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

[j-ragg]

Vuc had a great start to the year. No denying that. 19.8 ppg on 64 TS% the first 5 games. Great scoring.

Since those first 5 games, he has come back to normal. 15.6 ppg on 53 TS%. Not bad or anything but can we please stop acting like he is the only one who knows what a basketball is.

[magicman112]

Every year posters say we won’t even break 60 points if Vuc is out and every year we look the same on offense when he doesn’t play.

Best example of this to me is a few years back when we played at the Warriors and Vuc was out with an injury and O'Quinn started in his place. We still went toe-to-toe with them the entire game until Curry hit the game-winner over Harris.

Oh I remember that well I was saying he's gonna go for that step back three be ready Tobes and bam there it was

[VFX]

Vuc is a crutch.

Nobody is going to address the elephant in the room of having no offensive scheme, or acquire players to produce on that side of the floor if everything runs through Vuc for 7 years and it’s the worst stretch in Magic history.

That being said, it’s not necessarily his fault. He’s going out there and doing what he’s good at. It’s just sh**y that it’s taken so long to find alternatives and Orlando has to rely on him to score only to lose the majority of games because of it.

[rcklsscognition]

Trade for Demond so we can get used to playing a style Bamba will play? No thanks. We blew the 5th pick on a Dedmond style player?

I think what we want is a player like Vuc with enhanced modern NBA offense and more effective pick and roll defense. A better, refined and more dominant version of Vuc.

[MagicFan4Lyfe]

You know depresses me is that teams that started their rebuilds after us are going to be light years ahead of us. I fear 2-3 years from now we are going to be continuing to play Vuc and Fournier big minutes and continue hoping we find a star

[fendilim]

I honestly cannot cope anymore. How can people watch this **** for 6 fking years and non deduce that Vuc is the core of the problem?

Who honestly gives a single **** if he scores points? Those points could EASILY be replaced if his shots went to someone else.

Its just infuriatingly stupid for us to state every single fking year that we want to be a young, fast, defensive minded team, and then roll with a lineup which is old, slow, and poor on defense. What kind of distorted way of viewing things is that? Insanity. Absolute insanity.

Vuc forces us to play a slow and plodding game on offense in which he is the focal point, which results in him scoring and everyone else suffering. We have players who need to run, and need space in the paint to drive into, yet we have stuck this Mod Edit: Removed. right in the middle of the paint for six straight years and watched him clog up the offense, and then we continue to wonder why our young guys struggle? How is it that we can change like 5 coaches, change the entire lineup around Vuc, yet consistently get the same results? Ill tell you how, its BECAUSE OF NIKOLA **** VUCEVIC. Not only that, but we have convinced ourselves that he is the best player on the team, simply because he takes the shots.

Im **** done with this. Im not being polite now. If you watch this for 6 fking years and cannot see that the Vuc brand of basketball is a losing brand of basketball which is detrimental to the overall style we want to play, Mod Edit: Removed. Unnecessary attack.

Ban me idgaf.

Whenever Vuc is on bench that roster is incapable of even attemp shots.
Few days ago i counted how they were doing without him.
2-10 from the floor, 2 turnovers.
You watch Gordon 5 years why aren't you so done with him? Because he is young? He is 23, at age of 23 LEbron already had one nba finals behind him, Leonard already won 1 finals MVP, Durant averaged 30 per game for 2 years , Davis was 2 times allstar and 2 times member of all nba defensive first team. It's clear that he ain't what team needs.

But it's just matter of perception . One is "bad" because you don't like him and you put all blame on him, other is "great developing talent" that is pretty much same player last 3 years and plays on same , incapable, untalented roster for 5 years as starter. What's the difference? Additional 2 years ? It's not like Magic will become contender within 2 years so will you lose your mind in 2020 about him too?

I agree that it's odd that player on rebuilding team spents 7 years , but it's also clear that most coaches like him and use him. Some because they genuinely like him ( Clifford, JV) others because others are flat out dumb to make right decisions so he becomes option by default ( Skiles tried to run offense through Oladipo and had him benched after Dipo was throwing bricks, was getting himself cought in mid air without clue what to do and after he benched him team started to win games but Dipo went in media and bi***ed about him sitting, despite still playing like starter, just from bench ).

