The one you got really really wrong...

[Catledge]

With all the forecasting we are doing regarding possible draftees, young players in the league that we might acquire, and young players currently on our team, I thought this might be the right time to give everybody a chance to admit one Magic-related prediction or expectation that they got wrong. I mean really really wrong. The wronger, the better.

I'll go first: Steve Hunter. Remember him? Tall, long, athletic, and dumber than a bucket full of hair. I thought he would develop into a legit starting NBA center, primarily on the strength of his shot blocking.

I feel intense shame and remorse for having believed this, but it's a bit of a relief to finally confess it. I invite you all to confess a similarly incorrect prognostication. It'll make you feel better. Trust me.

[toquito]

I thought Vucevic and Harkless were scrubs, thought Howard was better than Lebron, and was pretty sure Evan Turner would be a superstar. Also wasn't me but I remember half this board was fapping to Kendall Marshall and Marquis Teague last off season.

[Neon1]

Austin Rivers so far. Way too early to call it on rookie year guys, but its not looking pretty so far.

[westillhaveJJ]

I thought JR Giddens would be a shutdown defender and a #2 guy on a average to good team.

Also Ndudi Ebi is a guy who I thought would at least do something in the league.

[NEM]

Thought Reece Gaines would answer our pg issues back then...

[Cammo101]

I thought Russell Westbrook was going to be a huge bust for OKC when they drafted him. Ooops.

[Carlos Arroyo]

Austin Rivers so far. Way too early to call it on rookie year guys, but its not looking pretty so far.

if we had Austin and had him playing the 1 he would be alot better than in NO playing the 2

[Cammo101]

Austin Rivers so far. Way too early to call it on rookie year guys, but its not looking pretty so far.

if we had Austin and had him playing the 1 he would be alot better than in NO playing the 2

Completely disagree. NO took Rivers to play PG, but he is a SG. They tried that experiment and aborted it already.

[MAGICian619]

The Steven Hunter pick followed by the Jeryl Sasser pick has to be the worst of all Magic time.

[CaliMagicGuy]

Thought Reece Gaines would answer our pg issues back then...

lmao, you were not alone man. I thought reece gaines was gonna be our coveted, big, pg savior... what a bum that guy turned out to be.

[MagicHolland]

There's two that come to mind: The Dwight trade, at the time seemed like the worst deal ever. Same goes to a lower extend for the Redick trade. That right there has made me a believer in Hennigan. I only have access to a certain amount of proof of a players caliber which makes it harder to evaluate "diamonds in the rough" Hennigan has access to backgrounds and endless amounts of stats.

Also way back I proposed a trade scenario on our board where we'd swap Mobley for Christie which in my opinion was a homerun for us. Then Weisbrod took my idea and ran with it.. We all know how well that ended...

[Neon1]

Austin Rivers so far. Way too early to call it on rookie year guys, but its not looking pretty so far.

if we had Austin and had him playing the 1 he would be alot better than in NO playing the 2

Completely disagree. NO took Rivers to play PG, but he is a SG. They tried that experiment and aborted it already.

I think his unexpected epic bad shooting to start the year killed it more then the PG vs SG thing. That combined with Grievis Vasquez emergence just put him on a downward spiral that he just wasnt going to come out of. He shot so bad to start the year that he was just mentally broken.

If he is going to make it, it is going to be as a scoring PG or he won't make it at all IMO. Should learn a lot early next season when we see how he comes out.

[Optimus_Steel]

I saw some Reece Gaines games in college and I thought he would be a good NBA player when drafted. That quickly changed when in the first game of the season, as he entered for the first time, he received the inbound pass and got to half court and Baron Davis practically violated him, stole the ball and dunked it. Then in the ensuing inbound Davis once again violated Gaines at halfcourt, stole the ball again and dunked. It was like a shark smelling blood. That's when I knew this guy was no good.

I also thought Hunter would be good. He had the length, and athletic ability but man was he dumb and unaware. His post moves consisted of spinning to the out of bounds line at the baseline. You could write him down for a at-least one out of bounds turnover a game. He also had terrible hands. Could not hang on to passes or rebounds. He basically had no skill other than blocking shots.

I thought Drew Gooden was going to be our 20-10 guy for years when we got him. Then we had the 19 game losing streak, his infected hair follicles DNP, the sweat band incident, the all around goofiness and lack of discipline on the court and so on.

I saw a lot of Ryan Humphries in ND and I thought he would be good too. He turned out to be useless. Same with Donnell Harvey when was was at Florida.

I cant say much for Sasser as I didn't know much about him so I did not expect much but he was a disaster considering what was passed up at PG (Parker, Tinsley, Arenas), which was clearly the position we were targeting at the time and the expectations the FO had for him. I just cant believe that Doc and Gabriel thought this guy could be the tall PG they were looking for. Don't you have to be skilled to play PG? At least the Sassinator had that great night in Boston when he blew up for like 27.....

I thought Johny Taylor was going to stick around with that athleticism.

I thought Miles Simon would be a fine back up PG.

[mbn23]

I thought the whole 2000 season, getting Grant Hill and McGrady would propel us to greatness. Of course we all know how that all turned out. There were injuries don't get me wrong, but over 7 seasons and Hill only played I believe roughly 200 games.

[Max Power]

At one time I truly beleived the Kelvin Cato lead Magic were playoff bound...young and dumb man, young and dumb.

[Last Guardian]

I thought Steve Francis would lead us somewhere because he was a big athletic PG. To my credit, I did turn on him after a year and start bashing him.

I used to love the athletic shotblocking centers like Hunter or Dalembert. Good thing over the years of reading this board I have learned more about basketball. Now I can't stand centers like that who are nitwits. I want no part of DeAndre Jordan or Javale McGee.

[j-ragg]

I remember thinking Javaris Crittenton could be an amazing diamond in the rough point guard. He'll probably dominate the prison leagues so I wasn't that far off.

I was a Steven Hunter advocate too, I remember a game against Memphis he had like 5 blocks in the first half, that was probably his only productive half.

I thought Jrue Holiday and Westbrook would both be major busts. Not sure what I have against combo guards from UCLA.

I also though Steph Curry would bust. Which hurts to say now because he's so damn fun to watch.

Also thought Gerald Green was the next TMac, and was so happy when he fell to us in the draft. I remember thinking "stupid Lakers took whoever Andrew Bynum is before Green?! How dumb can a franchise be??" Then we took Fran Vasquez -_____-

[grayson11]

I thought Travis Diener would never be able to propel himself to GOAT status.

[KingRobb02]

My big mistake was Darko. Does anyone remember those first few game sin Orlando where he was blocking shots and actually gave a crap so I thought we had our twin towers for the next decade.

[OrlChamps2030]

I thought Drew Gooden was going to be the man.