The Future is bright

[MagicMatic]

Dude, you can tank for 15 years and still never win first round pick, and that's whole purpose of lottery change. To stop teams to hi reset button every 2 yeras.
This draft is 2 and half players deep, everybody who drafts outside top 3 will gain another prospect who might pan out, but probably will be another Stanley Johnson /Thon Maker type prospect.
But that's nothing new. In lottery you have 14 players, even in best draft class in history (2003) only Lebron and Wade were superstars . In most drafts there is not a single superstar level player, just bunch of situational role players - occasional, situational allstars like Paul MIllsap, Horford type players and we still talk about BEST case scenarios.

Draft is something invented to give worst team boost to upgrade roster faster. Not tool that will build you superteam.

Not really sure where this line of thinking comes from. The draft is the easiest, cheapest, and least risky way of acquiring better talent for an organization like Orlando. This coming from an organization that has only been relevant because of the draft.

Is it a complete luck of the draw? Kinda. You’re kind of discrediting the efforts that go into scouting and development by saying it’s fruitless. Nobody is saying to tank for years and years and to be like Philadelphia during “The Process”. I think there is just a faction of people that would rather go in a different direction in terms of talent acquisition. There simply aren’t many avenues.

People could argue standing pat is a good idea, but this team hasn’t been truly relevant in almost a decade. The run this year was a nice change of pace, but we simply lack talent and the questions surrounding this roster construction are valid.

For example, the difference between being Phoenix or Detroit is pretty meaningless in the grand scheme of things. To be honest, there are many people that would rather have Zion or Morant than whatever the hell is going on in Detroit next season. That’s not to say Phoenix will be “better” or even “good”, but they will arguably have better assets to move should they acquire them.

[pepe1991]

Dude, you can tank for 15 years and still never win first round pick, and that's whole purpose of lottery change. To stop teams to hi reset button every 2 yeras.
This draft is 2 and half players deep, everybody who drafts outside top 3 will gain another prospect who might pan out, but probably will be another Stanley Johnson /Thon Maker type prospect.
But that's nothing new. In lottery you have 14 players, even in best draft class in history (2003) only Lebron and Wade were superstars . In most drafts there is not a single superstar level player, just bunch of situational role players - occasional, situational allstars like Paul MIllsap, Horford type players and we still talk about BEST case scenarios.

Draft is something invented to give worst team boost to upgrade roster faster. Not tool that will build you superteam.

Not really sure where this line of thinking comes from. The draft is the easiest, cheapest, and least risky way of acquiring better talent for an organization like Orlando. This coming from an organization that has only been relevant because of the draft.

Is it a complete luck of the draw? Kinda. You’re kind of discrediting the efforts that go into scouting and development by saying it’s fruitless. Nobody is saying to tank for years and years and to be like Philadelphia during “The Process”. I think there is just a faction of people that would rather go in a different direction in terms of talent acquisition. There simply aren’t many avenues.

People could argue standing pat is a good idea, but this team hasn’t been truly relevant in almost a decade. The run this year was a nice change of pace, but we simply lack talent and the questions surrounding this roster construction are valid.

For example, the difference between being Phoenix or Detroit is pretty meaningless in the grand scheme of things. To be honest, there are many people that would rather have Zion or Morant than whatever the hell is going on in Detroit next season. That’s not to say Phoenix will be “better” or even “good”, but they will arguably have better assets to move should they acquire them.

So if draft is asiest ,cheapeast and least risky way of building team how you explain so many teams failing to build thrugh draft despite being in lottery all the time?
Minessota spent 13 of last 14 yeras in lottery.
Kings last 13 years in lottery.
Suns 9 years in lottery.
Magic 6 yeras prior this one
Lakers last 6 years
Knicks 6 yers

That's 6 teams ,with total of 53 LOTTERY picks in last 14 years. How many players turned into allstars among them? 4 or 5 ?