Moaning about Vučević this year makes less sense than ever before because guy is so damn better than anybody else that it's even pointless to talk about it. He literally leads team in every single offensive and defensive category that matters.

You now all want Bamba to start because you wear pink glasses when he plays and you have selective vision of what he looks like on the floor. Guy in last 26 attemps of shots, despite being 7 footer wingspan like he is freaking pterodactyl refuses to get anywhere near paint most of the time, attemped 7 threes in last 4 games ( ofc made non, shoots 25% for season, 27% in college yet keeps chucks them ). Whole season, 11 games played, went to FT line THREE FREAKING TIMES. In 7 of 11 games -zero.
"but other college players play more without problem" - other college kids don't get knocked on the floor after guard pushes them like it's case with him when he fell down after i think Forbes pushed him ( you know, 6'2- 180 pounds, pure Hulk ).

Everything you said is true. Take Vuc off this team and the offense would be another level of bad.. But my question is who cares? If we lose we lose. Bamba has not been impressive but I still want to see him in crunch time. We drafted him high so hes the future. I want him to work through his mistakes. We are going to lose alot of games and im happy with that.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using RealGM mobile app

all of us wants to see bamba play.

But there is also no denying that the more we lose, the harder it will be for the business side of things.

Why cant we add on what we have rather than replacing or taking it out? We did this with trading Tobias and Oladipo. And replaced those roles to increase usage of Gordon or Ibaka (eventually tRoss). Look what happened we had a setback and still have to recover.

Also, it not like Vuc has been the focal point of our offense since the beginning. Oladipo, Tobias, Afflalo were really the guys leading the charge.

Its just unfortunate that Vuc is our most reliable offensive player. Even Gordon puts up almost enough shots per game as Vuc but he cant even make shots as efficiently as Vuc does.

Leaders are neither born nor made, those who rise to the occassions are leaders.

There really has been no one else on our roster, outside of vuc and fournier, that has shown the capability to rise to the occassion consistently.

Is it because of the buddy ball usage thats why other players dont get opportunity? I doubt it. The past two years under Vogel, Gordon has been given the freedom to orchestrate the offense, and until now, those boneheaded plays are still what we see. Even Isaac have really been passive on offense, and to think people were making excuses for him during his college years that its because his coach preferred using Bacon. But until now...

bamba cant even protect the ball.

I like the future of Isaac and Bamba, but asking them to contribute on offense is, pun intended, a “long reach”.

[PrimeThyme]

Vuc had a great start to the year. No denying that. 19.8 ppg on 64 TS% the first 5 games. Great scoring.

Since those first 5 games, he has come back to normal. 15.6 ppg on 53 TS%. Not bad or anything but can we please stop acting like he is the only one who knows what a basketball is.

What's taken the biggest step back imo is his defense. TT (19 pts 16rbs) and Drummond (23pts 19rbs) absolutely dominated him these last 2 games (even Boban gave him a lot of issues). I really don't care if there are any defensive statistics that speak to the contrary, I've watched every second of both games and it's been bad. I can live with Vuc struggling mightily in the PnR but when his individual defense takes a big step back as well thats when it gets very hard to justify.

[Leopold Stoich]

Vuc had a great start to the year. No denying that. 19.8 ppg on 64 TS% the first 5 games. Great scoring.

Since those first 5 games, he has come back to normal. 15.6 ppg on 53 TS%. Not bad or anything but can we please stop acting like he is the only one who knows what a basketball is.

What's taken the biggest step back imo is his defense. TT (19 pts 16rbs) and Drummond (23pts 19rbs) absolutely dominated him these last 2 games (even Boban gave him a lot of issues). I really don't care if there are any defensive statistics that speak to the contrary, I've watched every second of both games and it's been bad. I can live with Vuc struggling mightily in the PnR but when his individual defense takes a big step back as well thats when it gets very hard to justify.

