Official Speculation Thread ‘18-19’: XX: Year of the Vuc

[MagicFan4Lyfe]

We should have tanked last year. That was the year to do it. We failed. Right now we are in the thick of the playoff hunt. We are not going to tank now. Even if we did there's not enough time to catch the other bad teams. Plus the new lottery odds make it hard too. At this point we may as well ride it out try to make the playoffs. We are playing some solid basketball right now so we got a shot.

Next year, people will say "We should've tanked last year". It will be excrutiating after a few years when we see the Superstars that come from this draft.

Well according to some on this board, Vuc is that elusive superstar we have needed last 7 years!

[VFX]

We should have tanked last year. That was the year to do it. We failed. Right now we are in the thick of the playoff hunt. We are not going to tank now. Even if we did there's not enough time to catch the other bad teams. Plus the new lottery odds make it hard too. At this point we may as well ride it out try to make the playoffs. We are playing some solid basketball right now so we got a shot.

Next year, people will say "We should've tanked last year". It will be excrutiating after a few years when we see the Superstars that come from this draft.

I’m already reeling from the greatness that is Doncic’s rookie season.

[OrlandoNed]

Magic won't tank. Sooner you get over it faster you'll have better time enjoying present over losing in present for future that might never arrive. Also most superstars are not developed, they come in nba and are that good.
Also there is no scenario where Bamba and Isaac lead team to rings so it's pointless to even act there might can if Magic pull up some God-like guard from draft, who, btw is not existing in 2019 lottery

What you are saying is, don't worry about championships and enjoy winning games at a 50% rate but BTW we aren't winning squat with our youngest prospects.

So if we're never winning a championship with our 2 best prospects, why are we worrying about wins when our talent isn't good enough?

[Skin]

Magic won't tank. Sooner you get over it faster you'll have better time enjoying present over losing in present for future that might never arrive. Also most superstars are not developed, they come in nba and are that good.
Also there is no scenario where Bamba and Isaac lead team to rings so it's pointless to even act there might can if Magic pull up some God-like guard from draft, who, btw is not existing in 2019 lottery

A hope in a future is better than no hope in the future.

[VFX]

Magic won't tank. Sooner you get over it faster you'll have better time enjoying present over losing in present for future that might never arrive. Also most superstars are not developed, they come in nba and are that good.
Also there is no scenario where Bamba and Isaac lead team to rings so it's pointless to even act there might can if Magic pull up some God-like guard from draft, who, btw is not existing in 2019 lottery

A hope in a future is better than no hope in the future.

New sig for this season? Might be a winner.

[Skin]

Magic won't tank. Sooner you get over it faster you'll have better time enjoying present over losing in present for future that might never arrive. Also most superstars are not developed, they come in nba and are that good.
Also there is no scenario where Bamba and Isaac lead team to rings so it's pointless to even act there might can if Magic pull up some God-like guard from draft, who, btw is not existing in 2019 lottery

What you are saying is, don't worry about championships and enjoy winning games at a 50% rate but BTW we aren't winning squat with our youngest prospects.

So if we're never winning a championship with our 2 best prospects, why are we worrying about wins when our talent isn't good enough?

Pepe is just happy that his favorite team is being lead by a Euro. I'm guessing there is some sense of continental pride that comes with that or something.

"That's my continent baby!"

[MagicFan4Lyfe]

Magic won't tank. Sooner you get over it faster you'll have better time enjoying present over losing in present for future that might never arrive. Also most superstars are not developed, they come in nba and are that good.
Also there is no scenario where Bamba and Isaac lead team to rings so it's pointless to even act there might can if Magic pull up some God-like guard from draft, who, btw is not existing in 2019 lottery

What you are saying is, don't worry about championships and enjoy winning games at a 50% rate but BTW we aren't winning squat with our youngest prospects.

So if we're never winning a championship with our 2 best prospects, why are we worrying about wins when our talent isn't good enough?

Pepe is just happy that his favorite team is being lead by a Euro. I'm guessing there is some sense of continental pride that comes with that or something.

"That's my continent baby!"

Wish that Euro leading us was Doncic.

Instead our last 2 top lottery picks are relegated to bench players.

[Knightro]

Need isn't the only driver. A lot of teams simply go with the BPA.

NBAdraft.net's draft order right now...

Let's say we take out the top 5 teams... Could the remainer use a PG?

