Game Thread 25: Orlando Magic (10-14) vs Denver Nuggets (8-15) 12/10 7PM ET

[Landshark]

We have been doing this EXACT thing for the last 5 years. Its time to go another direction as Hennigan has already tried with the Oladipo trade. Just have to be patient and take advantage once a great opportunity presents itself.

Drafting a "franchise player" is a bit harder than you think buddy. Especially when you're ALWAYS drafting outside the potential star range as we have for the last couple of years.

We've been doing it for three years, and we weren't as committed in the third year as we were in the first two. Getting the 11th pick in the fourth year was just a failed attempt at making the playoffs. The fact that we were just outside the potential star range shows how close the plan was to succeeding, and this year's potential star range is greater than usual.

Drafting a franchise player is hard, but it's still easier than finding the great opportunity that you described.

You're forgetting that Basketball is more a business than anything. Tanking does not generate actual currency. Especially when you have been doing it for the last 5 yrs. More tanking means less fans/attendance, less fans and attendance means less money in ownerships pockets.

Prepare yourself for a rude awakening if you think NOW that management covets potential championships more than winning meaningless games.

I agree with this. It's very possible that Hennigan actually does want to tank, but ownership is pressuring him to win now. Tanking isn't necessarily bad from a financial perspective, since the team would reduce expenditures by trading vets, and being a contender would generate more revenue than being a mediocre team in the long run. However, owners may not see things that way. They may not want to take the risk, they may personally be impatient to see their team win, they may believe there's a faster route to becoming a contender (e.g. Mikhail Prokhorov), etc.

If this is the case, some of the blame should be going to DeVos instead of Hennigan.

[Magic_Johnny12]

We've been doing it for three years, and we weren't as committed in the third year as we were in the first two. Getting the 11th pick in the fourth year was just a failed attempt at making the playoffs. The fact that we were just outside the potential star range shows how close the plan was to succeeding, and this year's potential star range is greater than usual.

Drafting a franchise player is hard, but it's still easier than finding the great opportunity that you described.

You're forgetting that Basketball is more a business than anything. Tanking does not generate actual currency. Especially when you have been doing it for the last 5 yrs. More tanking means less fans/attendance, less fans and attendance means less money in ownerships pockets.

Prepare yourself for a rude awakening if you think NOW that management covets potential championships more than winning meaningless games.

I agree with this. It's very possible that Hennigan actually does want to tank, but ownership is pressuring him to win now. Tanking isn't necessarily bad from a financial perspective, since the team would reduce expenditures by trading vets, and being a contender would generate more revenue than being a mediocre team in the long run. However, owners may not see things that way. They may not want to take the risk, they may personally be impatient to see their team win, they may believe there's a faster route to becoming a contender (e.g. Mikhail Prokhorov), etc.

If this is the case, ALL of the blame should be going to DeVos instead of Hennigan.

FIXED

[RickB-Orlando]

Welp, Gallanaris audition went well tonight. Denver probably just got themselves an extra first rounder from us after this performance

if we're giving a first rounder for an injury prone player who can walk after this season than rob is even worse than i thought.

A third of the people on this board are demanding just such a trade, a third are demanding we blow it up and tank, and a third are reasonably suggesting that we give it a little more time, as the past 10 games or so have shown significant improvement over the first ten games or so.

No matter what Rob does he's going to piss off 65% of the fan base.

[OrlandO]

Watch on YouTube

[OrlandoDream]

Watch on YouTube

I don't care how big of a fan you are, When serge made that sequence, you get up and scream your lungs off. Our fan base can be so weak sometimes.

[magicman112]

In retrospect, Mudiay over Hezonja would have been an improvement for this team.

Agreed. Mario pissed me off tonight allowing about 12 points in uncontested 3s...

[PennytoShaq]

Team is headed nowhere

We aren't a playoff team but we don't want to tank either

I don't understand how the management doesn't see this. You'd think they would learn after last season but they're doing the same chit again. It's actually worse this year.

How the phuck can they be so stupid?

See what? I mean last week you were singing a different tune and this whole place was happy and buying in. 2 losses and now you are acting like a kid who thinks he is some omnipresent GM.