For example, the difference between being Phoenix or Detroit is pretty meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

LOL
Suns ?
I assume you don't pay close attention . Because if you do, you would know that active players already telling Booker and Ayton to GTFO from there. Dudley,active nba player, and Barnes retired player, in last 10 DAYS pretty much said that as long as Sarver is there , team can't expect anything. It's the worst runned team in basketball, probably in sports in general. They changed 6 coaches in 6 years and 3 GMs.
I love how you still pretend that Suns are lock to win top 2 pick. Where ,in reality they much better chance to draft 4th and 5th . Matter of fact they have 14% to draft 1# and 26% to draft 6th, with even 7% chance t odraft 7th.
But heeey, as long as it fits your and Skin's rebuild through draft agenda, deflecting facts is fine...

Is it a complete luck of the draw? Kinda. You’re kind of discrediting the efforts that go into scouting and development by saying it’s fruitless. Nobody is saying to tank for years and years and to be like Philadelphia during “The Process”

Actually you do, because if you have to sell all valuable players for scrubs in order to tank. So when you fail at draft, you still have bunch of scrubs so you have no other choice but to try again later.
Philadelphia had 7 lottery picks in their rebuild, lucky enough to have top 3 pick 4 times.
2 of 4 ended up being Fultz and Jah Okafor.
Simmons was alaready shopped this year.
Embiid can't stay healthy.

They are one bad Embiid injury away from another rebuild. And expecting Embiid to get hurt is more realistic outcom than expecting him to last next 5 years for 70 games a year. Guy has been hurt in every single playoffs so far.
And are they actually compeating for title? No
Are they cheap, like you said ? No
Was their rebuild best cost and time effective rebuild? No
So why you wanna go in lottery again so badly? To draft another Elfrid Payton and Hezonja? Because players like them are most common things in lottery. Fing Biyombo was 7th pick ....

[pepe1991]

Another reason why nobody with any sense of logic should pull for tanking:

Unfortunately, at this stage of the process, there’s not as much salvation to be had when gazing down the road to 2020. There’s a much stronger group of international prospects on the way, and far too much time on the clock to draw serious conclusions, but it is worth noting that no player has staked a convincing claim for the No. 1 pick at this point, and that many scouts walked away from the week generally underwhelmed.

So far , from expected top 5 prospects, 3 are centers.

ALSO 2020 is one of THE WORST FA classes in years.
Matter of fact it's SO damn terrible that DJ Augustin leads list of UFA point guards.

Having money in 2020 in as usless as Bran in GOT.

Problem here is that guys like Skin come with clear agenda ( wants to let Vučević go no matter what ) so now they plot and create opinion around bias, to make it sound like logical to let him go, where, in reality, it's not.
Magic Matic just wants to rebuild until he founds Jabbar, Lebron and Jordan in 1 year. Failing to see that most drafts don't have transending talents and that selecting every year in lottery isn't really benefitial to team ,short or long term.
Also people fail to understand that rookies aren't really THAT cheap. Matter of fact Ayton and Fultz 4th year option sets them on upper side of contracts, as they both are bound to make $12,3M in 4th seasons. And even if you decline, their QO is whooping $15M.

[tiderulz]

Dude, you can tank for 15 years and still never win first round pick, and that's whole purpose of lottery change. To stop teams to hi reset button every 2 yeras.
This draft is 2 and half players deep, everybody who drafts outside top 3 will gain another prospect who might pan out, but probably will be another Stanley Johnson /Thon Maker type prospect.
But that's nothing new. In lottery you have 14 players, even in best draft class in history (2003) only Lebron and Wade were superstars . In most drafts there is not a single superstar level player, just bunch of situational role players - occasional, situational allstars like Paul MIllsap, Horford type players and we still talk about BEST case scenarios.

Draft is something invented to give worst team boost to upgrade roster faster. Not tool that will build you superteam.

Not really sure where this line of thinking comes from. The draft is the easiest, cheapest, and least risky way of acquiring better talent for an organization like Orlando. This coming from an organization that has only been relevant because of the draft.

Is it a complete luck of the draw? Kinda. You’re kind of discrediting the efforts that go into scouting and development by saying it’s fruitless. Nobody is saying to tank for years and years and to be like Philadelphia during “The Process”. I think there is just a faction of people that would rather go in a different direction in terms of talent acquisition. There simply aren’t many avenues.

People could argue standing pat is a good idea, but this team hasn’t been truly relevant in almost a decade. The run this year was a nice change of pace, but we simply lack talent and the questions surrounding this roster construction are valid.