6 Miami - Yes, Dragic is old and a FA
7 Brooklyn - Yes, Russell is a FA
8 Washington - No, they are stuck with Wall
9 Houston - Maybe, will likely go BPA
10 Utah - Maybe, will likely go BPA
11 San Antonio - Yes, Murray is no surety
12 *Boston - Yes, Kyrie gets hurt often and Rozier is a FA
13 New Orleans - Yes, they are relying on Elf.
14 Minnesota - Maybe, will likely go BPA

Well a couple of things...

I agree with you that most teams go BPA regardless of position, but knowing that to be that case I would actually rank Morant even lower. I definitely don't think he's one of the 5 best players in this draft. To me, he's right on the borderline of being a top 10 player (somewhere in the 9-12 range, which is where I see the Magic ending up draft wise). His perceived rise is tied directly to the fact that this is not a deep point guard crop.

Beyond that, I would be careful about citing the "25 games into the season" draft order.

There are 6 pretty clearly defined tankers right now: Suns, Cavs, Hawks, Bulls, Knicks and (until LaVert comes back) Nets.

I think the only two teams that have a glaring *need* for a point guard are the Suns and Magic.

There are other teams that could use a PG potentially (probably not at the expense of better options at other positions) are the Knicks, Bulls, Nets, Pelicans, Heat.

You also have to consider Kemba, Dragic, Bledsoe, Rubio, Collison, Dinwiddie, Rozier, Russell are all free agents to be and could all potentially change the level of need a team has for a PG.

[Skin]

What you are saying is, don't worry about championships and enjoy winning games at a 50% rate but BTW we aren't winning squat with our youngest prospects.

So if we're never winning a championship with our 2 best prospects, why are we worrying about wins when our talent isn't good enough?

Pepe is just happy that his favorite team is being lead by a Euro. I'm guessing there is some sense of continental pride that comes with that or something.

"That's my continent baby!"

Wish that Euro leading us was Doncic.

Instead our last 2 top lottery picks are relegated to bench players.

We were a butt sniff away from landing Porzingis too. ...and then we ended up with Hezonja. The Basketball Gods are cruel.

[IllMagic04]

We should have tanked last year. That was the year to do it. We failed. Right now we are in the thick of the playoff hunt. We are not going to tank now. Even if we did there's not enough time to catch the other bad teams. Plus the new lottery odds make it hard too. At this point we may as well ride it out try to make the playoffs. We are playing some solid basketball right now so we got a shot.

Next year, people will say "We should've tanked last year". It will be excrutiating after a few years when we see the Superstars that come from this draft.

Its not just about the talent. All the stars aligned last year for a major tank season. There were 2 players for me that were everything we needed and that's Doncic and Young. We had tons of injuries, and the lottery odds hadn't changed so we knew where we needed to be. That Wizards game is the one that will haunt me for the rest of my days. With these new odds who knows where a good spot to be is. If we traded Vuc and Evan before the season started I woulda been all for it. But how can you do it now? Issac and Gordon look energized playing these meaningfull games. They actually believe they can make the playoffs. How could you take that from them without it causing a negtive effect?

[dsg2021]

90% of this board was pro-tank for practically all of this rebuild, including me. The issue is not divided fans, but that the FO didn't tank. The biggest problem has been that this season has clearly passed the point for ORL to get decent lottery odds since quite a while ago. It's such a hard argument to make right now.

And with the FO, we cannot just rope them into the last 7 years of only one top 3 pick. They've only been here for 1.5 years. They have more years of FO experience and insider knowledge than many other teams' FO's. Our ownership even hired outside consultancy for research and analysis on many FO candidates. So I'd personally rather give them some rope than hang them immediately. I trust in them. Of course if I lose faith in them, I would want the next most logical thing, trading and tanking for talented youth.

There were one or two articles saying Weltman didn't like TOR's odds/ceiling in the playoffs when he first took over (like we do with ORL right now). He wanted to blow it up. You know what happened? He stayed patient, watched a little longer, and in the end, he fortified them. That team was the basis to a team having Kawhi Leonard right now, instead of them sitting in irrelevancy hunting for top 3-4 picks right now.

So;
1) You can't be seriously still trying to tank at this point in the season? Only the bottom 5 have more than 40% chances at jumping into the top 4 lottery drawings. The 6th bottom team is the last respectable tanking spot at over 33% chance for a top 4 pick. Then the 7th and 8th bottom hold barely above 25% chances at a top 4 lottery pick.

There are 4 bottom teams that are very clearly uncatchable, and BRK is 1-9 in the last 10, kind of making sure we can't land a bottom 5 tank spot either. I think if Aaron Gordon and Jonathan Isaac were something like the second and third oldest players on the roster since the beginning of the season, we would still do better than even BRK's 1-9 in the last 10, and we would still probably be even somewhere like the Knicks at 8-17 too.

