Are we out of the in-season tournament then?
The NBA made it way more confusing than it needed to be.

[tooler]

A small snip from Kevin Pelton's analysis of the surprising starts in the NBA this season. He thinks we have the best chance out of all of them to maintain our momentum.

Unlike the other surprise teams near the top of the NBA in defense, the Magic are doing this despite opponents shooting around league average against them. Orlando's stout defense is built on the unlikely combination of the league's No. 1 turnover rate and No. 2 defensive rebounding rate. No team has finished in the top two in both categories since the 1984-85 Philadelphia 76ers, who also did so in 1982-83 en route to the championship.

Based on that success, Orlando ranks second behind the Miami Heat in projected defensive rating going forward based on shot quality. Unlike the other teams on this list, Orlando has overcome extended absences for two starters: guard Markelle Fultz and center Wendell Carter Jr. As a result, I'm struggling to find the reason Orlando can't keep this up besides the usual skepticism about a team jumping so far, so fast. If anything, the Magic have actually slightly underperformed their expected 3-point shooting at 34%.

Given limited shot creation, Orlando may not be able to withstand an injury to leading scorers Paolo Banchero or Franz Wagner (or sixth man Cole Anthony), but the team's depth has already proved important. The Magic have arguably performed better with Pacers castoff Goga Bitadze starting the past 12 games at center while averaging 12.9 points, 11.1 rebounds and 2.7 blocks per 36 minutes this season.

Even relative to other surprises, Orlando's ability to keep this up will be fascinating to see.

[Skybox]

A small snip from Kevin Pelton's analysis of the surprising starts in the NBA this season. He thinks we have the best chance out of all of them to maintain our momentum.

Unlike the other surprise teams near the top of the NBA in defense, the Magic are doing this despite opponents shooting around league average against them. Orlando's stout defense is built on the unlikely combination of the league's No. 1 turnover rate and No. 2 defensive rebounding rate. No team has finished in the top two in both categories since the 1984-85 Philadelphia 76ers, who also did so in 1982-83 en route to the championship.

Based on that success, Orlando ranks second behind the Miami Heat in projected defensive rating going forward based on shot quality. Unlike the other teams on this list, Orlando has overcome extended absences for two starters: guard Markelle Fultz and center Wendell Carter Jr. As a result, I'm struggling to find the reason Orlando can't keep this up besides the usual skepticism about a team jumping so far, so fast. If anything, the Magic have actually slightly underperformed their expected 3-point shooting at 34%.

Given limited shot creation, Orlando may not be able to withstand an injury to leading scorers Paolo Banchero or Franz Wagner (or sixth man Cole Anthony), but the team's depth has already proved important. The Magic have arguably performed better with Pacers castoff Goga Bitadze starting the past 12 games at center while averaging 12.9 points, 11.1 rebounds and 2.7 blocks per 36 minutes this season.

Even relative to other surprises, Orlando's ability to keep this up will be fascinating to see.

Pelton’s definitely one of the best right now. He’s thorough and impartial. I learn some new insight whenever he’s a guest on a podcast.

He’s right, imo, about the sustainability of defense and also about the fragility of our offense being so dependent on two forwards for creating offense…ORL could be one great starting PG with scoring away from being a very complete team.

[pepe1991]

Are we out of the in-season tournament then?
The NBA made it way more confusing than it needed to be.

Yep

This thing is so damn confusing and makes no sense whatsover.
It would be way more logical if teams simply play single game -elimination until you get to final 4.

[jezzerinho]

Are we out of the in-season tournament then?
The NBA made it way more confusing than it needed to be.

Yep

This thing is so damn confusing and makes no sense whatsover.
It would be way more logical if teams simply play single game -elimination until you get to final 4.

Yeah but single elimination gets rid of half the team on the first night. Thats not what the objective of the tournament is. The NBA wants lots of meaningful games during this stretch, where normally theres a lot of dross.

Therefore the pools. The idea is fine, if they just have the last round of games played as close to each other as possible.

[KillMonger]

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[pepe1991]

Are we out of the in-season tournament then?
The NBA made it way more confusing than it needed to be.

Yep

This thing is so damn confusing and makes no sense whatsover.
It would be way more logical if teams simply play single game -elimination until you get to final 4.

Yeah but single elimination gets rid of half the team on the first night. Thats not what the objective of the tournament is. The NBA wants lots of meaningful games during this stretch, where normally theres a lot of dross.

Therefore the pools. The idea is fine, if they just have the last round of games played as close to each other as possible.

I mean, that's whole purpose of a tournament style, one bad game and you are out. No?