For example, the difference between being Phoenix or Detroit is pretty meaningless in the grand scheme of things. To be honest, there are many people that would rather have Zion or Morant than whatever the hell is going on in Detroit next season. That’s not to say Phoenix will be “better” or even “good”, but they will arguably have better assets to move should they acquire them.

So if draft is asiest ,cheapeast and least risky way of building team how you explain so many teams failing to build thrugh draft despite being in lottery all the time?
Minessota spent 13 of last 14 yeras in lottery.
Kings last 13 years in lottery.
Suns 9 years in lottery.
Magic 6 yeras prior this one
Lakers last 6 years
Knicks 6 yers

That's 6 teams ,with total of 53 LOTTERY picks in last 14 years. How many players turned into allstars among them? 4 or 5 ?

For example, the difference between being Phoenix or Detroit is pretty meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

LOL
Suns ?
I assume you don't pay close attention . Because if you do, you would know that active players already telling Booker and Ayton to GTFO from there. Dudley,active nba player, and Barnes retired player, in last 10 DAYS pretty much said that as long as Sarver is there , team can't expect anything. It's the worst runned team in basketball, probably in sports in general. They changed 6 coaches in 6 years and 3 GMs.
I love how you still pretend that Suns are lock to win top 2 pick. Where ,in reality they much better chance to draft 4th and 5th . Matter of fact they have 14% to draft 1# and 26% to draft 6th, with even 7% chance t odraft 7th.
But heeey, as long as it fits your and Skin's rebuild through draft agenda, deflecting facts is fine...

Is it a complete luck of the draw? Kinda. You’re kind of discrediting the efforts that go into scouting and development by saying it’s fruitless. Nobody is saying to tank for years and years and to be like Philadelphia during “The Process”

Actually you do, because if you have to sell all valuable players for scrubs in order to tank. So when you fail at draft, you still have bunch of scrubs so you have no other choice but to try again later.
Philadelphia had 7 lottery picks in their rebuild, lucky enough to have top 3 pick 4 times.
2 of 4 ended up being Fultz and Jah Okafor.
Simmons was alaready shopped this year.
Embiid can't stay healthy.

They are one bad Embiid injury away from another rebuild. And expecting Embiid to get hurt is more realistic outcom than expecting him to last next 5 years for 70 games a year. Guy has been hurt in every single playoffs so far.
And are they actually compeating for title? No
Are they cheap, like you said ? No
Was their rebuild best cost and time effective rebuild? No
So why you wanna go in lottery again so badly? To draft another Elfrid Payton and Hezonja? Because players like them are most common things in lottery. Fing Biyombo was 7th pick ....

I agree with MM. The draft is the easier way to add talent to a small market team. But you also have to have a good overall organization to maximize it. Good scouts, good developmental coaches. Good front office and ownership to let their people do their jobs. you mention Minnesota, Phoenix, Sacramento, Lakers, Magic, Knicks. Those teams all had some problems, either in constantly changing coaches and schemes, bad scouting, cluster#@@ of a front office, ownership that didnt care, any combination of those causes problems.

[BadMofoPimp]

With the new draft odds, the likely-hood of only ending up with another 3-5 more Isaac's and AG's over a 10 year draft period just went up while the odds of winning a star talent is probably less than 1-5% each year. At some point, management will have to develop what they have and hope that free agents and/or great trade proposals come up. I don't think anyone here wants to sit through 10 more losing seasons like Skin does.

[MagicMatic]

Dude, you can tank for 15 years and still never win first round pick, and that's whole purpose of lottery change. To stop teams to hi reset button every 2 yeras.
This draft is 2 and half players deep, everybody who drafts outside top 3 will gain another prospect who might pan out, but probably will be another Stanley Johnson /Thon Maker type prospect.
But that's nothing new. In lottery you have 14 players, even in best draft class in history (2003) only Lebron and Wade were superstars . In most drafts there is not a single superstar level player, just bunch of situational role players - occasional, situational allstars like Paul MIllsap, Horford type players and we still talk about BEST case scenarios.

Draft is something invented to give worst team boost to upgrade roster faster. Not tool that will build you superteam.

