MitchellUK wrote:The Real Dalic wrote:People need to relax with the "true Magic fans hate/like the trade". Those of us that are sticking around, love or hate the trade, are the true Magic fans IMO.
Just because you disagree with someone doesn't make them less of a fan than you.
I was just going to say this. If people are still here, talking about the team, then I imagine they are still true fans. (And I think we should set up a collaborative effort with the mods on the Laker board to cross reference the IP addresses of any new members over there with the members on the Magic board)
The trade, on a basic level, sucks donkey balls. The fact that the NBA fosters a culture that allows players to manoeuvre themselves to their preferred destinations whilst their current employers get screwed is appalling. Watching over the last few months as Dwight and his camp destroyed his value at every turn has been torturous.
However, for me at least, the reason I haven't been outraged over it is because I knew it was going to suck and had prepared myself appropriately. There was never going to be a scenario where we got anything close to a good deal. There's talk of "delusion" on this board, but I think it goes both ways. People who think the deal was good are lying to themselves. But the people who are failing to to accept that there wasn't ever going to be a fair deal on offer are equally so. It's the situation that Otis Smith, with the mess he made of our roster and his apparently dismissive attitude towards Howard, Dwight's camp, with their constant leaks killing his value, etc., and the NBA, who seem to foster and thrive off such stories, have created, and the Orlando Magic are the ones who ended up suffering the consequences. It's infuriating that it came to what it did, but when Dwight listed his choices as three teams who overall had little in the way of trade assets, there was no way we were going to come out if this with anything close to value.
We don't have to laud this as some master stroke, because our FO was never going to be in a position to make such a move. Arron Afflalo, Maurice Harkless and Nikola Vucevic and what is likely to be three mid-first rounders as a core of a deal for the best big man in the game isn't a fair deal, isn't a good deal. But there are positives.
Harkless and Vucevic aren't worth Dwight Howard, but they look like decent prospects. Eyenga, meh. He's 23 and he's been in the league for two years whilst doing very little. Maybe he's more promising than he seems, but I don't see much in him.
Afflalo is paid more than J-Rich and his contract is a year longer, which I know has been a bone of contention for some people, but I'm much less concerned about that - while in terms of simple numbers our cap figure is technically worse if you swap the two, it's vastly improved when you consider that Afflalo can actually play up to his deal and is the kind of guy who would be coveted by other teams in future trades. Paying $7.75m a year for 4 years for a 26-year-old who is a terrific defender and scores efficiently is much better than paying $6m a year for 3 years for a 31-year-old who can't defend and has become the very definition of streaky on offense as his athleticism has started to decline. Afflalo will be a terrific influence on our younger players, and if it comes to a trade, we couldn't give J-Rich away previously - teams will be much more interested in Arron Afflalo.
McRoberts....meh. Clearly a throw-in, but he's 25, mobile and hard working. He's the sort of player that we can flip for a future late-first or second rounder around the deadline when the contending teams need a cheap option to bolster their front-court depth.
Harrington is the only one for whom I struggle to find any justification his inclusion. 14 and 6 isn't terrible production for a guy on 6.8m next year, but we have a glut of young front court players as well as BBD. I can only assume that the plan is to flip him elsewhere, either to a team looking to save a little money by taking advantage of his partially guaranteed deal in 2013/14 and 2014/15, or if he can remain productive, to a team that needs a little frontcourt scoring.
The picks don't project to be great, but they are still assets we didn't have before. They're the type of thing we can use as sweeteners in future trades. They're the kind of picks we can use to select 18-year-olds from Spain or Lithuania who we can leave to develop overseas for a couple of years. I feel like Otis Smith has soured our fanbase on the potential value of later first round picks - at the end of the day, if you invest in scouting and player development, which is something Hennigan is preaching and which his previous teams have a history of doing, you can find productive, even great players later in the draft.
All in all, no, the trade wasn't fair, and the trade wasn't good. But this transaction was the first sledgehammer blow to the rotting house that Otis built, and given the corner our franchise had been backed into, it could have been a lot, lot worse. Look at it this way - if Otis had had his way, we would currently be paying Brook Lopez a max contract to keep us treading water in the middle of the pack.