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VFX wrote:Yeah that Mikael Bridges deal really worked out for New York. I guess it makes sense if your coach is Thibs and you play 6 players total. Who cares if you mortgage your future to upgrade your lineup by one total position. We have Jett and Caleb Houstan off the bench when one of these starters gets annually injured.
Knightro wrote:VFX wrote:Yeah that Mikael Bridges deal really worked out for New York. I guess it makes sense if your coach is Thibs and you play 6 players total. Who cares if you mortgage your future to upgrade your lineup by one total position. We have Jett and Caleb Houstan off the bench when one of these starters gets annually injured.
They were two wins away from the NBA Finals for goodness sake
Like what exactly do you want here?
VFX wrote:Knightro wrote:VFX wrote:Yeah that Mikael Bridges deal really worked out for New York. I guess it makes sense if your coach is Thibs and you play 6 players total. Who cares if you mortgage your future to upgrade your lineup by one total position. We have Jett and Caleb Houstan off the bench when one of these starters gets annually injured.
They were two wins away from the NBA Finals for goodness sake
Like what exactly do you want here?
I knew you would say that. Hilariously expected.
Yeah they got kinda lucky considering nobody got injured. They can roll the dice next season and hopefully they aren’t as lucky as Orlando is routinely.
Maybe next year they see a lot of Tyler Kolek and Pacome Dadiet in the starting lineup.
Knightro wrote:pepe1991 wrote:On team with best PG of all time, top 10 SG of all time and one of top 10 greatest defenders of all time.
He was 4th best player on championship roster. You can say the same about Kuzma as well.
I already replayed on other thread about this, but to sum up, his stats are fabrication and nothing tangible, just like Kuzma's stats were before they found fools to take him off. Bucks really striked gold with that 22-6-4 all star, didn't they?
Poole is 40# in FGA in 4th quarters, while his team hardly ever play close games. Wizards keep him for 35 min a game even in games when they are down by 30, so he can "fix" stats and add numbers.
He has 30% usage rate on 30# ranked offense.
He is turnover prone guy who makes terrible basketball decisions with ball.
He can't defend.
He is very good at making terrible shots. Last thing Magic need is more terrible shots.
You're exaggerating a little bit.
Poole only played 29.4 MPG for the season this past year.
An example of a guy who actually had his stats "fixed" last year would be Tyrese Maxey who played 37.7 MPG and averaged 21.0 FG attempts per game on a 24-win team. THAT is playing a lot of minutes and doing shameless gunning. And I love Maxey, so I'm not knocking him - just pointing out basic facts that he played a ton of minutes and took a ton of shots in games they were losing which juiced his overall numbers.
Poole also only averaged 15.5 shot attempts per game too, which ranked just 50th in the NBA. Fewer per game than Simons btw. Way less than Paolo or Franz.
Knightro wrote:VFX wrote:Knightro wrote:
They were two wins away from the NBA Finals for goodness sake
Like what exactly do you want here?
I knew you would say that. Hilariously expected.
Yeah they got kinda lucky considering nobody got injured. They can roll the dice next season and hopefully they aren’t as lucky as Orlando is routinely.
Maybe next year they see a lot of Tyler Kolek and Pacome Dadiet in the starting lineup.
I don't really see why that's "hilariously expected" about what I said - the Knicks had a good season and were probably one fluky collapse in Game 1 of the ECF from reaching the NBA Finals.
And they had some injuries in the regular season. Brunson missed 17 games. McBride missed 18. Mitch Robinson, who was starting for them by the end of the playoffs, only played 17 regular season games total.
One of the reasons they gave up so much for Bridges in the first place is because he's supremely durable, both in terms of games played and minutes per game, which continued for him this year as well.
pepe1991 wrote:Since you mentioned Maxey, usage in 4th quarters:
Maxes 32,9% usage, -2,2 net rating, 61% TS
Poole 32,5% usage, - 9,8 net rating, 55,6% TS
Knightro wrote:pepe1991 wrote:Since you mentioned Maxey, usage in 4th quarters:
Maxes 32,9% usage, -2,2 net rating, 61% TS
Poole 32,5% usage, - 9,8 net rating, 55,6% TS
These stats you're citing don't actually say what you think they're saying. More like the exact opposite.
You said a few pages back...
"Poole is 40# in FGA in 4th quarters, while his team hardly ever play close games. Wizards keep him for 35 min a game even in games when they are down by 30, so he can "fix" stats and add numbers."
But when you actually shared the numbers, Poole's efficiency was actually *dragged down* (55.6 TS% Q4 compared to 59.1 TS% overall) by playing garbage time 4th quarters, not lifted up.