Not really sure where this line of thinking comes from. The draft is the easiest, cheapest, and least risky way of acquiring better talent for an organization like Orlando. This coming from an organization that has only been relevant because of the draft.

Is it a complete luck of the draw? Kinda. You’re kind of discrediting the efforts that go into scouting and development by saying it’s fruitless. Nobody is saying to tank for years and years and to be like Philadelphia during “The Process”. I think there is just a faction of people that would rather go in a different direction in terms of talent acquisition. There simply aren’t many avenues.

People could argue standing pat is a good idea, but this team hasn’t been truly relevant in almost a decade. The run this year was a nice change of pace, but we simply lack talent and the questions surrounding this roster construction are valid.

For example, the difference between being Phoenix or Detroit is pretty meaningless in the grand scheme of things. To be honest, there are many people that would rather have Zion or Morant than whatever the hell is going on in Detroit next season. That’s not to say Phoenix will be “better” or even “good”, but they will arguably have better assets to move should they acquire them.

So if draft is asiest ,cheapeast and least risky way of building team how you explain so many teams failing to build thrugh draft despite being in lottery all the time?
Minessota spent 13 of last 14 yeras in lottery.
Kings last 13 years in lottery.
Suns 9 years in lottery.
Magic 6 yeras prior this one
Lakers last 6 years
Knicks 6 yers

That's 6 teams ,with total of 53 LOTTERY picks in last 14 years. How many players turned into allstars among them? 4 or 5 ?

For example, the difference between being Phoenix or Detroit is pretty meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

LOL
Suns ?
I assume you don't pay close attention . Because if you do, you would know that active players already telling Booker and Ayton to GTFO from there. Dudley,active nba player, and Barnes retired player, in last 10 DAYS pretty much said that as long as Sarver is there , team can't expect anything. It's the worst runned team in basketball, probably in sports in general. They changed 6 coaches in 6 years and 3 GMs.
I love how you still pretend that Suns are lock to win top 2 pick. Where ,in reality they much better chance to draft 4th and 5th . Matter of fact they have 14% to draft 1# and 26% to draft 6th, with even 7% chance t odraft 7th.
But heeey, as long as it fits your and Skin's rebuild through draft agenda, deflecting facts is fine...

Is it a complete luck of the draw? Kinda. You’re kind of discrediting the efforts that go into scouting and development by saying it’s fruitless. Nobody is saying to tank for years and years and to be like Philadelphia during “The Process”

Actually you do, because if you have to sell all valuable players for scrubs in order to tank. So when you fail at draft, you still have bunch of scrubs so you have no other choice but to try again later.
Philadelphia had 7 lottery picks in their rebuild, lucky enough to have top 3 pick 4 times.
2 of 4 ended up being Fultz and Jah Okafor.
Simmons was alaready shopped this year.
Embiid can't stay healthy.

They are one bad Embiid injury away from another rebuild. And expecting Embiid to get hurt is more realistic outcom than expecting him to last next 5 years for 70 games a year. Guy has been hurt in every single playoffs so far.
And are they actually compeating for title? No
Are they cheap, like you said ? No
Was their rebuild best cost and time effective rebuild? No
So why you wanna go in lottery again so badly? To draft another Elfrid Payton and Hezonja? Because players like them are most common things in lottery. Fing Biyombo was 7th pick ....

It is the easiest way to add talent. No huge contracts, no risk outside of making a bad selection, and they are on rookie scale deals. Is it a coincidence that the most dysfunctional organizations are in the lottery? No. However, that doesn’t mean it’s entirely irrelevant because you need good organization ALSO. Does this mean you are discounting every time the draft actually worked for a legitimate organization?

What are you talking about with the Philly example? I said you dont have to follow that road to simply add talent through the draft with the new rules it’s not needed.

Just because there have been bad selections near the top of the draft doesn’t change the fact that it’s the best method for acquiring talent. I mean... cmon man.. you are a fan of the Orlando Magic. A team that has had amazing playoff teams because of top pick draft selections.

I’m using the Suns and an example only not to dive into their organization. Knicks, Cavs, Suns, Bulls, Hawks.
OR Hornets, Pistons, Heat, and Washington. The former group has better assets moving into the future. The latter group is accomplishing just as much, but going to have to blow it up to have a chance, unless they make some very strategic trades or get extremely lucky in the draft picking later.

