Official Speculation Thread '20-'21 VI: "I like this team"

[basketballRob]

Looking at Kemba's first year, 366 fg% 305 from 3, and averaged 12 ppg. He was a year older than Cole at 21.

This could be Anthony's stat line this year. Hopefully Clifford can mold him a little quicker than Kemba, he was 25 before he shot over 33% from 3.

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[Xatticus]

as much as I am part of the exasperated group of fans, you have to be fair, technically replacing DJ with someone of Cole's caliber in the Guard spot s already a win. I think comparable 3pt wise ( remains to be seen ) but def better scorer/driving than DJ

There is almost zero chance that Anthony doesn’t hurt us. It’s a massive downgrade. I’m not an Augustin fan, but he made us better. Rookie PGs almost always struggle. Anthony hasn’t demonstrated that he can handle the ACC. I didn’t like the pick, but I’m not going to be slinging ‘I told you so’s when he struggles. We have to be patient while he takes his lumps. My bigger concern is that he might get squeezed out of the rotation if we are healthy. The pick has been made and we have to commit to his development. Clifford wants to win the next game and MCW is going to give us a better chance at winning games.

Massive downgrade?

DJ was

10.5 pts
4.6 ast
2.1 reb

40% from the field
35% from 3P
47% true shooting


I’d be really disappointed if Cole is not slightly better than DJ defensively.

So what numbers do you see Cole averaging cuz DJ’s mediocre stats do leave much room for anyone to be a massive downgrade.

This is all rather inconsequential. Augustin lineups did well for us. Anthony lineups almost assuredly will not. Rookies, especially point guards, tend to struggle mightily in their first year or so.

I don't mean to make it sound as though Anthony is raw. He has craft. He is savvy. He has really good footwork. He is highly skilled. That said, he isn't a good player right now. His feel is poor. His shot selection is terrible. He was awful last year at UNC. Augustin was far more accomplished at the collegiate level. It's easy to forget, but he was selected 9th overall. I'm not arguing that replacing Augustin with Anthony was a bad move, but it almost certainly makes us significantly worse in the immediate future.

As an aside, this is why Weltman keeps adding guys like Ennis, MCW, Clark, and now Bacon. They probably will do less damage than would your average rookie. That doesn't mean that these are good signings/acquisitions. They all have very limited upside and will never possess any real value.

[Bensational]

Legitimate questions...

Does Clifford opt to use Michael Carter-Williams as his backup point guard?

I thought MCW really thrived playing as a wing last year, but Augustin also played 25 minutes a game so there are a lot of minutes to fill.

Do we really think Clifford is going to opt to give those minutes to Cole Anthony?

I suppose Fultz's minutes could be bumped up from 28 MPG too.

It’s interesting. I think we are actually really thin at PG. MCW isn’t really a PG in the traditional sense. And if we are being honest, neither is Anthony. If the purpose is to develop Anthony, then this has to be a positive. If Augustin was brought back instead of MCW, I don’t think Anthony would have the ball much at all.

MCW’s game almost guarantees that he is going to miss time. He’s much too aggressive to rely on him being healthy for 72 games. That said, I’m sure that Clifford will only play Anthony as much as he has to if he is hurting the team on the floor. I think a bunch of guys will see a bump in minutes with Augustin gone and Isaac out. I’m expecting more buddy ball this year than we’ve ever seen previously.

I wonder how much of point-forward AG we'll see with the 2nd unit, if that's the case? I feel like we didn't see as much of those lineups as the season went on.

[Xatticus]

Sure, we’ve also been saying the for 3 years. So what will be the excuse when it doesn’t happen?

Oh, I agree in team direction with you, I just don't want to really entertain bad FA signings and forcing trades "just for change". If we legit do go another season without ANY moves then I will have a lot to bitch about, but it's not like I expected anything thus far anyway. Still think AG or Fournier will be traded potentially by the time season starts, but I do think this season will be extremely telling as far as what direction we want to take.

I don't know. I have trouble defending patience at this point. If you hired a contractor to fix your roof, but had a couple tarps patching the same roof three-and-a-half years later, I don't think it would be prudent to advocate for patience.

I think people that believe these trades are coming sooner or later haven't really been paying attention. The time to move Vucevic came and went. He was on an inexpensive and expiring contract, in the midst of a career year, and on a team that was adrift of the playoffs at the trade deadline, yet this front office chose not to deal him. His value will never be that high again. With Boston losing Hayward, I don't see a team in the NBA that is going to value him. Nobody wants to pay a center that doesn't protect the rim $25M per year. Look at the contracts that Harrell and Wood just got in contrast with what comparable players at other positions received. If nobody could meet the price tag for Vucevic when he was a more appealing target, how is anyone ever going to meet it now or going forward?