Whereas Maxey's stats were actually juiced significantly by him being very efficient in 4th quarters of games that were already out of reach for the Sixers.
Maxey's TS% for the season was 56.2 TS%, but his 4th quarter TS% was 61.0%.
So which guy was actually "fixing" their stats more in meaningless 4th quarters?
VFX wrote:The bottom line is that I’m not the one living in delusional land because I don’t buy the most risk averse GM in history is going to trade 5 firsts for Trey Murphy, who is the opposite of Bridges in durability.
Even if that’s just an example off the top of your head, this roster is comprised of a bunch of young dudes that are wildly inconsistent. Orlando remains to have one of the worst benches in the league IMO. Even worse now with Moe Wagner coming off an injury.
Weltman and ownership aren’t going to put this roster in a position where they are lacking serious assets and depth, while operating within the first apron if they can avoid it.
It’s like we are talking about this team existing in LA and being operated by LeBron and Palinka. Let’s be serious here.
Knightro wrote:VFX wrote:The bottom line is that I’m not the one living in delusional land because I don’t buy the most risk averse GM in history is going to trade 5 firsts for Trey Murphy, who is the opposite of Bridges in durability.
Even if that’s just an example off the top of your head, this roster is comprised of a bunch of young dudes that are wildly inconsistent. Orlando remains to have one of the worst benches in the league IMO. Even worse now with Moe Wagner coming off an injury.
Weltman and ownership aren’t going to put this roster in a position where they are lacking serious assets and depth, while operating within the first apron if they can avoid it.
It’s like we are talking about this team existing in LA and being operated by LeBron and Palinka. Let’s be serious here.
Weltman was risk adverse previously because, right or wrong, he felt like that was the best course of action at that time.
The Magic won 47 games in 23-24 with Suggs/Harris/Franz/Paolo/Carter - Cole/Fultz/Ingles/Isaac/Moritz rotation. They had Black waiting in the wings and the cap space to add a starting caliber player.
The team hadn't experienced any sort of plateau or setback in their upward trajectory coming into last summer, so Weltman felt the best course of action was to double down on what worked the year before and upgrade the Harris spot with KCP.
Whether you agree with it or not, that was - at a bare minimum - at least an understandable course of action.
It's not the one I would have taken, but when you improve from 22 wins to 34 wins to 47 wins over a three year period, you don't necessarily HAVE to make any sweeping changes.
But now they HAVE experienced that plateau and that setback. And the GM has come out and openly said that's not acceptable and they must make moves to improve the roster, we're still sitting here acting like the guy is going to sit around with his thumb in his ass?
It doesn't make sense.
eyriq wrote:Knightro wrote:VFX wrote:The bottom line is that I’m not the one living in delusional land because I don’t buy the most risk averse GM in history is going to trade 5 firsts for Trey Murphy, who is the opposite of Bridges in durability.
Even if that’s just an example off the top of your head, this roster is comprised of a bunch of young dudes that are wildly inconsistent. Orlando remains to have one of the worst benches in the league IMO. Even worse now with Moe Wagner coming off an injury.
Weltman and ownership aren’t going to put this roster in a position where they are lacking serious assets and depth, while operating within the first apron if they can avoid it.
It’s like we are talking about this team existing in LA and being operated by LeBron and Palinka. Let’s be serious here.
Weltman was risk adverse previously because, right or wrong, he felt like that was the best course of action at that time.
The Magic won 47 games in 23-24 with Suggs/Harris/Franz/Paolo/Carter - Cole/Fultz/Ingles/Isaac/Moritz rotation. They had Black waiting in the wings and the cap space to add a starting caliber player.
The team hadn't experienced any sort of plateau or setback in their upward trajectory coming into last summer, so Weltman felt the best course of action was to double down on what worked the year before and upgrade the Harris spot with KCP.
Whether you agree with it or not, that was - at a bare minimum - at least an understandable course of action.
It's not the one I would have taken, but when you improve from 22 wins to 34 wins to 47 wins over a three year period, you don't necessarily HAVE to make any sweeping changes.
But now they HAVE experienced that plateau and that setback. And the GM has come out and openly said that's not acceptable and they must make moves to improve the roster, we're still sitting here acting like the guy is going to sit around with his thumb in his ass?
It doesn't make sense.
Perfectly said. The resistance mostly comes from people who decided years ago that Weltman was the problem and now refuse to credit any of the progress to him. They twist every success into an accident and every misstep into confirmation. It's just bias masquerading as analysis.
Knightro wrote:VFX wrote:Knightro wrote:
They were two wins away from the NBA Finals for goodness sake
Like what exactly do you want here?
