Official Speculation Thread ‘18-19’: XIX: Rise of the BIG

[bargnanimvp]

I'm just as content with keeping Vucevic until the end of the season and letting him walk than trading him for another expiring or a worse contract.

There's just no difference to me.

He won't be here this time next year.

inb4 we max him!

[Ducklett]

Exactly. When people accept that we had to rebuild again it will make this stuff easier to deal with. I still think this team is a basically Isaac and Bamba and the rest is assets or guys on cheap deals. Fully expect us to tank this year. We are off to a good start.

I am fine with rebuilding correctly. We haven't made trades in two years that lead me to believe that we are doing that.

I am of the opinion that we are "tanking" because our front office is totally inept at basketball, not because it is some elaborate plan to make it "stealth".

right, they are inept at basketball but who are you exactly? A random guy on the internet with a my little pony avatar.

It’s just funny how guys like you pop in and complain about how bad the team is , but then also assume it can all be magically fixed in less than two years.

This not a cartoon, it’s not how it works unfortunately. Let us know the trades you would have made and please show where there was actual interest in our players you wanted traded as well.

I like to give a FO 3 years to show what they can do and young draft picks 3-4. As a result I have been called a FO defender, but I’m more of a defender of having patience than anything.

People may call you a defender because someone has an opinion that is different from yours and you go logical fallacy all over the place.

I am obviously not a basketball FO employee and don't get paid to do anything in basketball. You caught me. No one knew and everything thought I was an NBA insider. I can't believe you could reveal my true identity to all the people on the board. Well, I guess it is time for me to close my RealGM account because only people in the basketball profession can post and have opinions on here.

I want to thank all of the posters on the board who were great conversation. It was nice meeting you. Now that I have been outed as a random guy with a My Little Pony avatar, I wish you all the best.

Much love,
Ducklett O' Maitiu III, Esq.

[j-ragg]

I am fine with rebuilding correctly. We haven't made trades in two years that lead me to believe that we are doing that.

I am of the opinion that we are "tanking" because our front office is totally inept at basketball, not because it is some elaborate plan to make it "stealth".

right, they are inept at basketball but who are you exactly? A random guy on the internet with a my little pony avatar.

It’s just funny how guys like you pop in and complain about how bad the team is , but then also assume it can all be magically fixed in less than two years.

This not a cartoon, it’s not how it works unfortunately. Let us know the trades you would have made and please show where there was actual interest in our players you wanted traded as well.

I like to give a FO 3 years to show what they can do and young draft picks 3-4. As a result I have been called a FO defender, but I’m more of a defender of having patience than anything.

People may call you a defender because someone has an opinion that is different from yours and you go logical fallacy all over the place.

I am obviously not a basketball FO employee and don't get paid to do anything in basketball. You caught me. No one knew and everything thought I was an NBA insider. I can't believe you could reveal my true identity to all the people on the board. Well, I guess it is time for me to close my RealGM account because only people in the basketball profession can post and have opinions on here.

I want to thank all of the posters on the board who were great conversation. It was nice meeting you. Now that I have been outed as a random guy with a My Little Pony avatar, I wish you all the best.

Much love,
Ducklett O' Maitiu III, Esq.

You aren’t an actual GM?

Loser.

[woosah]

I am obviously not a basketball FO employee and don't get paid to do anything in basketball. You caught me. No one knew and everything thought I was an NBA insider. I can't believe you could reveal my true identity to all the people on the board. Well, I guess it is time for me to close my RealGM account because only people in the basketball profession can post and have opinions on here.

I want to thank all of the posters on the board who were great conversation. It was nice meeting you. Now that I have been outed as a random guy with a My Little Pony avatar, I wish you all the best.

Much love,
Ducklett O' Maitiu III, Esq.

i can't

[Def Swami]

Because you don't just give away good players. And NBA coaches who come here and GMs all think Vuc and Fournier are good. Dj and the rest are not close to tradable unless the mozgov move excited you.

If Vucevic and Fournier were truly good, the Magic wouldn't have one of the worst winning percentages in the league over the last 5 years. And if they're truly good players, the Magic should have no problem trading them for a decent return that adds balance to the roster.

