MagicMatic wrote:pepe1991 wrote:MagicMatic wrote:
Please enlighten me Pepe. What is my linear way of thinking?
Being in the middle of the pack in the nba is only acceptable if you are being carried by, or relying upon, young players with tremendous upside. If not, the ceiling is too low and you are missing either draft talent or Free agency draw. AG and JI are solid players that can contribute. However, they haven’t proven to be “carrying” the the team for the first statement to hold water. Especially if Vuc and Ross were the primary options offensively this season in contract years. There hasn’t been a window for this team to start pushing their chips in, and that’s because we haven’t had the chips to do it.
That’s not a linear way of thinking. In so many words it just means “don’t be a treadmill team”. That still opens up a lot of possibilities for development and team building. It’s not some revolutionary idea.
it is.
pepe1991 wrote:You said it lot of times ( and i can find it and qoute you ) that you are fine with return to lottery just to build in right way. That's linear way of thinking.
The lottery and trades are the two ways Orlando finds and adds elite talent in its current position. Those are two primary ways. One of them doesn’t require giving up assets. Doesn’t sound linear to me.pepe1991 wrote:Every team is in middle of nowhere until it becomes good. And if anything, we learned that most teams had to mortgage future in order to contend.
In your mind, at least what i can figure from your posts, teams like Raptors, who were in ECF in 2016, than got swept TWICE in a row in 2017 and 2018 IN SECOND ROUD, are theadmill teams and they should have enter their rebuilding around 2017. Because, according to your logic, they were wasting time. Not too good to win it all. Not too bad to be in lottery. That's what you preach for a year now.
By same logic Spurs blew it , they should have blow whole roster up in 2013, after they failed to win it all.
No. Getting past the first and second round of the playoffs isn’t what I consider a failure. Managing to do it
with good watchable basketball makes it even better and worthwhile. Would it have been frustrating to be the Raptors in previous seasons? Yeah, but they had the assets to make those changes, primarily the allstar they drafted, and they are paying off.pepe1991 wrote:You also want no part of Ross or Vučević because, according to you they don't fit timeline. Yet, you also claim that Gordon, Isaac and Bamba are not good enough to win it all, so what is your timeline ? Imaginary situation where Magic will be back in lottery in 2020 and find Michael Jordan ?
Not to mention that Vučević and Ross are "old" according to you, yet younger or about same age as Curry, Durant, Harden, Klay, Cousins , Lebron, Leonard, Lowry, Gasol, Lillard, Westbrook, Goerge...
What? I want no part in Vuc not because he’s “old” but because he inhibits Orlando into playing an archaic style of basketball that’s ultimately inefficient with his supporting cast. He’s 28 and had his (barely) first allstar season and is expecting big money. Where’s the ceiling? It’s not too high. That’s baffling to you that people would have qualms?pepe1991 wrote:So what i get from you, is that you want your superstar first. Yet you never even once mentioned how you want to get him. You don't really propose trade, you don't really propose FA, you always claim that XY is unrealistic ( and most of time it's true ) . So what should anybody who reads from your figure than that you want to tank to oblivion until you find your guy ? Nevermind fact that odds of winning lottery AND getting player you want are abysmal but whatever.
Trade or draft. Those are the options. It always has been and always will be until players take notice that Orlando will be good for the foreseeable future, have room to grow, and aren't being led be mediocre to fringe allstar talent. I never said anything about needing to tank to get this done. Its just constantly interpreted that way because people can’t seem to separate the idea of a team from being poorly built with that of losing on purpose. Do you think if Vuc walked this team wouldn’t be abysmal for never addressing the lack of scoring options? It would be, but again, I fall into the category of people that would rather they attempt to acquire elite talent for 2-3 years, rather than they settle on a boring .500 product for another 5.. There hasn’t been a window for this team to start pushing their chips in, and that’s because we haven’t had the chips to do it.
Window never exists until you open it. Raptors just proved it. You will never ever in sports or in life in general have perfect situation. You simply have to take risk. And in nba it's probably easiser than in any other sport pay no high price of making terrible mistake. Look at Nets. They made biggest fuc***y of all time with draft picks ,yet missed 3 freaking years of playoffs. And look at them now, back in FA as potentially big fish.
In whole east only Knicks are taem who didn't make it to playoffs for longer than 3 years. 3 years is pretty much optimal amount of time your rebuild can last. Everything after that leads to overlapping of rookie scale contract players who become more expensive.
The Raptors window was open when DeRozen became an allstar at 24 in 2013-14 and subsequently Lowry in 14-15. That’s lasted them until now. They are in the finals, by trading the player that opened that window for them in the first place for a top 3-5 player currently. I’m arguing we need that player(s) to open that window if they aren’t currently on this roster. That happens through trades or the draft and that isn’t “thinking linearly”.
Trade or draft. Those are the options. It always has been and always will be until players take notice that Orlando will be good for the foreseeable future, have room to grow, and aren't being led be mediocre to fringe allstar talent. I never said anything about needing to tank to get this done. Its just constantly interpreted that way because people can’t seem to separate the idea of a team from being poorly built with that of losing on purpose. Do you think if Vuc walked this team wouldn’t be abysmal for never addressing the lack of scoring options? It would be, but again, I fall into the category of people that would rather they attempt to acquire elite talent for 2-3 years, rather than they settle on a boring .500 product for another 5
How can you propse draft as strategy yet claim tanking isn't only logical path to your strategy ? You want superstar. How many superstars, by percentage, are being drafted outside top 8 per year ?
Pick 5: 117 selections (8.2% total)
^by now this is already over half of all All-star selections
Pick 6: 72 selections (5% total)
Pick 7: 36 selections (2.5% total)
Pick 8: 60 selections (4.2% total)
Pick9: 69 selections (4.8% total) Nowitzki and Havlicek account for 26 of these
Pick 10: 55 selections (3.85% total)
Pick 11: 33 selections (2.3% total)
Pick 12: 29 selections (2% total)
Pick 13: 32 selections (2.2% total) Kobe and Malone account for 27 of these
Pick 14: 52 selections (3.6% total)
Your plan is fundamentally stupid because probability to have success is microscopic.
Also let me get it straight . Derozan and Lowry never could do jack ***t in playoffs, but it's ok to you because they made it to second round , round that is around 3 to 4 wins away from Magic current success rate,and it's well justified for Raptors to not hit reset button , yet you are so against idea of Magic trying to do the same with Vučević and Conley or whoever they can add ,and who has allstar level potential ? What's logic behind it ? Why Magic can't, if Raptors could, collect that talented players and trade for superstar , along with using youth to get right peaces ? How having
less good players will ever make you better ?
And that's why i said your line of thinking is pretty scripted and linear. You want trades, but you also want to let valuable players go witch itself hurts your trade potential as you lose assets. You second option is draft, yet you don't want to tank, witch,again, deflacts whole point of drafting if you can't maximise your chance.
You hate thredmill teams yet all your ideas lead towad building threadmill teams as you need miracles to make your plan possible.
Just to play dumb, Magic have 16 pick, but let's pretend Magic have 8th pick. Tell me single player that will be superstar and lead them to promise land ,that they could draft if they had 8th pick. ( because that's strategy you propose, draft but not tanking ) . We can go back in year or two to revisit your decision. Fun fact, last 8th pick who was allstar was Derozan drafted decade ago, him and Vin Baker are only allstars drafted 8th in last 30 years.
But heeey, not need to tank to get good player, right?
Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans. -John Lennon