[pepe1991]

https://towardsdatascience.com/what-are-the-odds-a-statistical-analysis-of-tanking-in-the-nba-2c5fe228cd67

In depth analtic about odds of draftin Hall of fame guy in lottery, odds of winning title with him, difference in rebuilds and success rate between hard tank, moderate rebuild and soft rebuild

His conclusion, using all nba seasons ,and adjsuting numbers to modern nba are



And all this was BEFORE lottery changed ,and it's not to hard to draw simple conclusion:
Hard rebuild is easiest solution because it requires zero talent, zero strategy and zero basketball skills to lose.
However, once you bottom out , getting back up is as hard as being 36-42 wins team all the time ,and you have same amount of chance of winning it all.

Moderate rebuild, where you semi competitive, yet keeping your good players around, is by far most succesful rebuild.

Odds of bottoming out and getting HOF are big, but odds of ever winning it all with that player are super slim.

Problem with bottoming out is that you literally- bottom it out. So you sell all good players for future picks. And once you did it, adding players with any value is much harder than selling them. Not to mention that 76ers were one Embiid injury away from one of most collosal fails of rebuild in basketball history. Hell, even if Jimmy and Harris leave, they are bound for 45 wins seasons until they can lure somebody , or rebuild again.

[Skin]

People need to stop with the bottoming out talk. That's not what we're doing at this stage. In THIS WeHam era, we already dove down as far as we will go. You can't bash the logic, because we already went through it. They took Isaac and Bamba. They acquired Fultz. They resigned Gordon.

I have not followed a single conversation saying the Magic need to tank for the next 5 years. I haven't even heard someone say that we need to tank next year. Yes, there have been complaints that we didn't tank hard enough in our past and those are legitimate claims. We simply would've had better talent if we lost a handful more games. It is what it is. But nobody is talking about needing to tank next year.

The issue is going forward. What solutions are out there? Nobody wants to be a perennial 1st round exit/late lottery team. We can all agree on that. But what moves have to be done to take the next step?

[MagicMatic]

People need to stop with the bottoming out talk. That's not what we're doing at this stage. In THIS WeHam era, we already dove down as far as we will go. You can't bash the logic, because we already went through it. They took Isaac and Bamba. They acquired Fultz. They resigned Gordon.

I have not followed a single conversation saying the Magic need to tank for the next 5 years. I haven't even heard someone say that we need to tank next year. Yes, there have been complaints that we didn't tank hard enough in our past and those are legitimate claims. We simply would've had better talent if we lost a handful more games. It is what it is. But nobody is talking about needing to tank next year.

The issue is going forward. What solutions are out there? Nobody wants to be a perennial 1st round exit/late lottery team. We can all agree on that. But what moves have to be done to take the next step?

Exactly. Tanking is losing on purpose. Going in a different direction isn’t “tanking”. Teams have gotten better moving on from players that have stabilized their rotations for years. People just aren't looking at these moves in a vacuum, not every move should be taken at face value. It’s completely situational depending on the plan.

[yoyojw17]

Dude, you can tank for 15 years and still never win first round pick, and that's whole purpose of lottery change. To stop teams to hi reset button every 2 yeras.
This draft is 2 and half players deep, everybody who drafts outside top 3 will gain another prospect who might pan out, but probably will be another Stanley Johnson /Thon Maker type prospect.
But that's nothing new. In lottery you have 14 players, even in best draft class in history (2003) only Lebron and Wade were superstars . In most drafts there is not a single superstar level player, just bunch of situational role players - occasional, situational allstars like Paul MIllsap, Horford type players and we still talk about BEST case scenarios.

Draft is something invented to give worst team boost to upgrade roster faster. Not tool that will build you superteam.

Not really sure where this line of thinking comes from. The draft is the easiest, cheapest, and least risky way of acquiring better talent for an organization like Orlando. This coming from an organization that has only been relevant because of the draft.

Is it a complete luck of the draw? Kinda. You’re kind of discrediting the efforts that go into scouting and development by saying it’s fruitless. Nobody is saying to tank for years and years and to be like Philadelphia during “The Process”. I think there is just a faction of people that would rather go in a different direction in terms of talent acquisition. There simply aren’t many avenues.