It's fine if they want to maximize their return on assets; I hope they do. They're also in an awkward space where they have to kickstart a rebuild finally hand the team over to the players they've invested the most in. It's a balancing act for them.

[fendilim]

I'm just as content with keeping Vucevic until the end of the season and letting him walk than trading him for another expiring or a worse contract.

There's just no difference to me.

He won't be here this time next year.

Even if it means instead of picking in the top 3, we pick 6th or 7th?

i get what you mean.

But if he’s good enough to make us 6th or 7th instead of 3, shouldnt we be adding pieces than subtracting him then start from scratch again? Whoever we pick does not gurantee us any win at all. See what happened when we had tobias and vic. We took the risk for the sake of addition by subtraction, now we’re even worse during Skiles’ year.

Anyway, i just dont see management intentionally throwing the towel right at the start of the season. Call it lazy, call it stupid, call it whatever. But its bad for business, culture and everything in between. Thats why Vuc and Evan are still being played, because they give us the best chance to win short term. The goal is still to win games and develop the young guys (listen to Magic Drive Time interview with Hammond). As difficult it is, the veteran management tandem of WeHam was not brought in to tank. It was brought in to right the ship. How they plan to do it is beyond our comprehension. But, boy, they need to play it carefully.

[Knightro]

I'm just as content with keeping Vucevic until the end of the season and letting him walk than trading him for another expiring or a worse contract.

There's just no difference to me.

He won't be here this time next year.

Even if it means instead of picking in the top 3, we pick 6th or 7th?

I don’t think 25 extra games of Vucevic is costing the team four spots of draft position.

The Magic only won 25 times last year.

25 wins two years ago would have been good for the third worst record in the NBA. They just got a little unlucky that there happened to be SO many teams tanking and “so bad they’re out of the NBA” scrubs like Artis and Purvis happened to steal a couple of wins late in the year.

With the lotto odds changed to discourage tanking, I don’t think the Magic or anyone else need to race to the bottom anymore.

Just my two cents.

[Knightro]

I've been a supporter of Weltman/Hammond since they've been hired. I don't think they've made any egregious mistakes at all. They kept Gordon on a fair and easily tradable contract and picked the best player available at 6 both years they drafted.

I totally understand why some people are frustrated with the measured approach they've taken, but it really doesn't bother me at all considering what they inherited.

That said...

This upcoming offseason is it. They can go into the summer with as few as 7 guaranteed contracts. They can have anywhere from 34M to 45M in cap space depending on if they stretch Mozgov (which they should).

If they can't leverage that available money into dramatically improving the team, either through free agency or through a trade to acquire a high priced player, then the previous two years of waiting and biding their time most certainly were not going to end up being worth it.

They have Isaac. They have Bamba. They're adding another lotto pick in June. They'll have, in theory, a nice core group of guys right there. The only thing left to do is leverage that cap flexibility in 2019 and 2020 to add as many quality starters and rotation players as you possibly can to surround those guys on rookie deals.

[Orl_Magic]

SGA got 10pts, 7asts and 8 rebounds tonight... kevin knox is doing well too...smh

[pepe1991]

How can somebody view himself as serious person and actually belive that Magic cap space will be some big significant factor in free agency in years where biggest markets in sports ( not just nba but overall ) will compete with them for same, limited, number of players?


Sitting on hands, doing nothing, keeping half of active roster from Hennigan era isn't really doing good job.
Ross, Vuc, Evan, DJ,Gordon ( probably best players ) are all from old era of other GM.
All other additoins that Hammon and Weltman made to this roster have been putrid.
Simmons shoots 28% from the field.
Mack is already gone.
Grant, Birscoe are not nba players.
Iwundu sucks
Frazier can't even take his place and that says a lot about him.
Martin ... ?!


So that only leaves them with two high lottery picks to talk about. One in 6 games looked bad in 5 , other in 33 games in nba looked good in two. Non of them have star level potential ( star being 22-30 ppg scorer that won't suck life out of offense ).