The fact of the matter is, Vuch has never been good on defense, like ever. At least on a consistent basis. He's had games where he's shutdown his opponent or made it difficult for players to get buckets in the paint but overall Vuc has been statistically bad at the defending end. Dominant centers usually play really well against him, I went into this game knowing full well that Drummond was going to have his way. Vuc necessarily didn't play terribly on the 1v1 defense, it's just Drummond is stronger and more aggressive than him. And to be fair, Drummond is playing like a mad man right now.

[IllMagic04]

Whenever Vuc is on bench that roster is incapable of even attemp shots.
Few days ago i counted how they were doing without him.
2-10 from the floor, 2 turnovers.
You watch Gordon 5 years why aren't you so done with him? Because he is young? He is 23, at age of 23 LEbron already had one nba finals behind him, Leonard already won 1 finals MVP, Durant averaged 30 per game for 2 years , Davis was 2 times allstar and 2 times member of all nba defensive first team. It's clear that he ain't what team needs.

But it's just matter of perception . One is "bad" because you don't like him and you put all blame on him, other is "great developing talent" that is pretty much same player last 3 years and plays on same , incapable, untalented roster for 5 years as starter. What's the difference? Additional 2 years ? It's not like Magic will become contender within 2 years so will you lose your mind in 2020 about him too?

I agree that it's odd that player on rebuilding team spents 7 years , but it's also clear that most coaches like him and use him. Some because they genuinely like him ( Clifford, JV) others because others are flat out dumb to make right decisions so he becomes option by default ( Skiles tried to run offense through Oladipo and had him benched after Dipo was throwing bricks, was getting himself cought in mid air without clue what to do and after he benched him team started to win games but Dipo went in media and bi***ed about him sitting, despite still playing like starter, just from bench ).

Moaning about Vučević this year makes less sense than ever before because guy is so damn better than anybody else that it's even pointless to talk about it. He literally leads team in every single offensive and defensive category that matters.

You now all want Bamba to start because you wear pink glasses when he plays and you have selective vision of what he looks like on the floor. Guy in last 26 attemps of shots, despite being 7 footer wingspan like he is freaking pterodactyl refuses to get anywhere near paint most of the time, attemped 7 threes in last 4 games ( ofc made non, shoots 25% for season, 27% in college yet keeps chucks them ). Whole season, 11 games played, went to FT line THREE FREAKING TIMES. In 7 of 11 games -zero.
"but other college players play more without problem" - other college kids don't get knocked on the floor after guard pushes them like it's case with him when he fell down after i think Forbes pushed him ( you know, 6'2- 180 pounds, pure Hulk ).

Everything you said is true. Take Vuc off this team and the offense would be another level of bad.. But my question is who cares? If we lose we lose. Bamba has not been impressive but I still want to see him in crunch time. We drafted him high so hes the future. I want him to work through his mistakes. We are going to lose alot of games and im happy with that.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using RealGM mobile app

all of us wants to see bamba play.

But there is also no denying that the more we lose, the harder it will be for the business side of things.

Why cant we add on what we have rather than replacing or taking it out? We did this with trading Tobias and Oladipo. And replaced those roles to increase usage of Gordon or Ibaka (eventually tRoss). Look what happened we had a setback and still have to recover.

Also, it not like Vuc has been the focal point of our offense since the beginning. Oladipo, Tobias, Afflalo were really the guys leading the charge.

Its just unfortunate that Vuc is our most reliable offensive player. Even Gordon puts up almost enough shots per game as Vuc but he cant even make shots as efficiently as Vuc does.

Leaders are neither born nor made, those who rise to the occassions are leaders.

There really has been no one else on our roster, outside of vuc and fournier, that has shown the capability to rise to the occassion consistently.

Is it because of the buddy ball usage thats why other players dont get opportunity? I doubt it. The past two years under Vogel, Gordon has been given the freedom to orchestrate the offense, and until now, those boneheaded plays are still what we see. Even Isaac have really been passive on offense, and to think people were making excuses for him during his college years that its because his coach preferred using Bacon. But until now...

bamba cant even protect the ball.

