Official Speculation Thread '19-'20 V: Purgatory

[BCS]

Since allstar break Fultz is shooting 0% for 3 ( 0-12), 60% FTs and averages on 10,4 ppg.
Safe to say Magic played another nba season without starting level PG

there's still people who are afraid and don't want Magic to get another guard because it will take away from Fultz... When will people learn he's just a little more polished EP

Fultz wasn't allowed to shoot past 15 feet for an entire season and half an offseason. I'm going to give him a little more time to work back his deep shots before I compare him to Elf who always had a broken shot.

I dont get why this mentality is not more common around here. I personally didn't expect him to be much of a shooter this year and he has shown me more than I expected. I want to see his improvement after a full off-season to work on his shot.

And once again I dont expect him to be back to his Washington days next year, all he needs to do is show progress and he is on the right track. Fultz was a good shooter and can likely be that again...but patience is needed.

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[swarlesbarkley]

I know I know, small sample size... but this article makes me wonder why Fultz and Gordon are not getting more touches late:

https://www.nba.com/magic/markelle-fultz-has-been-incredibly-clutch-season-20200229

[yoyojw17]

Dang raptors.... lol JJ Redick 2.0?

Watch on YouTube

[drsd]

Orlando's offensive is firing hot.

Last seven games (in reverse order): 113, 136, 130, 115, 106, 116, and 135. This is nearly a 122 per game average over these last seven.
For perspective, this is a best average than the league leaders have right now: 119 per game.

It might be the best scoring rate since the ASW in the league (I can't be bothered to work out that).


..

[Ducklett]

I doubt seriously that they'll have the playoffs this year in full arenas with the coronavirus growing. The NCAA considering playing in empty arenas for March madness.

It could potentially cancel a whole season next year, with a vaccine possibly being 18 months away

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You forgot to mention that the vaccine would only work on the current mutation of the virus and with it's mutation rate and confusing secondary infection of people who have "recovered" would cause significant issues with it.

It is like someone made the virus that people always make to try to win pandemic games.

[fbeye343]

Should Fultz be our PG of the future? I’m not sure we’re there just yet.

This book dedicated a whole chapter to the source of Fultz’ shooting issues.

Read on Twitter

?s=12

[shadrock]

I know I know, small sample size... but this article makes me wonder why Fultz and Gordon are not getting more touches late:

https://www.nba.com/magic/markelle-fultz-has-been-incredibly-clutch-season-20200229

Because our idiot coach thinks Fournier and his late game fails are the best option we have. Oh and also because he hates young people.

[cedric76]

I know I know, small sample size... but this article makes me wonder why Fultz and Gordon are not getting more touches late:

https://www.nba.com/magic/markelle-fultz-has-been-incredibly-clutch-season-20200229

Because our idiot coach thinks Fournier and his late game fails are the best option we have. Oh and also because he hates young people.

Cliff needs to wake up

He has no excuse for letting people who don't defend on the floor

You miss an assignment, you get benched

Easy

I can stand DJ anymore, very nice guy but i hate his game

[pepe1991]

I know I know, small sample size... but this article makes me wonder why Fultz and Gordon are not getting more touches late:

https://www.nba.com/magic/markelle-fultz-has-been-incredibly-clutch-season-20200229

Because our idiot coach thinks Fournier and his late game fails are the best option we have. Oh and also because he hates young people.

Cliff needs to wake up

He has no excuse for letting people who don't defend on the floor

You miss an assignment, you get benched

Easy

I can stand DJ anymore, very nice guy but i hate his game

It's easy to exercises severity and act authority when you have players off bench that can play.
But what to do if Ross for example, f**ks up, and you have Iwundu and Frazier as potential replacments?
You simply can't pull him out.

[cedric76]

Because our idiot coach thinks Fournier and his late game fails are the best option we have. Oh and also because he hates young people.

Cliff needs to wake up

He has no excuse for letting people who don't defend on the floor

You miss an assignment, you get benched

Easy

I can stand DJ anymore, very nice guy but i hate his game

It's easy to exercises severity and act authority when you have players off bench that can play.
But what to do if Ross for example, f**ks up, and you have Iwundu and Frazier as potential replacments?
You simply can't pull him out.

If your 8th man doesn't play D, you bench him straight away and put your 11th man instead.
This will wake him up

[tiderulz]

I know I know, small sample size... but this article makes me wonder why Fultz and Gordon are not getting more touches late:

https://www.nba.com/magic/markelle-fultz-has-been-incredibly-clutch-season-20200229

Because our idiot coach thinks Fournier and his late game fails are the best option we have. Oh and also because he hates young people.

how does he hate young people?