So we all hoop back at treadmill of regular season, suck for 52 of 82 games, just to "beat" other tankers in April and March to hurt draft stock and shoot ourselfs out of top 5 picks.
Sorry but massive losing isn't strategy. Just because league "awards" worst teams ( worst team in particular) it does not mean that you need to sit on hands, do nothing in free agency, do nothing with trades . And to make things worst they are not even good at losing. They are terrible when it comes to chasing worst record.

And this process of tanking for star, faling at get one, just to try next year with almost same roster has to stop at some point.

Look at worst teams from just 2 years ago (2016) and where they are now compared to Magic:
1) Philly , 10-72 record, today playoff team with two stars
2) Lakres, 17-65 , now have Ingram , Ball, Lebron, Kuzma
3) Nets, 21-61, now have Russell and Levrer WITHOUT SINGLE LOTTERY PICK IN LAST 8 YEARS
4) Wolves 29-53, now have 2 stars , not great with chemistry,still miles away from Magic
5) Pelicans- right now one of best teams on West
6) Knicks - Porzingis if nothing else
7) Kings- lol
8) Bucks - new front office ,new coach = wins
9)Nuggets - blazing hot start
10) Magic ----
11) Jazz - Donovan as allstar

[Rayshard7]

How can somebody view himself as serious person and actually belive that Magic cap space will be some big significant factor in free agency in years where biggest markets in sports ( not just nba but overall ) will compete with them for same, limited, number of players?


Sitting on hands, doing nothing, keeping half of active roster from Hennigan era isn't really doing good job.
Ross, Vuc, Evan, DJ,Gordon ( probably best players ) are all from old era of other GM.
All other additoins that Hammon and Weltman made to this roster have been putrid.
Simmons shoots 28% from the field.
Mack is already gone.
Grant, Birscoe are not nba players.
Iwundu sucks
Frazier can't even take his place and that says a lot about him.
Martin ... ?!


So that only leaves them with two high lottery picks to talk about. One in 6 games looked bad in 5 , other in 33 games in nba looked good in two. Non of them have star level potential ( star being 22-30 ppg scorer that won't suck life out of offense ).

So we all hoop back at treadmill of regular season, suck for 52 of 82 games, just to "beat" other tankers in April and March to hurt draft stock and shoot ourselfs out of top 5 picks.
Sorry but massive losing isn't strategy. Just because league "awards" worst teams ( worst team in particular) it does not mean that you need to sit on hands, do nothing in free agency, do nothing with trades . And to make things worst they are not even good at losing. They are terrible when it comes to chasing worst record.

And this process of tanking for star, faling at get one, just to try next year with almost same roster has to stop at some point.

Look at worst teams from just 2 years ago (2016) and where they are now compared to Magic:
1) Philly , 10-72 record, today playoff team with two stars
2) Lakres, 17-65 , now have Ingram , Ball, Lebron, Kuzma
3) Nets, 21-61, now have Russell and Levrer WITHOUT SINGLE LOTTERY PICK IN LAST 8 YEARS
4) Wolves 29-53, now have 2 stars , not great with chemistry,still miles away from Magic
5) Pelicans- right now one of best teams on West
6) Knicks - Porzingis if nothing else
7) Kings- lol
8) Bucks - new front office ,new coach = wins
9)Nuggets - blazing hot start
10) Magic ----
11) Jazz - Donovan as allstar

Bamba and Isaac are only 20 and 21 imagine them in two years. We need playmakers and I want us to tank for Barrett or Redfish this year and trade all the veterans. Let Frazier, Isaac, AG and Bamba develop and we hopefully land RJ Barrett, Ja Morant, Josh Reaves and Admiral Schofield with our 1st, a 1st from a Vuc trade, Cleveland 2nd and Bkn 2nd. Plus the 20 million in capspace which I want us to use on Rozier, D Lo or Dinwiddie.