People could argue standing pat is a good idea, but this team hasn’t been truly relevant in almost a decade. The run this year was a nice change of pace, but we simply lack talent and the questions surrounding this roster construction are valid.

For example, the difference between being Phoenix or Detroit is pretty meaningless in the grand scheme of things. To be honest, there are many people that would rather have Zion or Morant than whatever the hell is going on in Detroit next season. That’s not to say Phoenix will be “better” or even “good”, but they will arguably have better assets to move should they acquire them.

So if draft is asiest ,cheapeast and least risky way of building team how you explain so many teams failing to build thrugh draft despite being in lottery all the time?
Minessota spent 13 of last 14 yeras in lottery.
Kings last 13 years in lottery.
Suns 9 years in lottery.
Magic 6 yeras prior this one
Lakers last 6 years
Knicks 6 yers

That's 6 teams ,with total of 53 LOTTERY picks in last 14 years. How many players turned into allstars among them? 4 or 5 ?

For example, the difference between being Phoenix or Detroit is pretty meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

LOL
Suns ?
I assume you don't pay close attention . Because if you do, you would know that active players already telling Booker and Ayton to GTFO from there. Dudley,active nba player, and Barnes retired player, in last 10 DAYS pretty much said that as long as Sarver is there , team can't expect anything. It's the worst runned team in basketball, probably in sports in general. They changed 6 coaches in 6 years and 3 GMs.
I love how you still pretend that Suns are lock to win top 2 pick. Where ,in reality they much better chance to draft 4th and 5th . Matter of fact they have 14% to draft 1# and 26% to draft 6th, with even 7% chance t odraft 7th.
But heeey, as long as it fits your and Skin's rebuild through draft agenda, deflecting facts is fine...

Is it a complete luck of the draw? Kinda. You’re kind of discrediting the efforts that go into scouting and development by saying it’s fruitless. Nobody is saying to tank for years and years and to be like Philadelphia during “The Process”

Actually you do, because if you have to sell all valuable players for scrubs in order to tank. So when you fail at draft, you still have bunch of scrubs so you have no other choice but to try again later.
Philadelphia had 7 lottery picks in their rebuild, lucky enough to have top 3 pick 4 times.
2 of 4 ended up being Fultz and Jah Okafor.
Simmons was alaready shopped this year.
Embiid can't stay healthy.

They are one bad Embiid injury away from another rebuild. And expecting Embiid to get hurt is more realistic outcom than expecting him to last next 5 years for 70 games a year. Guy has been hurt in every single playoffs so far.
And are they actually compeating for title? No
Are they cheap, like you said ? No
Was their rebuild best cost and time effective rebuild? No
So why you wanna go in lottery again so badly? To draft another Elfrid Payton and Hezonja? Because players like them are most common things in lottery. Fing Biyombo was 7th pick ....

The draft is the biggest crap shoot of them all. some players pan out as they were predicted, some players will underachieve compared to what was seen in college or euroleague and others can far exceed anything people could have even imagined. But no matter which one occurs... people will always say "I told you so" as if they predicted THIS outcome.

Not every player is a LeBron james where their destiny was painted on the walls of Egyptian temples. lol. Some players just don't pan out.... for whatever reason it may be.

[Skin]

With the new draft odds, the likely-hood of only ending up with another 3-5 more Isaac's and AG's over a 10 year draft period just went up while the odds of winning a star talent is probably less than 1-5% each year. At some point, management will have to develop what they have and hope that free agents and/or great trade proposals come up. I don't think anyone here wants to sit through 10 more losing seasons like Skin does.

So you asked me what my way forward was and my idea involved using next year's first rounder to move up this year and you think I'm wanting to be a perennial tanker?

[yoyojw17]

With the new draft odds, the likely-hood of only ending up with another 3-5 more Isaac's and AG's over a 10 year draft period just went up while the odds of winning a star talent is probably less than 1-5% each year. At some point, management will have to develop what they have and hope that free agents and/or great trade proposals come up. I don't think anyone here wants to sit through 10 more losing seasons like Skin does.

don't tempt me with a good time! TANK THEN!!!