Having teams being eliminated based on point differential if record is identical is silly, especially if you have 82 games season and you have to play your , i don't know, 39 years old Lebron James 45 min while you are up by 20, just to finish game on +22 and surpas team with identical record.

[jezzerinho]

Yep

This thing is so damn confusing and makes no sense whatsover.
It would be way more logical if teams simply play single game -elimination until you get to final 4.

Yeah but single elimination gets rid of half the team on the first night. Thats not what the objective of the tournament is. The NBA wants lots of meaningful games during this stretch, where normally theres a lot of dross.

Therefore the pools. The idea is fine, if they just have the last round of games played as close to each other as possible.

I mean, that's whole purpose of a tournament style, one bad game and you are out. No?

Having teams being eliminated based on point differential if record is identical is silly, especially if you have 82 games season and you have to play your , i don't know, 39 years old Lebron James 45 min while you are up by 20, just to finish game on +22 and surpas team with identical record.

Lots of tournaments have pools. Most of them in fact. Point differential only comes i to play in a 3-way tie situation. head-2-head is the 1st tiebreaker, which cant apply in a 3 way tie where each team beat one and lost to the other. Therefore point diff.

You could reduce even further the possibility of the points diff being needed, by saying away victory counts double in a tiebreak.

[Mauro Pedrosa]

[jonbob17]

After last night's 63% from 3 shoting performance, the Magic are up to 35.3% from deep on the season.

Houstan - 52.9% his shot is so pure, so fast.
Harris - 44.2%
Paolo - 43.6%
Cole - 37.5%
Chuma - 37.5%
Suggs - 37.3%
Ingles - 37.2%
Mo 35.5%
Franz 31.6% - lots of room for regression here
WCJ 31.3%
Black 26.1%
JI 23.5%
Fultz 0%

There's a lot to like here.

[VFX]

Are we out of the in-season tournament then?
The NBA made it way more confusing than it needed to be.

Yep

This thing is so damn confusing and makes no sense whatsover.
It would be way more logical if teams simply play single game -elimination until you get to final 4.

It’s convoluted because there are groups of 5 so one team gets left out of a head to head, which is why the point differential matters. Not sure why it can’t be just based on record as the tie breaker. The last teams to play have an added bonus of knowing how many points to win by, so it’s not really fair in that aspect.

[jonbob17]

It’s convoluted because there are groups of 5 so one team gets left out of a head to head, which is why the point differential matters. Not sure why it can’t be just based on record as the tie breaker. The last teams to play have an added bonus of knowing how many points to win by, so it’s not really fair in that aspect.

5 teams - 4 games, everybody plays each other

Point differential matters when more than two teams are tied. Brooklyn held head to head over Magic, Celtics held head to head over Brooklyn, Magic held head to head over Celtics

[D J C]

After last night's 63% from 3 shoting performance, the Magic are up to 35.3% from deep on the season.

Houstan - 52.9% his shot is so pure, so fast.
Harris - 44.2%
Paolo - 43.6%
Cole - 37.5%
Chuma - 37.5%
Suggs - 37.3%
Ingles - 37.2%
Mo 35.5%
Franz 31.6% - lots of room for regression here
WCJ 31.3%
Black 26.1%
JI 23.5%
Fultz 0%

There's a lot to like here.

Still not a strength, but we're showing positive trends and potential for sure

Houstan shows a lot of promise. Im almost wondering if he takes over Harris' role on the bench in the future as the sharp shooter.

I keep saying it, but those numbers/improvements for Suggs are real. Going back to last year, he's at 37.3% from 3 in his last 50 games.

I think we all expect Paolo's % to dip, but at the same time Franz' should rise just as much to compensate for that

I think both Paolo & Franz will end up 36%-38% from 3, which is fine with me from our 1st and 2nd options

Also, funny how Franz did the same thing last year with his 3pt shot. For the first 20 games up until 11/27/2022 he shot 30.3% from 3. The rest of the way he shot 37.7% from 3.

Id like for him to have a summer off from International ball one of these days to see if that'll help with his slow starts to the season.

[jonbob17]

Still not a strength, but we're showing positive trends and potential for sure

Houstan shows a lot of promise. Im almost wondering if he takes over Harris' role on the bench in the future as the sharp shooter.

I keep saying it, but those numbers/improvements for Suggs are real. Going back to last year, he's at 37.3% from 3 in his last 50 games.

I think we all expect Paolo's % to dip, but at the same time Franz' should rise just as much to compensate for that

I think both Paolo & Franz will end up 36%-38% from 3, which is fine with me from our 1st and 2nd options

Also, funny how Franz did the same thing last year with his 3pt shot. For the first 20 games up until 11/27/2022 he shot 30.3% from 3. The rest of the way he shot 37.7% from 3.