Rozier, Morant, Briscoe
Barrett, Fourneir, Reaves
Isaac, Frazier, Jackson
Gordon, Schofield, Acy
Bamba, Birch, Mozgov

This would be my team for 2019 season and if we still dont make the playoffs we can trade Gordon for a good point guard, draft a point guard in 2020 from our 1st, draft a big man from OKC 1st and than draft a shooter from our 2nd. We are one or two seasons away from having a legit core. But I hate how we have no playmakers for Bamba and Isaac to get easy points.

[pepe1991]

How can somebody view himself as serious person and actually belive that Magic cap space will be some big significant factor in free agency in years where biggest markets in sports ( not just nba but overall ) will compete with them for same, limited, number of players?


Sitting on hands, doing nothing, keeping half of active roster from Hennigan era isn't really doing good job.
Ross, Vuc, Evan, DJ,Gordon ( probably best players ) are all from old era of other GM.
All other additoins that Hammon and Weltman made to this roster have been putrid.
Simmons shoots 28% from the field.
Mack is already gone.
Grant, Birscoe are not nba players.
Iwundu sucks
Frazier can't even take his place and that says a lot about him.
Martin ... ?!


So that only leaves them with two high lottery picks to talk about. One in 6 games looked bad in 5 , other in 33 games in nba looked good in two. Non of them have star level potential ( star being 22-30 ppg scorer that won't suck life out of offense ).

So we all hoop back at treadmill of regular season, suck for 52 of 82 games, just to "beat" other tankers in April and March to hurt draft stock and shoot ourselfs out of top 5 picks.
Sorry but massive losing isn't strategy. Just because league "awards" worst teams ( worst team in particular) it does not mean that you need to sit on hands, do nothing in free agency, do nothing with trades . And to make things worst they are not even good at losing. They are terrible when it comes to chasing worst record.

And this process of tanking for star, faling at get one, just to try next year with almost same roster has to stop at some point.

Look at worst teams from just 2 years ago (2016) and where they are now compared to Magic:
1) Philly , 10-72 record, today playoff team with two stars
2) Lakres, 17-65 , now have Ingram , Ball, Lebron, Kuzma
3) Nets, 21-61, now have Russell and Levrer WITHOUT SINGLE LOTTERY PICK IN LAST 8 YEARS
4) Wolves 29-53, now have 2 stars , not great with chemistry,still miles away from Magic
5) Pelicans- right now one of best teams on West
6) Knicks - Porzingis if nothing else
7) Kings- lol
8) Bucks - new front office ,new coach = wins
9)Nuggets - blazing hot start
10) Magic ----
11) Jazz - Donovan as allstar

Bamba and Isaac are only 20 and 21 imagine them in two years. We need playmakers and I want us to tank for Barrett or Redfish this year and trade all the veterans. Let Frazier, Isaac, AG and Bamba develop and we hopefully land RJ Barrett, Ja Morant, Josh Reaves and Admiral Schofield with our 1st, a 1st from a Vuc trade, Cleveland 2nd and Bkn 2nd. Plus the 20 million in capspace which I want us to use on Rozier, D Lo or Dinwiddie.

Rozier, Morant, Briscoe
Barrett, Fourneir, Reaves
Isaac, Frazier, Jackson
Gordon, Schofield, Acy
Bamba, Birch, Mozgov

This would be my team for 2019 season and if we still dont make the playoffs we can trade Gordon for a good point guard, draft a point guard in 2020 from our 1st, draft a big man from OKC 1st and than draft a shooter from our 2nd. We are one or two seasons away from having a legit core. But I hate how we have no playmakers for Bamba and Isaac to get easy points.

It all depends how good are picks from '19 class. I expect Barrett to go 1#, followed by Zion and Reddish.
Not sure Lilttle is good option due poor shooting. Lot of others projected to be lottery picks are big men (Doumbouya, Bassey, Hoard, hell even Zion is "big man" or at least plays like one ).

Dlo, Spancer and Rozier would be upgrades over DJ or Grant but i'm not sure any of them would take team to next level. Rozier after playoffs is back to his usual, 39% FG self.

IMO whole Magic rebuild will once again come to simple question: did they land allstar.
If answer is no ,it simply does not matter what else they did.
If they did, it's time to build around that guy.
But without star every rebuild in nba is waste of time.

