This Cleveland game exposed us, but what should be this team's next step?

[ogmagicfan]

This concept "young core" is something created by you in order to shoehorn your idea that Weltman is doing great.
You have to walk, before you run.
Winning a championship will be great, but how about some playoff series first.

Dwight won his first playoffs at 22, reach the finals at 23. Shaq reached the finals at 23 too. So that's about your average age.
Basically you are clutching at the exceptions not the rule.

Not only that, if we can (and have had the opportunity) to upgrade our team while maintaining our flexibility to make moves in the future, we should have pulled the trigger.

We should make moves based off of what Paolo & Franz need to be successful and where theyre at currently. They have shown us more than enough to have the FO make moves to make their lives easier, not harder

If I'm Paolo or Franz and the FO is telling me theyre going to wait another 2-3 seasons to get the right players around them because theyre not at their true prime yet, I'm demanding a trade.

I completely get the concept of waiting until the players show enough to build around, and I was one of the biggest proponents of this when people were pushing to get Beal during the Vuc years, or get Donovan Mitchell when we werent even sure what we had with Paolo/Franz/Suggs.

But once Paolo had his ROY freshman season and Franz took a leap and we went 29-28 to end the season, it shouldve been no question we were ahead of schedule and its time to make some moves *cough cough FVV*

There is a zero chance FVV is available. His agent said he will decline his player option and is negotiating an extension in Houston.

I dont expect him to be available, he's been instrumental to the Rockets turn around

I'm referring to the 2023 Offseason when he was a FA and we had the most cap space and decided to not sign him

[JoshuaPotter]

This is an unnecessary thread. This game didn’t reveal a single thing non-apologists have been saying in every other thread for years…years. The team is relatively healthy. Many of the players have been very good at different times in their (mostly) young careers. It is a poorly assembled team managed by a stubborn dope who won’t consider changing course, even a little. He will take a desperate swing this summer- like he should, but despite all of the fanboys screaming patience, family, organic blah blah …it should have been a continuous refinement with regular personnel course corrections as evidence compiles. Weltman is terrible but he MUST take a big swing now to try to justify his “plan”…if he’s still here. I think a lot of orgs would have removed him or at least held him accountable by now. Last year was good…the summer work was inexcusable…the inaction at the TD was embarrassingly bad and should be the end for him…but he’ll probably get this summer to come through.

Agree on everything except possibly for "big swing" depends on simply what it is.

I remember when we had the french guy and Dipo and we chose the French guy. A huge blunder as Dipo went on to progress. Dipo just got injured.

Avoiding some embarrassingly bad splash moves like that would be nice. I "liked" the trade offer for Scoot because it got us a young Floor general without giving our entire identity away. I love Suggs though, yet that seems like the correct move to open up the offense more.

That's nice, but, really, what are you "protecting"? What is so precious that can't be risked? This team sucks - it's got TWO tremendous young talents at the top, but the roster is a disaster of mismatched, oft-injured, overpaid castoffs who simply don't fit together. Generally, we've also held onto guys that show flashes until the illusion is revealed and their value plummets (usually right after an ill-advised extension). Look at what LAL did with Reaves...they didn't let the Reaves-sanity/Hillbilly Kobe hype lead them off a financial cliff. ATL sold off Hunter at an all-time high and unloaded broken-down but under contract Bogie (even though they aren't tanking...Hunter may pay off big for CLE, but he's been generally been considered an untreatable negative value guy - so ATL shouldn't look back. There CAN be value in shuffling players - even if it's just for chemistry or finances or letting guys know they'd better not get comfortable with mediocrity. This isn't a YMCA team with angry moms demanding PT for their kids - this is the big time. It's not a family and never was or should have been.

This is why I love Riley. He's a bit of a cliche and a throwback and likely not as formidable as he once was...but NOBODY is above the team when he's driving....and the org doesn't "owe" any honorary good-guy paydays beyond their present value. Nobody in the NBA is really underpaid, but many get ridiculous deals based on short-term or past success.

I honestly stopped reading you when said "this team sucks". I don't agree. This team is minimum .500 ball when healthy.

The problem is, it isn't a "great team" its a treadmill playoff team. How do we get to elite. The trade for Scoot if Portland would buy is one of those ways. If we could somehow trade AB instead of Suggs i'd do it but that kinda post draft swap feels very uncommon and I think would have to cost us Suggs at the minimum if not tons of picks + AB. Both are arguably an overpay.

The coach has already told Black he wants him to be the "head of the snake" on defense in press conferences. Black normally sits next to the minister of defense in every picture indicating some kinda kinship. Black like Suggs is developing along a similar path.

A trade for either for Scoot just makes sense.

I will try and circle back and re-read your post. That's very disrespectful of me.

OK, I read your entire post. I get where you are getting at. Fundamentally I think I agree that we are past due on moves, and yet arguably those moves should have started to happen in shopping Fultz off of a good year. Maybe even further back then that.

Also we have excellent defensive pieces but we have no offensive script. I have said that time and time again that from top down we have no offensive identity that isn't German or Paolo.

Paolo - Franz - Suggs - Mo are our top scorers. That is terrible regardless of the reasoning behind how we got here. In short, no I think we agree more then disagree on the semantics. I am just not running around saying only 2 players aren't on the chopping block. For me its 3-4 you want to keep. The rest, you want to try and flip in salary matching or up and comers + picks.

[MasterGMer]

Is this Magic team heading towards NBA Lottery?