2) And you can't be seriously saying that drafting Bamba was a mistake.
First, you can't assume it would have been a realistic, easy, and fair trade up, so you have to look at who was drafted behind Bamba for your argument.
And among all of the non-big draftees, none of them have been standing out so far. So who would you have drafted at 6 then? And if you say the only decent non-big taken after 6 (Shai), I'm gonna lmao, because I clearly remember being one of very few on here interested in him at 6, and at all. It was forbidden to look at "#3 ranked PG on the PG's big board" and #12 in "consensus big board" as a #6 choice. So the same people saying why did we take Bamba at 6 then would have never taken Shai or anyone any better than Bamba is right now (Who is, after 6?).
Finally, this argument is a bit of a dumb topic to raise until Bamba can actually start to breath down Vooch's neck some. It should happen, but maybe not for 2-3 years. In the meantime, I am very happy with having the longest and highest potential backup C in the league, locked in at under 8 mil per for 4 years. And there is no way in hell that playing him 17 MPG (as now) is something way worse (for development) than if we could have given him 27 gassed-out MPG instead.

[npiper17]

I think it’s unfair to say 90% of the board ‘don’t get it.’ I think it’s more accurate to say that most of the board know that the Magic are not going to tank this season so they’re enjoying it for what it is which, you could argue, is half the point of being a fan of something.

[pepe1991]

Magic won't tank. Sooner you get over it faster you'll have better time enjoying present over losing in present for future that might never arrive. Also most superstars are not developed, they come in nba and are that good.
Also there is no scenario where Bamba and Isaac lead team to rings so it's pointless to even act there might can if Magic pull up some God-like guard from draft, who, btw is not existing in 2019 lottery

What you are saying is, don't worry about championships and enjoy winning games at a 50% rate but BTW we aren't winning squat with our youngest prospects.

So if we're never winning a championship with our 2 best prospects, why are we worrying about wins when our talent isn't good enough?

Pepe is just happy that his favorite team is being lead by a Euro. I'm guessing there is some sense of continental pride that comes with that or something.

"That's my continent baby!"

Yea because nothing brings joy to my heart more than player from Montenegro ,country that was involved in war crimes over my nation , is leading my favorite team. If there is some contientanl pride i would probably ride Giannis or Dončić or Evan, or whoever else had nothing to do with 90s war.


I just enjoy watching competitive basketball for first time in 7 years. Last time Magic were good was when i just got out of highscool, i'm like 3 years away from being 30.

[VFX]

We should have tanked last year. That was the year to do it. We failed. Right now we are in the thick of the playoff hunt. We are not going to tank now. Even if we did there's not enough time to catch the other bad teams. Plus the new lottery odds make it hard too. At this point we may as well ride it out try to make the playoffs. We are playing some solid basketball right now so we got a shot.

Next year, people will say "We should've tanked last year". It will be excrutiating after a few years when we see the Superstars that come from this draft.

Its not just about the talent. All the stars aligned last year for a major tank season. There were 2 players for me that were everything we needed and that's Doncic and Young. We had tons of injuries, and the lottery odds hadn't changed so we knew where we needed to be. That Wizards game is the one that will haunt me for the rest of my days. With these new odds who knows where a good spot to be is. If we traded Vuc and Evan before the season started I woulda been all for it. But how can you do it now? Issac and Gordon look energized playing these meaningfull games. They actually believe they can make the playoffs. How could you take that from them without it causing a negtive effect?

Which is why they won’t do it. Management played their hand poorly and this team will live in mediocrity if they feel forced to double down on a lengthy Vuc contract instead of committing to a real rebuild post Hennigan. Bamba and Isaac off the bench doesn’t scream “rebuild” at all. Bamba plays the least amount of minutes of all top 10 picks because Vuc needs to be on the floor for us to sustain a celebrated 12-13 record in the east. But that’s what you get when you hire a win now coach and you lack superstar talent. I’m not saying to tank, just that I wish we were rebuilding with our youth instead of living in the middle.

I guess as a fan I should just shut up and accept the impending mediocrity. About all I could do rather than agree/ disagree with other Magic fans on the direction of this franchise.

[The Real Dalic]

We should have tanked last year. That was the year to do it. We failed. Right now we are in the thick of the playoff hunt. We are not going to tank now. Even if we did there's not enough time to catch the other bad teams. Plus the new lottery odds make it hard too. At this point we may as well ride it out try to make the playoffs. We are playing some solid basketball right now so we got a shot.