[Skybox]

I'm just as content with keeping Vucevic until the end of the season and letting him walk than trading him for another expiring or a worse contract.

There's just no difference to me.

He won't be here this time next year.

Even if it means instead of picking in the top 3, we pick 6th or 7th?

i get what you mean.

But if he’s good enough to make us 6th or 7th instead of 3, shouldnt we be adding pieces than subtracting him then start from scratch again? Whoever we pick does not gurantee us any win at all. See what happened when we had tobias and vic. We took the risk for the sake of addition by subtraction, now we’re even worse during Skiles’ year.

Anyway, i just dont see management intentionally throwing the towel right at the start of the season. Call it lazy, call it stupid, call it whatever. But its bad for business, culture and everything in between. Thats why Vuc and Evan are still being played, because they give us the best chance to win short term. The goal is still to win games and develop the young guys (listen to Magic Drive Time interview with Hammond). As difficult it is, the veteran management tandem of WeHam was not brought in to tank. It was brought in to right the ship. How they plan to do it is beyond our comprehension. But, boy, they need to play it carefully.

Yep...not seeing those extra wins that Vuc has been getting us. I wish him well, he can contribute on a better team. Right now, he's the empty stats MVP.

[pepe1991]

Even if it means instead of picking in the top 3, we pick 6th or 7th?

i get what you mean.

But if he’s good enough to make us 6th or 7th instead of 3, shouldnt we be adding pieces than subtracting him then start from scratch again? Whoever we pick does not gurantee us any win at all. See what happened when we had tobias and vic. We took the risk for the sake of addition by subtraction, now we’re even worse during Skiles’ year.

Anyway, i just dont see management intentionally throwing the towel right at the start of the season. Call it lazy, call it stupid, call it whatever. But its bad for business, culture and everything in between. Thats why Vuc and Evan are still being played, because they give us the best chance to win short term. The goal is still to win games and develop the young guys (listen to Magic Drive Time interview with Hammond). As difficult it is, the veteran management tandem of WeHam was not brought in to tank. It was brought in to right the ship. How they plan to do it is beyond our comprehension. But, boy, they need to play it carefully.

Yep...not seeing those extra wins that Vuc has been getting us. I wish him well, he can contribute on a better team. Right now, he's the empty stats MVP.

Vučević isn't giving them wins ,but makes team more competitive, gotta sellt that tickets

[Xatticus]

i get what you mean.

But if he’s good enough to make us 6th or 7th instead of 3, shouldnt we be adding pieces than subtracting him then start from scratch again? Whoever we pick does not gurantee us any win at all. See what happened when we had tobias and vic. We took the risk for the sake of addition by subtraction, now we’re even worse during Skiles’ year.

Anyway, i just dont see management intentionally throwing the towel right at the start of the season. Call it lazy, call it stupid, call it whatever. But its bad for business, culture and everything in between. Thats why Vuc and Evan are still being played, because they give us the best chance to win short term. The goal is still to win games and develop the young guys (listen to Magic Drive Time interview with Hammond). As difficult it is, the veteran management tandem of WeHam was not brought in to tank. It was brought in to right the ship. How they plan to do it is beyond our comprehension. But, boy, they need to play it carefully.

Yep...not seeing those extra wins that Vuc has been getting us. I wish him well, he can contribute on a better team. Right now, he's the empty stats MVP.

Vučević isn't giving them wins ,but makes team more competitive, gotta sellt that tickets

I think that's a big part of it. I think our front office would probably be willing to give him away if they didn't have to worry about how it would be perceived by season ticket holders.

What hurts Vucevic's trade value as much as anything is that teams know he is going to be unplayable for large stretches of the playoffs as opponents would exploit his inability to defend the pick-and-roll. Regardless of how well he plays this year, that isn't going to change.