I like the future of Isaac and Bamba, but asking them to contribute on offense is, pun intended, a “long reach”.

we are going to lose anyway. That's what Im saying. If we continue to go at the pace we are going what are going win 33-35 games? What good is that? We need to find some direction. If the direction is for the core to be "B.I.G" then lets get that going. what are we waiting for? Im not really saying Vuc is the problem per say but right now it feels like he's in the way of the new direction. Your right Bamba and JI may not be offensive threats. In fact I don't think they will be. That's just bad drafting but that's a different topic but since we drafted them lets roll with them. Move on from Vuc and Evan, tank the rest of this season look to get a top5 pick and add some shooting/ playmaking in the draft and FA and now you have direction. Right now we have no direction

[OrlandO]

Every year posters say we won’t even break 60 points if Vuc is out and every year we look the same on offense when he doesn’t play.

They don't play the same. They still put up some points because they play faster, but that's also why they give up easier baskets on the other end. We go from bad to worse overall. I would argue it's worse for development as it encourages developing players to focus more on chucking up bad shots than playing defense.

[OrlandO]

I honestly cannot cope anymore. How can people watch this **** for 6 fking years and non deduce that Vuc is the core of the problem?

Who honestly gives a single **** if he scores points? Those points could EASILY be replaced if his shots went to someone else.

Its just infuriatingly stupid for us to state every single fking year that we want to be a young, fast, defensive minded team, and then roll with a lineup which is old, slow, and poor on defense. What kind of distorted way of viewing things is that? Insanity. Absolute insanity.

Vuc forces us to play a slow and plodding game on offense in which he is the focal point, which results in him scoring and everyone else suffering. We have players who need to run, and need space in the paint to drive into, yet we have stuck this Mod Edit: Removed. right in the middle of the paint for six straight years and watched him clog up the offense, and then we continue to wonder why our young guys struggle? How is it that we can change like 5 coaches, change the entire lineup around Vuc, yet consistently get the same results? Ill tell you how, its BECAUSE OF NIKOLA **** VUCEVIC. Not only that, but we have convinced ourselves that he is the best player on the team, simply because he takes the shots.

Im **** done with this. Im not being polite now. If you watch this for 6 fking years and cannot see that the Vuc brand of basketball is a losing brand of basketball which is detrimental to the overall style we want to play, Mod Edit: Removed. Unnecessary attack.

Ban me idgaf.

Whenever Vuc is on bench that roster is incapable of even attemp shots.
Few days ago i counted how they were doing without him.
2-10 from the floor, 2 turnovers.
You watch Gordon 5 years why aren't you so done with him? Because he is young? He is 23, at age of 23 LEbron already had one nba finals behind him, Leonard already won 1 finals MVP, Durant averaged 30 per game for 2 years , Davis was 2 times allstar and 2 times member of all nba defensive first team. It's clear that he ain't what team needs.

But it's just matter of perception . One is "bad" because you don't like him and you put all blame on him, other is "great developing talent" that is pretty much same player last 3 years and plays on same , incapable, untalented roster for 5 years as starter. What's the difference? Additional 2 years ? It's not like Magic will become contender within 2 years so will you lose your mind in 2020 about him too?

I agree that it's odd that player on rebuilding team spents 7 years , but it's also clear that most coaches like him and use him. Some because they genuinely like him ( Clifford, JV) others because others are flat out dumb to make right decisions so he becomes option by default ( Skiles tried to run offense through Oladipo and had him benched after Dipo was throwing bricks, was getting himself cought in mid air without clue what to do and after he benched him team started to win games but Dipo went in media and bi***ed about him sitting, despite still playing like starter, just from bench ).

Moaning about Vučević this year makes less sense than ever before because guy is so damn better than anybody else that it's even pointless to talk about it. He literally leads team in every single offensive and defensive category that matters.