[MagicMatic]

With the new draft odds, the likely-hood of only ending up with another 3-5 more Isaac's and AG's over a 10 year draft period just went up while the odds of winning a star talent is probably less than 1-5% each year. At some point, management will have to develop what they have and hope that free agents and/or great trade proposals come up. I don't think anyone here wants to sit through 10 more losing seasons like Skin does.

So you asked me what my way forward was and my idea involved using next year's first rounder to move up this year and you think I'm wanting to be a perennial tanker?

If you dare suggest drafting high in the lottery, some posters think that automatically assumes “tanking” lol. That definition has been butchered to death to mean almost anything at this point. Maybe people are just having ptsd from Hennigans draft selections and mismanagement.

[zaymon]

The issue is going forward. What solutions are out there? Nobody wants to be a perennial 1st round exit/late lottery team. We can all agree on that. But what moves have to be done to take the next step?

I dont think we are anywhere near perennial 1st round exit. Some could say we have too many young guys with huge upsides. We need to give them veteran base to grow at their own pace. If we didnt have Fultz and Bamba i would still thought we have good setup for the future with Isaac and Gordon (we still have Iwundu, Frazier, Birch, Briscoe, #16 ?).

[BadMofoPimp]

With the new draft odds, the likely-hood of only ending up with another 3-5 more Isaac's and AG's over a 10 year draft period just went up while the odds of winning a star talent is probably less than 1-5% each year. At some point, management will have to develop what they have and hope that free agents and/or great trade proposals come up. I don't think anyone here wants to sit through 10 more losing seasons like Skin does.

So you asked me what my way forward was and my idea involved using next year's first rounder to move up this year and you think I'm wanting to be a perennial tanker?

I would trade This years, Next Years and Bamba for a top 3 pick or one of Knicks, Phoenix or Cavs picks!

[Skin]

With the new draft odds, the likely-hood of only ending up with another 3-5 more Isaac's and AG's over a 10 year draft period just went up while the odds of winning a star talent is probably less than 1-5% each year. At some point, management will have to develop what they have and hope that free agents and/or great trade proposals come up. I don't think anyone here wants to sit through 10 more losing seasons like Skin does.

So you asked me what my way forward was and my idea involved using next year's first rounder to move up this year and you think I'm wanting to be a perennial tanker?

I would trade This years, Next Years and Bamba for a top 3 pick or one of Knicks, Phoenix or Cavs picks!

Over the next 4 years under Vuc's new contract, what do you hope to accomplish by doing that?

[ezzzp]

People need to stop with the bottoming out talk. That's not what we're doing at this stage. In THIS WeHam era, we already dove down as far as we will go. You can't bash the logic, because we already went through it. They took Isaac and Bamba. They acquired Fultz. They resigned Gordon.

I have not followed a single conversation saying the Magic need to tank for the next 5 years. I haven't even heard someone say that we need to tank next year. Yes, there have been complaints that we didn't tank hard enough in our past and those are legitimate claims. We simply would've had better talent if we lost a handful more games. It is what it is. But nobody is talking about needing to tank next year.

The issue is going forward. What solutions are out there? Nobody wants to be a perennial 1st round exit/late lottery team. We can all agree on that. But what moves have to be done to take the next step?

Exactly. Tanking is losing on purpose. Going in a different direction isn’t “tanking”. Teams have gotten better moving on from players that have stabilized their rotations for years. People just aren't looking at these moves in a vacuum, not every move should be taken at face value. It’s completely situational depending on the plan.

No, not exactly.

If you don't resign your top two players without replacing them with two new top two players then you are creating a situation were the team will lose a ton of games...enough so that by January/February nobody on team gives a crap and best option is to just keep losing more.

Good free agents DO NOT sign with teams who have rosters that are going to lose a ton of games (intentionally or not).

Name the teams that have gotten better by losing their top two players.

[Skin]

People need to stop with the bottoming out talk. That's not what we're doing at this stage. In THIS WeHam era, we already dove down as far as we will go. You can't bash the logic, because we already went through it. They took Isaac and Bamba. They acquired Fultz. They resigned Gordon.