I knew you would say that. Hilariously expected.
Yeah they got kinda lucky considering nobody got injured. They can roll the dice next season and hopefully they aren’t as lucky as Orlando is routinely.
Maybe next year they see a lot of Tyler Kolek and Pacome Dadiet in the starting lineup.
I don't really see why that's "hilariously expected" about what I said - the Knicks had a good season and were probably one fluky collapse in Game 1 of the ECF from reaching the NBA Finals.
And they had some injuries in the regular season. Brunson missed 17 games. McBride missed 18. Mitch Robinson, who was starting for them by the end of the playoffs, only played 17 regular season games total.
One of the reasons they gave up so much for Bridges in the first place is because he's supremely durable, both in terms of games played and minutes per game, which continued for him this year as well.
Knightro wrote:The decision to not do anything at this year's deadline is also justifiable provided A. they thought there would be better opportunities this summer and B. they take advantage of those opportunities.
There wasn't really a move out there at the deadline that would have dramatically altered their fortunes this past year IMO.
I feel very much vindicated...that almost became my nickname from haters. Skybox wrote:2 observations....
-I love that several of the most historically critical (and knowledgeable) regulars are now endorsing Poole...just remember how much s**t rained on me when I suggested it a couple of years ago
-Why does Trey Murphy's name keep popping up here...great player...6'8 SF with a solid 3&D rep (I thought) - what's the fit? He's no PG. Is he a playmaker? Would he even start - can he defend SGs?
pepe1991 wrote:Running out of serious options and being backed in corner.
Real time to upgrade roster was last year. Now it's just hot fix and retconning mistakes.
This is price you pay when you sit on hands and simply overvalue own players.
Skybox wrote:2 observations....
-I love that several of the most historically critical (and knowledgeable) regulars are now endorsing Poole...just remember how much s**t rained on me when I suggested it a couple of years ago
-Why does Trey Murphy's name keep popping up here...great player...6'8 SF with a solid 3&D rep (I thought) - what's the fit? He's no PG. Is he a playmaker? Would he even start - can he defend SGs?
Knightro wrote:pepe1991 wrote:Running out of serious options and being backed in corner.
Real time to upgrade roster was last year. Now it's just hot fix and retconning mistakes.
This is price you pay when you sit on hands and simply overvalue own players.
This feels a little more like fan perception than reality. We all want them to get better, but they're not backed into a corner I don't think.
The Magic have their three best players signed for 5+ years each and plenty of avenues to get better with their full collection of picks, swaps and non-essential pieces on movable deals.
VFX wrote:This is where we disagree.
I think they ARE absolutely backed into a corner despite having their 3 main guys locked up for the foreseeable future. It just depends to which degree you believe they can make changes considering the state of the roster and cap space.
Sure, they have picks. However, they have a bunch of negative values assets that require picks to move. Orlando also has to match or have less money coming in depending on the other moves Weltman makes.
It’s not necessarily believing that they don’t have a great foundation. It’s that in order for it all to work they need to acquire the correct role players to surround those 3 guys with. Not only that, but they need an entirely new bench in my estimation. Not an easy task considering the cap implications and the asset value at hand.
Picks sweeten the deal(s) for decent starters and good bench guys the money still needs to match. Also, those picks are more valuable to Orlando given the cap space and restricted trade value.
VFX wrote:Knightro wrote:pepe1991 wrote:Running out of serious options and being backed in corner.
Real time to upgrade roster was last year. Now it's just hot fix and retconning mistakes.
This is price you pay when you sit on hands and simply overvalue own players.
This feels a little more like fan perception than reality. We all want them to get better, but they're not backed into a corner I don't think.
The Magic have their three best players signed for 5+ years each and plenty of avenues to get better with their full collection of picks, swaps and non-essential pieces on movable deals.
This is where we disagree.
I think they ARE absolutely backed into a corner despite having their 3 main guys locked up for the foreseeable future. It just depends to which degree you believe they can make changes considering the state of the roster and cap space.
Sure, they have picks. However, they have a bunch of negative values assets that require picks to move. Orlando also has to match or have less money coming in depending on the other moves Weltman makes.
It’s not necessarily believing that they don’t have a great foundation. It’s that in order for it all to work they need to acquire the correct role players to surround those 3 guys with. Not only that, but they need an entirely new bench in my estimation. Not an easy task considering the cap implications and the asset value at hand.
Picks sweeten the deal(s) for decent starters and good bench guys the money still needs to match. Also, those picks are more valuable to Orlando given the cap space and restricted trade value.