You now all want Bamba to start because you wear pink glasses when he plays and you have selective vision of what he looks like on the floor. Guy in last 26 attemps of shots, despite being 7 footer wingspan like he is freaking pterodactyl refuses to get anywhere near paint most of the time, attemped 7 threes in last 4 games ( ofc made non, shoots 25% for season, 27% in college yet keeps chucks them ). Whole season, 11 games played, went to FT line THREE FREAKING TIMES. In 7 of 11 games -zero.
"but other college players play more without problem" - other college kids don't get knocked on the floor after guard pushes them like it's case with him when he fell down after i think Forbes pushed him ( you know, 6'2- 180 pounds, pure Hulk ).

Everything you said is true. Take Vuc off this team and the offense would be another level of bad.. But my question is who cares? If we lose we lose. Bamba has not been impressive but I still want to see him in crunch time. We drafted him high so hes the future. I want him to work through his mistakes. We are going to lose alot of games and im happy with that.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using RealGM mobile app

That's an entirely different argument than blaming Vuc for a bad team losing. Dislike for Vuc's game or wanting to see more Bamba are not good excuses for delusional thought and denial about the state of the team.

But to answer your question... management cares whether bamba starts or not at this point. They're trying to put Bamba in position to succeed his rookie year and beyond... a role and minutes he can handle while adjusting to the NBA. He's got way more on his plate to worry about this season than extra minutes and touches. This is their prized daft pick.... if they thought he could handle being a starter out of the gates without it negatively impacting his development his rookie year they would have moved Vuc already.

[OrlandoNed]

all of us wants to see bamba play.

But there is also no denying that the more we lose, the harder it will be for the business side of things.

Nobody here gives a flying **** about how the team's performance affects non basketball related stuff.

Why cant we add on what we have rather than replacing or taking it out? We did this with trading Tobias and Oladipo. And replaced those roles to increase usage of Gordon or Ibaka (eventually tRoss). Look what happened we had a setback and still have to recover.

Why can't we add instead of replacing or taken out? WE HAVE BEEN ADDING. It never changed anything. Vuc was still the #1 option and we have still sucked.

Also, it not like Vuc has been the focal point of our offense since the beginning. Oladipo, Tobias, Afflalo were really the guys leading the charge.

Its just unfortunate that Vuc is our most reliable offensive player. Even Gordon puts up almost enough shots per game as Vuc but he cant even make shots as efficiently as Vuc does.

Leaders are neither born nor made, those who rise to the occassions are leaders.

In the first season he was here Vucevic took only 16 less shots than Afflalo, and still took more than 100 more shots than the 3rd most frequent shooter on the team. The next season, Vuc took the 5th most shots due to missing 25 games to injury. Every single season that he didn't miss a chunk of games due to injury, Vuc has led the team in shot attempts by a freaking mile. So you are wrong, Vucevic was an offensive fixture since Day 1.

There really has been no one else on our roster, outside of vuc and fournier, that has shown the capability to rise to the occassion consistently.

Is it because of the buddy ball usage thats why other players dont get opportunity? I doubt it. The past two years under Vogel, Gordon has been given the freedom to orchestrate the offense, and until now, those boneheaded plays are still what we see. Even Isaac have really been passive on offense, and to think people were making excuses for him during his college years that its because his coach preferred using Bacon. But until now...

Bull Mod Edit: Removed. Every single young prospect we've added to the team since Vuc has always taken a backseat to him. Nobody ever got a bigger opportunity than Vuc to lead the offense. Only until recently have Gordon and Fournier been on equal footing in the food chain.

Mod Note: Tensions are understandably high, but please refrain from evading the swear filter.

[OrlandO]

You know depresses me is that teams that started their rebuilds after us are going to be light years ahead of us. I fear 2-3 years from now we are going to be continuing to play Vuc and Fournier big minutes and continue hoping we find a star

Reminds me of people taking digs at Weltman/Clifford before the season even started because they assumed Isaac wouldn't start. Vuc is expiring and Weltman used a major asset to draft his replacement... do you really think he's not going to start Bamba sooner than later?

[npiper17]

Trade for Demond so we can get used to playing a style Bamba will play? No thanks. We blew the 5th pick on a Dedmond style player?