I wouldn't at all mind if we used his expiring contract to bring back some guaranteed salary beyond this year if it nets us a legitimate asset. This is a pretty strong free agent crop and I'm sure a lot of teams have big plans for this summer. I just think too many teams are going to have too much money available for our cap space to work in our favor. We aren't an attractive destination and this isn't going to be a buyer's market for teams that don't have something enticing to offer beyond money. If we spend this summer, it would probably be an overpay to a B-lister.

[Knightro]

How can somebody view himself as serious person and actually belive that Magic cap space will be some big significant factor in free agency in years where biggest markets in sports ( not just nba but overall ) will compete with them for same, limited, number of players?

I think it depends on what you consider being a "significant factor" in free agency.

I know I wasn't and I don't think anyone else is suggesting the Magic would be able to sign Kevin Durant or Kawhi Leonard. That's not realistic.

But with as much as 45M in cap space, the Magic unequivocally should be able to make significant upgrades to their roster both via free agency and via trade acquisition.

Why wouldn't the Magic be able to sign 2 above average free agents? Or sign one above average FA and acquire another above average player with their cap space?

Their money is green just like everyone else.

[BadMofoPimp]

I am fine with rebuilding correctly. We haven't made trades in two years that lead me to believe that we are doing that.

I am of the opinion that we are "tanking" because our front office is totally inept at basketball, not because it is some elaborate plan to make it "stealth".

right, they are inept at basketball but who are you exactly? A random guy on the internet with a my little pony avatar.

It’s just funny how guys like you pop in and complain about how bad the team is , but then also assume it can all be magically fixed in less than two years.

This not a cartoon, it’s not how it works unfortunately. Let us know the trades you would have made and please show where there was actual interest in our players you wanted traded as well.

I like to give a FO 3 years to show what they can do and young draft picks 3-4. As a result I have been called a FO defender, but I’m more of a defender of having patience than anything.

People may call you a defender because someone has an opinion that is different from yours and you go logical fallacy all over the place.

I am obviously not a basketball FO employee and don't get paid to do anything in basketball. You caught me. No one knew and everything thought I was an NBA insider. I can't believe you could reveal my true identity to all the people on the board. Well, I guess it is time for me to close my RealGM account because only people in the basketball profession can post and have opinions on here.

I want to thank all of the posters on the board who were great conversation. It was nice meeting you. Now that I have been outed as a random guy with a My Little Pony avatar, I wish you all the best.

Much love,
Ducklett O' Maitiu III, Esq.

My little pony avatars are popular on the Off-Topic board, lol. Funny how people freak out when others disagree with them. Reminds me of what is happening in politics as if people think they are morally superior because they like their own opinions.

[rcklsscognition]

Ran the numbers as we stand today, only thing I didn't have was opponent ftr, but it didn't matter too much to the result.



I just want to know, now that our front office spent about 18 months revamping the inner workings of the organization, stuffing the Amway offices with analytic wizards and personal chefs, what good data do they have from this team?

[Furinkazan]

This is how Evan sees Isaac.
Evan looking to pass...Isaac open Evan looks around sees>>>>
nothing
then he pass to Vuc or DJ

[pepe1991]

How can somebody view himself as serious person and actually belive that Magic cap space will be some big significant factor in free agency in years where biggest markets in sports ( not just nba but overall ) will compete with them for same, limited, number of players?

I think it depends on what you consider being a "significant factor" in free agency.

I know I wasn't and I don't think anyone else is suggesting the Magic would be able to sign Kevin Durant or Kawhi Leonard. That's not realistic.

But with as much as 45M in cap space, the Magic unequivocally should be able to make significant upgrades to their roster both via free agency and via trade acquisition.

Why wouldn't the Magic be able to sign 2 above average free agents? Or sign one above average FA and acquire another above average player with their cap space?

Their money is green just like everyone else.

https://www.sbnation.com/nba/2018/7/30/17616436/nba-free-agency-2019-list-kevin-durant-kyrie-irving

that's list of names.

Half of them will,as every year, be extended with new contract.
I mean, getting Rozier on some $18M contract , Alec Burke or JJ Redick isn't really game changing free agency.
Rozier is restricted btw.

Getting Danny Green and Beverley type players does not move needle.