Next year, people will say "We should've tanked last year". It will be excrutiating after a few years when we see the Superstars that come from this draft.

Well according to some on this board, Vuc is that elusive superstar we have needed last 7 years!

Not one person has said that all season but you. But sure, keep overexaggerating and invalidating your position because of it.

[Knightro]

I think it’s unfair to say 90% of the board ‘don’t get it.’ I think it’s more accurate to say that most of the board know that the Magic are not going to tank this season so they’re enjoying it for what it is which, you could argue, is half the point of being a fan of something.

This x 1000.

Should the Magic have tanked better last year? Certainly yes.

Should the Magic be tanking this year? Probably yes.

Will the Magic tank this year? Obviously no.

All of those things can be true at the same time and they are in this case. What the Magic should be doing and what they are doing aren't the same thing.

But knowing that's how it is, it's time to enjoy winning games and time to enjoy the fight for the playoffs while exploring every possible option to make this team better in the here and now and beyond.

[Skin]

The wins are good for the heart. There's a healing element there. I get it. I feel it too.

While I see their limits, I don't hate the make up of our entire team. To be fair to WeHam, if I were to build around Vuc, I would surround him with players like Gordon, Isaac and Bamba.

Maybe we just need to hope for the incredible... something like drafting a star with a late pick... like Giannis, Mitchell, Booker, Kawhi were. That's the kind of dumb luck we need.

[Bergmaniac]

What you are saying is, don't worry about championships and enjoy winning games at a 50% rate but BTW we aren't winning squat with our youngest prospects.

So if we're never winning a championship with our 2 best prospects, why are we worrying about wins when our talent isn't good enough?

Pepe is just happy that his favorite team is being lead by a Euro. I'm guessing there is some sense of continental pride that comes with that or something.

"That's my continent baby!"

Yea because nothing brings joy to my heart more than player from Montenegro ,country that was involved in war crimes over my nation , is leading my favorite team. If there is some contientanl pride i would probably ride Giannis or Dončić or Evan, or whoever else had nothing to do with 90s war.


I just enjoy watching competitive basketball for first time in 7 years. Last time Magic were good was when i just got out of highscool, i'm like 3 years away from being 30.

Watching sports is supposed to be fun. I'd much rather enjoy the Magic this season than have them tank again and being unbearable to watch for a tiny increase in the chance of winning the title 10 years from now. Let's be honest, even with the most blatant tanking the NBA is too competitive for it to increase the chance for a championship that much. Especially with the new lottery rules.

[Knightro]

Bamba plays the least amount of minutes of all top 10 picks because Vuc needs to be on the floor for us to sustain a celebrated 12-13 record in the east.

Bamba has played in every single game and has only played less than 10 minutes one time in 25 games. He's playing as much as he can handle.

The issue with Mo is that he's been absolutely horrific in his minutes so far this year from a positive impact standpoint. No, it's not all his fault and no I'm not suggesting he's going to be a bad player forever. Simply pointing out the facts of the situation.

Bamba's playing time, considering how terrible he's been, is the furthest thing I have from a concern.

[pepe1991]

Problem here is with understanding of rebuild.
If you look at it as linear process where team has to: bottom it down, suck, win lottery, get lucky with ping pong balls, get stars - than sure , Magic are failing.
But how many teams did that ?
Suns and 76ers.

One of them are 4-20 right now and without any hope for future. Their fanbase is losing mind about new first overall pick that plays defense like ass.
Other team had i think 7 lottery picks, Noel , MCW, Okafor busted out, one turned into superstar, one into overrated star ( Simmons) and one in good role player ( Šarić) and among 7 ( i guess seven ) two of them ( OKafor, Fultz ) are some of the worst lottery busts of last decade.

There are sh** loud of teams that never did linear process of rebuilding that includes Celtics, Spurs,Warriors, Raptors, Nuggets, Bucks, OKC and Pacers.


problem with bottom it out is simple. In order to get to the bottom you have to sell everything worth anything. When you reach bottom it's super hard to get back up. And most teams, like Magic ( 2012-2017) find themselfs trapped on bottom where they simply can't get over a hump of sucking as their prospects become actual players on actual nba- non rookie contracts and all good FA avoid rebuilding teams like a plague or ask unrealistic contracts.

When you consider shrinking tv deals, shrinking interest in media, shrinking audience in games ,shrinking rewards for tankers nowdays it's not hard to figure why most teams are more afraid of being new Suns than new Philly. ( not like Philly ever won anything with their strategy, or any other team ever that bottomed it out ).