You want management to be as up and down as a fan? LOL. That's naive.

Everyone sees it. Tons of teams are in the same situation. We have a real front court now and just have to figure out our wings and point. You want to ditch everyone and go young? Awesome. That's 5-8 more years of sucking. Don't believe me? Go read the Wolves or 76ers forum.

[PennytoShaq]

Watch on YouTube

I don't care how big of a fan you are, When serge made that sequence, you get up and scream your lungs off. Our fan base can be so weak sometimes.

Exactly. They want everything to be perfect and amazing out of the gate. It's tough honestly to read how up and down some people are.

[OrlandoDream]

I'm not gonna blame it all on fatigue but 8 games in 12 nights sounds like hell. Let alone coming off a 5 game road trip then back to back 4 games in 5 nights. I've never seen that before.

I refuse to believe that the defense we saw on that road trip was a fluke. The last 3 games you can tell have not been the same defending. Give them a couple of days off and let's try ATL. But yeah, the defense has to go back to how it was during that trip if we want to stand a chance.

[zuppafly]

Watch on YouTube

I don't care how big of a fan you are, When serge made that sequence, you get up and scream your lungs off. Our fan base can be so weak sometimes.

Exactly. They want everything to be perfect and amazing out of the gate. It's tough honestly to read how up and down some people are.

Yep, I was very vocal to complain against this roster during the first games and really thought we would be giving up completely after 15 games. Instead, I saw a lot of improvement on such a short time and can see the potential for this team if we tweak the roster (that's a given, we need to get more offensive power) and give it time.
And we have Vogel.

I've give until the All Star break to see if the Magic are in need of a deeper retool, but losses like this one don't get me that worried. Game could have gone either way, we were leading with 5m to go. We got stuff to figure out and improve but the doom and gloom around a few fans speech makes it seem that they are rooting for the team to loose just to able to say "I knew it!" "I told you so!", "I am a better GM/coach than X/Y!".

That's why I really need to start using that ignore function in these boards: so I can browse here the day after a game and not feel irritated.

[zuppafly]

I'm not gonna blame it all on fatigue but 8 games in 12 nights sounds like hell. Let alone coming off a 5 game road trip then back to back 4 games in 5 nights. I've never seen that before.

I refuse to believe that the defense we saw on that road trip was a fluke. The last 3 games you can tell have not been the same defending. Give them a couple of days off and let's try ATL. But yeah, the defense has to go back to how it was during that trip if we want to stand a chance.

Denver was at the end of a longer road trip but our schedule has been brutal for our guys in terms of resting days (or lack of).
Our defense had spurts and was on par with the one we showed on the road trip during those spurts, but went off a cliff during the second half of games.
I agree, take a day off, regroup, get back at the training center and make that defense sharp again with the guidance of the coaching staff.
We will take on Atlanta with a lot more confidence, IMO.

[pepe1991]

Pathetic interior defense by Biyombo,Green and Ibaka. Could not care less about his blocks, Ibakas position defense is awful , he is just flashy defender with blocks here and there. Biyombo is pretty damn overrated defender. If opponent has any skills he will get his over him. Another guy who is not good but "fensy" and flashy defender. Green. LOL just LOL . By the talent he should be in China . Dude gets destroyed on defense and once every 5 games he can shoot.

Nurkić 8 of 11 from the floor, Faried 9 of 10, Jokić 6 of 11. 23 of 32 shots made by their PFs and Cs . 50 points between them.

Jokić beat them by himself passing from pick&roll in 4th quater.

[Bergmaniac]

The schedule is no excuse. Denver has had just as tough a schedule lately. And we were at home.

Even though the offense was way better than usual for most of the game, I expected us to struggle down the stretch when Denver started giving 100% on that end and that's just what happened. In the last 6 minutes we shot almost exclusively well contested jump shots (and one open 2p shot from the foulline by Biz which surprisingly went in) while Denver was getting easy chances at the basket and open 3s. The outcome was logical.

I don't get why Vogel didn't give Watson some minutes. He's been our best guard defender this season by some margin. Yeah, he doesn't score much but the offense wasn't a problem last night, the defense was.