I think the issue is that Weltman has no appreciation for the team's present condition. He doesn't want to choose a path forward, which is an untenable position to negotiate trades from. It was easy for Presti or Weaver to execute trades because they accept where they are and have plotted a course forward. You have to be willing to sacrifice something to acquire what you value more. You can't expect to get younger, better, and clean your cap all at the same time.

It's just asset management. I've seen nothing to indicate that Weltman will figure this out. He will continue to be underwhelmed by trade offers. He will continue to idle until he inevitably loses his job. For me, we are in purgatory.

[Skin]

Opening Night Rotation

Fultz-Fournier-Ennis-Gordon-Vucevic start
MCW-Ross-Aminu-Birch off bench

Kill me

This is assuredly what will happen. It's a huge waste of all our times.

They're treating us like the stupidest fans in the NBA.

That is a roster that they put together that is the epitome of what they think is a good team. 4 years of rebuilding and THAT is the culmination of all of their efforts. I'm SOOOOOOO pissed off at the front office. We don't deserve this. This is ****. Complete and utter ****. Get the **** outta town already.

[Optimus_Steel]

It's ownership guys. They are extremely conservative and are not passionate about the team. That's why the team is in quicksand.

I think ownership has a bigger role in this than we realize. It wouldn’t surprise me if they basically have told the FO that any sort of risky moves are not allowed after the botched Oladipo trade. We’ve literally made zero moves with any sort of risk at all, even trading for Markelle we gave up nothing of value. I don’t think his family has the desire to win that Rich did. Firing WeltHam may only fix some of our problems, but I worry that we will forever be a mickey mouse team as long as the DeVos family still runs it.

Vander Weide was the only one in the family that gave a damm and the results show it, ever since he left the family it's been a clown show of poor decisions combined with being afraid of their own shadow. Martins said 2030, I guess that timeline still works...

[SOUL]

Sure, we’ve also been saying the for 3 years. So what will be the excuse when it doesn’t happen?

Oh, I agree in team direction with you, I just don't want to really entertain bad FA signings and forcing trades "just for change". If we legit do go another season without ANY moves then I will have a lot to bitch about, but it's not like I expected anything thus far anyway. Still think AG or Fournier will be traded potentially by the time season starts, but I do think this season will be extremely telling as far as what direction we want to take.

I don't know. I have trouble defending patience at this point. If you hired a contractor to fix your roof, but had a couple tarps patching the same roof three-and-a-half years later, I don't think it would be prudent to advocate for patience.

I think people that believe these trades are coming sooner or later haven't really been paying attention. The time to move Vucevic came and went. He was on an inexpensive and expiring contract, in the midst of a career year, and on a team that was adrift of the playoffs at the trade deadline, yet this front office chose not to deal him. His value will never be that high again. With Boston losing Hayward, I don't see a team in the NBA that is going to value him. Nobody wants to pay a center that doesn't protect the rim $25M per year. Look at the contracts that Harrell and Wood just got in contrast with what comparable players at other positions received. If nobody could meet the price tag for Vucevic when he was a more appealing target, how is anyone ever going to meet it now or going forward?

I think the issue is that Weltman has no appreciation for the team's present condition. He doesn't want to choose a path forward, which is an untenable position to negotiate trades from. It was easy for Presti or Weaver to execute trades because they accept where they are and have plotted a course forward. You have to be willing to sacrifice something to acquire what you value more. You can't expect to get younger, better, and clean your cap all at the same time.

It's just asset management. I've seen nothing to indicate that Weltman will figure this out. He will continue to be underwhelmed by trade offers. He will continue to idle until he inevitably loses his job. For me, we are in purgatory.

Yeah, but timing matters in all of it. If I want someone to cut to the basket when it would make them open, them doing it 5 seconds later when they're being covered is a dead play to me (to make an analogy of making moves just to make it/when better opportunities may present themselves). We haven't **** our future yet like a few contracts that have been handed out this offseason to teams in similar situations as ours. That's not even credit to WeHam, just they "like our team so much" and we have no money to really **** ourselves that badly thankfully.

My hope is that we naturally just suck because the Southeast is way better this year and we get offload some of our vets for young talent from desperate teams that are trying to contend or something. It seems every year our FO is so close to picking a direction and then we hit a hot streak or like, the year Vuc randomly decides he wants to start shooting threes and being effective again. Very hard to get our front office to pick a plan and see it through.

