cvMagic wrote:Let's recap... the Magic traded away Tobias, Oladipo, and a lottery pick for one year of Ibaka and the cap room to sign Jeff Green and DJ Augustin.That's it right there. That's the truth.
Except it's not really the truth at all. Unless you think short term and somehow believe the Magic A) would win a title this year and B) got amazing offers for Oladipo and Harris that they turned down.
Reality - both of those things were false. Harris is not
that desired around the league. He is a tweener who looks like a guy sliding to DET's bench once they find a PF. He struggles to knock down open corner 3's and can't defend SF's well enough to play the wing full time.
Ibaka is a better player then Oladipo. If he is actuall on a decline (he's probably not), the Magic are not hampered with a long term deal. If he plays as expected, the Magic can max him and use his Bird rights to go over the cap and sign someone else.
Oh wait, that someone else - who is it? We don't know yet, but we know one thing - that exact Harris deal that we got off the books enables us to sign a player to another max deal next year if we want. So we retain flexibility moving forward without being locked in.
The Magic did not trade Harris and Oladipo for Jeff Green and Ibaka. That's shortsighted and simply wrong. The Magic traded two guys who did not fit the team long term, did not want to accept that they were bench players even on a bad team like Orlando , and were going to completely eat up our cap for the forseeable future. They traded those guys to have Cap flexibility moving forward. Jeff Green is not the end game here. And I would hope that most people with common sense would see that and not over react dramatically. But apparently on basketball forums, this is simply not possible.