Green didn't even try on defense in this game. I don't get this guy. Isn't he aware it's a contract year for him and he needs to play hard at least half the time to get the big bucks? He jogs around the court without a care in the world most of the time. Maybe he figures some team would be stupid enough to give him a nice deal even if he continues like this which may be true, we gave him a 15 mln. year even though he's played like this for a while...

We missed Vuc's rebounding last night, it was one of the worst possible games for him to miss.

Ibaka had some great blocks, but I thought his defence was pretty bad for most of the game, especially in the first half. Only 4 rebounds too, just won't cut it against a top rebounding team. He was great on offense though, too bad we wasted it.

So far at home we've faced teams which currently have a winning record only 2 times, we've had one game against a team currently at .500 and we've had 9 games against teams which are well below .500 right now. The combined record of the teams we've faced at home is 106-172. What's more, the opponents were missing their best player in 5 of these games and another key player in another 2 of these games. Yet we are 4-8 at home.

[pepe1991]

I just can't understand logic behind playing Green. Only thing that makes sense is that he plays because of his salary.
He is by far most usless defender at PF position. He can't survive posting up of some SFs let alone PFs. Because of him guards need to overhelp and that leads to easy open 3 point looks. This is nothing new , it started from game 1 and now, already 1/4 of total season gone nothing changed. His offense , lack of production and low percentages simply can't cover up his defense. Matter of fact his age and low efficiency on it's own can't justify his min by not even looking at defense.

So it all comes down to the fact that Vogel is (over)playing him because of his salary only. And that's catastrophic for team chemsitry because other players are not blind.

I re watched Vučević fall 50000 times by now. His fall had no power or impact and he didn't land awkwardly. His "injury" screams " i'm waiting December 15 for trade". Especially if you know his qoutes after Vogel benched him.

It's simple. This team cashed in their youth to be playoff team, and they ruined future, have no present and made past tanking pointless. Now i expect Vučević and Mario to be traded for somebody like Monta Elise , Rudy Gay or Galinari, all washed up ,pushing 30s or looking to cash in with some team dumb enough to give them Jeff Green type deal -just multi year.

[drsd]

Vučević was out and Biyombo was injured; it is no surprise that Denver's bigs dominated.

[PrimeThyme]

Welp, Gallanaris audition went well tonight. Denver probably just got themselves an extra first rounder from us after this performance

if we're giving a first rounder for an injury prone player who can walk after this season than rob is even worse than i thought.

He's on contract next season. The extra first rounder comment was a joke but I do feel a panic trade by management incoming.

[PrimeThyme]

Vučević was out and Biyombo was injured; it is no surprise that Denver's bigs dominated.

To be honest, they would have dominated even if we did have our frontcourt at full health. That isn't necessarily a knock to ours their frontcourt is just loaded. They had only been out rebounded one time all season.

[Def Swami]

Watch on YouTube

I don't care how big of a fan you are, When serge made that sequence, you get up and scream your lungs off. Our fan base can be so weak sometimes.

Exactly. They want everything to be perfect and amazing out of the gate. It's tough honestly to read how up and down some people are.

It's two-fold at this point. Been a fair critic of the Magic fanbase over the years, but the Magic have also given little reason for folks to get excited. The few Magic games I've been to have been frustrating for fans. There's a core group of fans, like many of us, who are intently watching and trying to grasp on to any reason for hope. They're dying for a reason to get excited. But 5 straight home losses, flailing offense, no all-star talent, and Ibaka wants to hear it after one 2-way play? I feel bad for fans at this point. We all deserve better.

[tiderulz]

Welp, Gallanaris audition went well tonight. Denver probably just got themselves an extra first rounder from us after this performance

if we're giving a first rounder for an injury prone player who can walk after this season than rob is even worse than i thought.

He's on contract next season. The extra first rounder comment was a joke but I do feel a panic trade by management incoming.

player option for next year

[pepe1991]

if we're giving a first rounder for an injury prone player who can walk after this season than rob is even worse than i thought.

He's on contract next season. The extra first rounder comment was a joke but I do feel a panic trade by management incoming.

player option for next year

Given his past with injuries he will opt out to get multi year deal