[basketballRob]

Iwundu signing with Dallas.

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[Skin]

Iwundu signing with Dallas.

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Better days ahead for him. TAKE US WITH YOU WES!!!!

Fricken stuck in this **** hole.

[Optimus_Steel]

We are hell bent on being a horrid 3pt shooting team. The DeVos family must be starting a construction company with all those bricks we are laying.

[Gomagic44]

I dropped in to see what kind of condition my condition was in.

My condition as a magic fan. I won't watch games this season either I guess. I miss debating with you guys in game threads. I just can't be passionate about this organization. Maybe one day?

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[MagicMatic]

I dropped in to see what kind of condition my condition was in.

My condition as a magic fan. I won't watch games this season either I guess. I miss debating with you guys in game threads. I just can't be passionate about this organization. Maybe one day?

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2030. See you then.

[zaymon]

Cmon guys last guys standing from Henny era are Fournier, Vucevic, Ross and Gordon.
Vucevic is rare skilled big man and allstar, Ross would fit on any team with his shooting and Gordon/Fournier are rumored to be in trade talks all the time.
No one is excited to watch Cole and Okeke ? They are both so different from what we have seen so far.

[MagicMatic]

Cmon guys last guys standing from Henny era are Fournier, Vucevic, Ross and Gordon.
Vucevic is rare skilled big man and allstar, Ross would fit on any team with his shooting and Gordon/Fournier are rumored to be in trade talks all the time.
No one is excited to watch Cole and Okeke ? They are both so different from what we have seen so far.

So... the entire rotation for offense production?

Yeah, they haven’t addressed or changed anything in their tenure related to the extremely limited and predictable offense.

Cole could be a change, but how much is he really going to impact anything with the aforementioned players taking all the minutes under Clifford? Maybe in 2022.

This is a clown show at this point. The FO has almost become a parody of itself.

[Orl_Magic]

The problem is we over payed to keep these donkeys and they did not improve as much as we were gambling that they would. Now they are viewed as medicore scorers on a bad team.

I bet teams are not offering any blue chip assets to justify trading Evan Founier or Aaron Gordon and then WeHam have to come back to us fans and lie saying, "I like this team" to save face.

[drsd]

Opening Night Rotation

Fultz-Fournier-Ennis-Gordon-Vucevic start
MCW-Ross-Aminu-Birch off bench

Kill me

If Okeke and Anthony do not play, that would be something indeed!


..

[RookieStar]

Unless we make a move to acquire another PG i think its safe to say Cole would get many minutes. ( is fultz still.on a minutes restroction?)

[basketballRob]

Opening Night Rotation

Fultz-Fournier-Ennis-Gordon-Vucevic start
MCW-Ross-Aminu-Birch off bench

Kill me

If Okeke and Anthony do not play, that would be something indeed!


..

With the short training camp, they'll probably go deep again.

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[pepe1991]

Imo current roster isn't well suited for any direction.
There is no future stars among young players, vets are not good enough to pass first round and assets are not good enough to gain any return value to help in choosed direction.

Lot of it happend with series of unfortunate events.
Isaac was great pickup at 6# in draft, but can't stay healthy. Very hard to move Gordon if player who supposed to replace him averages like 30 games a year.

Bamba, on their white board was viewed as Vucevic replacment, guy flat out didn't pan out and Vuc improved.
Iwundu,Frazier as potential Evan replacments flat out didn't work.
That Jackson guy that was viewed as injuried player that fell in second round because injury also didn't work.

Aminu was good MLE pick up probably brought with every intention to flip him into better asset or pick to contender. Guy was a** and got hurt. Wasted $9M in first year.

Fultz was brought with hope he can turn career around. Went from unplayable to average. That seems to be natural limitation for player that can't shoot pass 15 feet.


Gordon and Evan probably don't gain enough interest worth trading them for. Same with Vuc.
And Weltman and Hammond are not stupid, they know nobody is comming in FA worth mentioning without throwing $30M a year on him.

Hammond spent 10 years with Bucks being where Orlando are now. From bottom of the league to first round exists.

As far as tanking goes, even that timeline isn't really that ideal.
2021 rookie will be restriced free agent in 2025. By the 2025 both Isaac and Fultz are urestricted free agents ( if they don't get 5 year exstension, and i highly doubt they will ). So, esencially team has no control over that "core" .

[basketballRob]

I assume we'll have preseason games within a couples weeks.

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