I think what we want is a player like Vuc with enhanced modern NBA offense and more effective pick and roll defense. A better, refined and more dominant version of Vuc.

Who’s saying we blew the 5th pick?

[npiper17]

In terms of the Rozier potential interest, could this not be a case of Fool’s Gold? His stats are pretty unimpressive other than those few playoff games and we know what happened the last time we signed a guy based on their playoff performance.

Also pleased to see Clifford call out the bench. Holding guys properly accountable is what this team needs whether half the roster will be here next year or not.

[MagicFan4Lyfe]

You know depresses me is that teams that started their rebuilds after us are going to be light years ahead of us. I fear 2-3 years from now we are going to be continuing to play Vuc and Fournier big minutes and continue hoping we find a star

Reminds me of people taking digs at Weltman/Clifford before the season even started because they assumed Isaac wouldn't start. Vuc is expiring and Weltman used a major asset to draft his replacement... do you really think he's not going to start Bamba sooner than later?

I actually haven’t blamed Uncle Cliff or Weham. The Hennigan years probably put us back by almost a decade and trying to crawl out of that is so depressing.
Poor drafting, terrible FA signing, even worse trades are why we are here. Going to take another 2-3 years before the stench is reversed. And that is with the hope that WeHam are the right group to reverse course.
Hearing Uncle Cliff’s post game comments made me more depressed. The culture of losing is so deeply ingrained in Orlando.

[Knightro]

Reminds me of people taking digs at Weltman/Clifford before the season even started because they assumed Isaac wouldn't start. Vuc is expiring and Weltman used a major asset to draft his replacement... do you really think he's not going to start Bamba sooner than later?

I am 100% confident that barring a preseason injury Mo Bamba will be the Magic's starting center on opening night next season.

There's plenty to be annoyed about in terms of the Magic, but how Clifford is using Bamba is not one of them to me.

He's played in every single game and is getting about 20 minutes a night. There's only 12 rookies playing more than he is so far this year and he is arguably the most raw player of all of them.

[MagicFan4Lyfe]

You know depresses me is that teams that started their rebuilds after us are going to be light years ahead of us. I fear 2-3 years from now we are going to be continuing to play Vuc and Fournier big minutes and continue hoping we find a star

Reminds me of people taking digs at Weltman/Clifford before the season even started because they assumed Isaac wouldn't start. Vuc is expiring and Weltman used a major asset to draft his replacement... do you really think he's not going to start Bamba sooner than later?

Problem is Vuc is going to whine and pout. Why do I say that? Because he has done it before and I see no reason why he won’t again:

http://nba.nbcsports.com/2016/11/28/nikola-vucevic-not-happy-to-be-coming-off-the-bench-for-magic/

[Bergmaniac]

In terms of the Rozier potential interest, could this not be a case of Fool’s Gold? His stats are pretty unimpressive other than those few playoff games and we know what happened the last time we signed a guy based on their playoff performance.

That's definitely the case. He's become way overrated due to his performance in two playoff series (he was terrible against the Cavs in the conference finals). He's been a really inefficient scorer his whole career who got hot for 3 weeks. He's also not that good as a passer or playmaker and he doesn't get to the rim or draw FTs at a good rate.

[npiper17]

Reminds me of people taking digs at Weltman/Clifford before the season even started because they assumed Isaac wouldn't start. Vuc is expiring and Weltman used a major asset to draft his replacement... do you really think he's not going to start Bamba sooner than later?

I am 100% confident that barring a preseason injury Mo Bamba will be the Magic's starting center on opening night next season.

There's plenty to be annoyed about in terms of the Magic, but how Clifford is using Bamba is not one of them to me.

He's played in every single game and is getting about 20 minutes a night. There's only 12 rookies playing more than he is so far this year and he is arguably the most raw player of all of them.

I agree. Bamba is getting what’s he needs minutes-wise at the moment and I expect that to grow as the season progresses.

When you get a raw pick this is what happens: look at Dwight’s first couple of years.