I have not followed a single conversation saying the Magic need to tank for the next 5 years. I haven't even heard someone say that we need to tank next year. Yes, there have been complaints that we didn't tank hard enough in our past and those are legitimate claims. We simply would've had better talent if we lost a handful more games. It is what it is. But nobody is talking about needing to tank next year.

The issue is going forward. What solutions are out there? Nobody wants to be a perennial 1st round exit/late lottery team. We can all agree on that. But what moves have to be done to take the next step?

Exactly. Tanking is losing on purpose. Going in a different direction isn’t “tanking”. Teams have gotten better moving on from players that have stabilized their rotations for years. People just aren't looking at these moves in a vacuum, not every move should be taken at face value. It’s completely situational depending on the plan.

No, not exactly.

If you don't resign your top two players without replacing them with two new top two players then you are creating a situation were the team will lose a ton of games...enough so that by January/February nobody on team gives a crap and best option is to just keep losing more.

Good free agents DO NOT sign with teams who have rosters that are going to lose a ton of games (intentionally or not).

Name the teams that have gotten better by losing their top two players.

Lebron James did.

[MagicMatic]

People need to stop with the bottoming out talk. That's not what we're doing at this stage. In THIS WeHam era, we already dove down as far as we will go. You can't bash the logic, because we already went through it. They took Isaac and Bamba. They acquired Fultz. They resigned Gordon.

I have not followed a single conversation saying the Magic need to tank for the next 5 years. I haven't even heard someone say that we need to tank next year. Yes, there have been complaints that we didn't tank hard enough in our past and those are legitimate claims. We simply would've had better talent if we lost a handful more games. It is what it is. But nobody is talking about needing to tank next year.

The issue is going forward. What solutions are out there? Nobody wants to be a perennial 1st round exit/late lottery team. We can all agree on that. But what moves have to be done to take the next step?

Exactly. Tanking is losing on purpose. Going in a different direction isn’t “tanking”. Teams have gotten better moving on from players that have stabilized their rotations for years. People just aren't looking at these moves in a vacuum, not every move should be taken at face value. It’s completely situational depending on the plan.

No, not exactly.

If you don't resign your top two players without replacing them with two new top two players then you are creating a situation were the team will lose a ton of games...enough so that by January/February nobody on team gives a crap and best option is to just keep losing more.

Good free agents DO NOT sign with teams who have rosters that are going to lose a ton of games (intentionally or not).

Name the teams that have gotten better by losing their top two players.

“Good” free agents also don’t sign with mediocre teams that aren’t true contenders. They know the difference. Now this obviously depends on your definition of “good”, but the turnover of “good” free agents varies based on who they place their bets on to win.

Orlando will be overpaying “good” free agents until they are convincing enough to be contenders. That may or may not even happen with our two “best players” regardless. We were close enough to not making the playoffs this year. We could easily bring everyone back and not make them next year dependent on circumstances.

You are taking production at face value and upward projections too literally. Production doesn’t always replace production 100% of the time. There are more factors than that.

[ezzzp]

Over the next 4 years under Vuc's new contract, what do you hope to accomplish by doing that?

Creating a stable competitive context and the best opportunity for young core to play in as many meaningful games as possible during the most crucial stage of their maturation. That is the only proven and most respected method by NBA tier player development experts for developing young players.

Retention of the team's best player also indicates that the roster is constructed with intentions to compete for playoffs. That and continuing to play to win all year long will gradually improve the reputation of the franchise. Its going to take multiple years of doing that for players and agents to again trust the franchise not to waste key years of their careers.

Its not just other team free agents, its also guys like Aaron Gordon who becomes an unrestricted free agent in 3 summers. If this team loses its top 2 players and nosedives back to lottery (as will almost certainly happen) Aaron Gordon will begin to plot his way out asap. In 1.5 years, by the trade deadline of the 20-21 season, the Magic have to be rolling and showing that they will at bare minimum be a lock for the playoffs to have any hope that he'll sign a 3d contract. Otherwise they will have to trade or begin to shop Gordon as every day after that their return for him will be less and less with his almost certain departure in unrestricted free agency. In other words rinse repeat, the same cycle of tanking (or losing while trying hard for those stuck on semantics) leading to losing talent to teams that are building rosters with intent of playing to win and make playoffs.