[Blue_and_Whte]

I know I know, small sample size... but this article makes me wonder why Fultz and Gordon are not getting more touches late:

https://www.nba.com/magic/markelle-fultz-has-been-incredibly-clutch-season-20200229

Because our idiot coach thinks Fournier and his late game fails are the best option we have. Oh and also because he hates young people.

how does he hate young people?

He also lives off the fear of children by consuming their tears.

[MartinsIzAfraud]

Read on Twitter

Iwundu might be on the way out of the league, Birch at PF and Ennis again. I swear this is Cliff giving the FO a middle finger saying thanks for these 2 bums

[thelead]

Should Fultz be our PG of the future? I’m not sure we’re there just yet.

This book dedicated a whole chapter to the source of Fultz’ shooting issues.

Read on Twitter

?s=12

And the source of Fultz' shooting issues is....?

[Knightro]

Steve Clifford is a solid, unspectacular basketball coach, but not even two years into his tenure I already find myself growing tired of him.

He's just a low ceiling coach. Perfectly capable of taking a 20 or 25 win team and improving them by 10-15 wins up to a 35-40 win team, but simply not capable of doing anything else beyond that.

The NBA has been aggressively trending towards pace and space for the last few years and Clifford prefers to play slow, play safe and play mistake free.

The Four Factors stuff that Clifford pushes so hard is fine. It definitely can turn a bad team into a middle of the road team. But Steve just has no answers outside of "we gotta play harder" when things aren't going well because he's so rigid with everything.

Substitutions are the same. Rotations are the same. Play calls are the same. Everything is structured. Everything is planned out in advance. While I totally see the value in consistency, there's just just no flexibility to pivot to something different when things don't go as planned.

You pretty much know what you're going to get with a Steve Clifford team and that's somewhere between 35-45 wins depending on player health/guys having career years.

[Blue_and_Whte]

Should Fultz be our PG of the future? I’m not sure we’re there just yet.

This book dedicated a whole chapter to the source of Fultz’ shooting issues.

Read on Twitter

?s=12

And the source of Fultz' shooting issues is....?

Vooch
Guess where the Coronavirus came from...

[zaymon]

Steve Clifford is a solid, unspectacular basketball coach, but not even two years into his tenure I already find myself growing tired of him.

He's just a low ceiling coach. Perfectly capable of taking a 20 or 25 win team and improving them by 10-15 wins up to a 35-40 win team, but simply not capable of doing anything else beyond that.

The NBA has been aggressively trending towards pace and space for the last few years and Clifford prefers to play slow, play safe and play mistake free.

The Four Factors stuff that Clifford pushes so hard is fine. It definitely can turn a bad team into a middle of the road team. But Steve just has no answers outside of "we gotta play harder" when things aren't going well because he's so rigid with everything.

Substitutions are the same. Rotations are the same. Play calls are the same. Everything is structured. Everything is planned out in advance. While I totally see the value in consistency, there's just just no flexibility to pivot to something different when things don't go as planned.

You pretty much know what you're going to get with a Steve Clifford team and that's somewhere between 35-45 wins depending on player health/guys having career years.

Everything you wrote is against numbers and my eye test. Clifford is so rigid that he overachieved with guard centric offense in Charlotte and now he overachieves with center centric offense in here. His rotations are far from rigid this year, especially with the injuries but even earlier he inserted Fultz into starting lineup and benched Aminu to help Ross play in rhytm. Most of the things here are not true and you give no evidence to support your claims (you could make up facts, or give us some small sample size statistics, but you actually gave none)

[p0peye]

Read on Twitter

[The Real Dalic]

Read on Twitter

Iwundu might be on the way out of the league, Birch at PF and Ennis again. I swear this is Cliff giving the FO a middle finger saying thanks for these 2 bums

If we start Birch at the 4 again then I'm not even gonna watch. That's guaranteeing a loss. He literally brings nothing to the team at the 4. Literally nothing. 0's across the board every time.

[PrimeThyme]

Should Fultz be our PG of the future?

Should he be and can he be are the two questions for me right now. I do not believe based on what we've seen so far that he should be our point guard off the future. I'm just not particularly interested in committing longterm in 2020 to a point guard who is reluctant to shoot outside of the paint.

With that being said though, I'm not at the point where I'm ready to cut bait with him either. I'm willing to give him until next trade deadline to see if he can begin to regain his shot. I have to be honest with you tho, I'm just not that confident he will. I think that shoulder injury is still bothering him and it may have permanently affected his shot.

I'm basically at the point with Fultz where he hasn't shown so much so far that I wouldn't jump at the opportunity for a significant upgrade at the position this summer, but I wouldn't move on from him for the sake of moving on either. The dreams of him developing into a top 15 type scorer are gone for me && I'd be thrilled if he developed into an above-average type starter.