Id like for him to have a summer off from International ball one of these days to see if that'll help with his slow starts to the season.

35.4% as a team is 13th. We don't have to be the best shooting team, if we can be league average, with this defense and our transition offense it should add up to a recipe that works.

Suggs shot has always looked ok, just wasnt getting the results. He's also up to 84% from the line which should indicate his touch has improved, though it is still relatively small sample.

If Franz and Paolo are 36-38% shooters this team is going to be tough to stop.

One interesting stat I heard this week is that the league average on open threes is up to 39% this year. If Paolo and Franz can keep pressure on the rim it should result in a lot of kick outs to open shooters. Even being league average on open threes should help our overall efficiency.

[D J C]

35.4% as a team is 13th. We don't have to be the best shooting team, if we can be league average, with this defense and our transition offense it should add up to a recipe that works.

Suggs shot has always looked ok, just wasnt getting the results. He's also up to 84% from the line which should indicate his touch has improved, though it is still relatively small sample.

If Franz and Paolo are 36-38% shooters this team is going to be tough to stop.

One interesting stat I heard this week is that the league average on open threes is up to 39% this year. If Paolo and Franz can keep pressure on the rim it should result in a lot of kick outs to open shooters. Even being league average on open threes should help our overall efficiency.

Im seeing 35.4% as 19th in the league? We're still at 10.2 3PM/G which is the third lowest in the league too. Either way trending in the right direction/towards average, which I 100% agree with is all we really "need"

Good points about open shooters. Build your team with a vision/system in mind and the shooting will come secondary naturally, as almost everyone can make an open 3 these days.

I feel like most of the league saw GSW's success and the 3pt craze has everyone focusing on building around 3pt shooting, but the younger & up and coming teams like us, Minny, OKC have built around a couple main volume players, depth, and defense.

For Paolo's 3pt%, just wanted to expand on it.. if you take out the ice cold February last year, he's at 35%+ from 3 for his career. Given his strong start this season I think ~37% is perfectly reasonable to expect from him.. which like you said, good luck defending him

[tooler]

I’m glad we got a great angle to that photo. I don’t even care that it mimics something from the Heat. It’s awesome.

Apparently we lead the league in points or attempts close to the basket, whatever, so we really only need enough shooting to keep them honest. I’ve often thought if our passing and rim pressure is good then we’ll look like a better shooting team because those shots will be wide open now. We’ve had a lot of home games so there will be some regression. Also maybe not as easy in the playoffs, but baby steps.

Finally, I really want to beat Washington again tomorrow to set us up with a chance at the 10 game winning streak. Maybe they’re not ready to beat the Nets on the road, and that’s fine, but it will feel so lame not to setup the showdown.

[Last Guardian]

Cole is def not 5”11. He is clearly taller than that. Jameer was listed at 6ft but he was like 5”10 and it was clear he was tiny. Cole looks taller than that, around 6”2. This probably is a joke as was mentioned, teammates griping he is taking rebounds away and Cole adding to that fire as a joke.

We don’t talk about it much but Cole is an elite rebounder at point guard.

100%. He saves a lot of offensive rebounds from opponents he deserves a lot of credit for that.

[Last Guardian]

After last night's 63% from 3 shoting performance, the Magic are up to 35.3% from deep on the season.

Houstan - 52.9% his shot is so pure, so fast.
Harris - 44.2%
Paolo - 43.6%
Cole - 37.5%
Chuma - 37.5%
Suggs - 37.3%
Ingles - 37.2%
Mo 35.5%
Franz 31.6% - lots of room for regression here
WCJ 31.3%
Black 26.1%
JI 23.5%
Fultz 0%

There's a lot to like here.

Still not a strength, but we're showing positive trends and potential for sure

Houstan shows a lot of promise. Im almost wondering if he takes over Harris' role on the bench in the future as the sharp shooter.

I keep saying it, but those numbers/improvements for Suggs are real. Going back to last year, he's at 37.3% from 3 in his last 50 games.

I think we all expect Paolo's % to dip, but at the same time Franz' should rise just as much to compensate for that

I think both Paolo & Franz will end up 36%-38% from 3, which is fine with me from our 1st and 2nd options

Also, funny how Franz did the same thing last year with his 3pt shot. For the first 20 games up until 11/27/2022 he shot 30.3% from 3. The rest of the way he shot 37.7% from 3.

Id like for him to have a summer off from International ball one of these days to see if that'll help with his slow starts to the season.

Have to get Houstan in some how. His form is the best and he doesn’t need much space either. His height just makes it even easier for him.