Scase wrote:ORL and us will be in "roughly" the same cap situation, but ORL also has a top 3 defence, a burgeoning and young star in Paolo, Franz seemingly taking that next step, and Suggs is an all defence player. All while having a younger and less experienced core, off the back of a 5th placed finish last year, a playoff birth, and a better record this year. Could they have a better cap situation? For sure. But they are in that situation while being a good team, with players that are young and under contract control. They actually made the playoffs.
We are going to be in a "similar" cap situation with an older more experienced team, and our success hinges on the performance of a historically constantly injured player who will be 28. Our expectation next year, is to do what ORL is doing this year, with significantly worse injury luck than we had.
They are further along in their rebuild, but theirs isn't reliant on a 28 year old who is oft injured. Their team has more room to grow than ours does currently. The upcoming draft will have a large impact on our future, but since none of us know where we will land in that draft, it's not something I'm going to throw into the equation.
As for more long tail prospects, can you give me more details? I'm assuming you mean like Mogbo etc. I just don't want to jump into that bit if I'm not sure I have all the info.
Sure, but the conversation was about finishing 5th next year, not today.
Let's first look at the core/starting level players:
Raptors - Scottie, IQ, Barrett, Ingram, Poeltl
Magic - Paolo, Franz, Suggs, KCP
You can argue who has the better starting point here, though I really don't think it's that far off. To be fair, I am lower on Paolo and Franz than consensus, though I'm also lower on Scottie than consensus. We also have more ways to re-shape this core as we can trade any of Barrett/IQ/Poeltl while they only have KCP as a real starting level player to move.
Let's then go into our current prospect pools - I define this as Rookie contract guys who are not firmly part of the core:
Raptors - Gradey, Walter, Ochai, Shead, Mogbo, Battle, Chomche
Magic - Da Silva, Black, Howard
Here, we have the advantage on both quntity as well as ceiling. I think it's pretty clear that our long tail young assets are just better.
Finally, let's look at our pick situation:
Next year: Raptors 1 lottery pick, Magic 2 non-lottery picks (their own and Denver)
After next year: Both teams have the same number of picks
I'd take our 1 lottery pick vs their 2 non-lottery picks as I'm sure you would as well. After that, it's a wash.
In terms of cap purposes, it's a wash starting the following season, meaning they won't do much with the advantage they'll have here next year as they need to preserve the slot for Paolo. Note that starting in the '26 season, Orlando will be paying more for their top 3 than we will be paying for ours, regardless of how that shakes out. The top end of our roster actually project cheaper.
So if next year, we outperform the Magic, I don't see how you can say that's not an accomplishment while saying the Magic have done a great job. Perhaps you forecast Paolo/Franz having a higher ceiling than Barnes/Ingram, but to me that's debatable. After that, we are younger and in better shape on any future looking dimension.