Gary Harris

[p0peye]

This team will have worst floor spacing in the league, no way around it, and it is reasonable to expect TOs, rebounding and defense in general to plummet as well.

What makes our beacon of hope this season is watching Suggs. Everything we do, should be to enable him to thrive, as I already mentioned on some thread.

[jonbob17]

Of course spacing is heavily influenced by how good of shooters you have. Below average shooters simply don’t demand the same level of gravity as good shooters do.

Worst 3pt% post trade deadline, Vegas over/under of 23 wins.. by this standard is there a single team in the nba that has spacing that isn’t “fine”?

First of all gravity and spacing are different things.

The reason why we are projected to be one of the worst teams in the league is because we have a bunch of young guys. Historically young guys are just bad basketball players who make a lot of mistakes and don't contribute to winning basketball. We have four guys over 24, two of them are probably getting traded at some point, one is bench fodder, and the other is injured.

The front office is also likely to employ a punt strategy at some point this season if they are not already. These are the reasons why the win total is projected where it is. The execution and the future personnel strategy. Not because we have a bunch of guys who haven't been good shooters. Yet.

And you are mostly right, every team in the NBA has decent spacing. It's the foundation of the modern game.

I never said Gravity and Spacing were the same thing. But clearly - a good shooter will create gravity resulting in better spacing for his team.

Yes - young teams are bad. I agree. But we’re a young team with bad shooting and spacing.

We clearly have different definition of spacing. For example you believe a career 24% 3pt shooter on 1 3PA per36 provides spacing. I don’t agree with that.

Regardless of your definition of spacing vs mine - my original point was with the lack of quality shooters on the roster, I do not expect most guys to have efficient/near career years on this roster.

One player doesn't create spacing. Team offense does. If you run 4 guys on the perimeter and use your center to set screens up top. The whole key is open, or there is space (spacing) there. Spacing is the open area on the court.
Sure if you park a center that can't shoot out in the corner the other team isn't going to guard them. You put a big in the low post, gets rid of all the space in the lane. Now that big might be good and create some gravity if the opponent double teams opening up some space elsewhere on the floor.

Shooters (only) don't really create space, they rely on an initiator to get them an open look. Their guy just guards them, maybe a little more tightly. Now if they are running off pin downs and other screens it may create more space by requiring some gravity by the defense on either switches or just chasing them all over the place. To me most gravity is created by on-ball initiators. That gravity can create some additional space on the court for teammates to get to the basket or get open looks.

I think somebody on this board discussed this recently on the value of initiators creating open looks (gravity). Like Joe Harris is a really good 3 point shooter (48% last year). Do you think the Magic are significantly better if they were able to add Joe Harris? Or is Joe Harris good because all the gravity created by the 3 initiators they have up in Brooklyn?

[OrlChamps2030]

First of all gravity and spacing are different things.

The reason why we are projected to be one of the worst teams in the league is because we have a bunch of young guys. Historically young guys are just bad basketball players who make a lot of mistakes and don't contribute to winning basketball. We have four guys over 24, two of them are probably getting traded at some point, one is bench fodder, and the other is injured.

The front office is also likely to employ a punt strategy at some point this season if they are not already. These are the reasons why the win total is projected where it is. The execution and the future personnel strategy. Not because we have a bunch of guys who haven't been good shooters. Yet.

And you are mostly right, every team in the NBA has decent spacing. It's the foundation of the modern game.

I never said Gravity and Spacing were the same thing. But clearly - a good shooter will create gravity resulting in better spacing for his team.

Yes - young teams are bad. I agree. But we’re a young team with bad shooting and spacing.

We clearly have different definition of spacing. For example you believe a career 24% 3pt shooter on 1 3PA per36 provides spacing. I don’t agree with that.

Regardless of your definition of spacing vs mine - my original point was with the lack of quality shooters on the roster, I do not expect most guys to have efficient/near career years on this roster.

One player doesn't create spacing. Team offense does. If you run 4 guys on the perimeter and use your center to set screens up top. The whole key is open, or there is space (spacing) there. Spacing is the open area on the court.
Sure if you park a center that can't shoot out in the corner the other team isn't going to guard them. You put a big in the low post, gets rid of all the space in the lane. Now that big might be good and create some gravity if the opponent double teams opening up some space elsewhere on the floor.

Shooters (only) don't really create space, they rely on an initiator to get them an open look. Their guy just guards them, maybe a little more tightly. Now if they are running off pin downs and other screens it may create more space by requiring some gravity by the defense on either switches or just chasing them all over the place. To me most gravity is created by on-ball initiators. That gravity can create some additional space on the court for teammates to get to the basket or get open looks.

I think somebody on this board discussed this recently on the value of initiators creating open looks (gravity). Like Joe Harris is a really good 3 point shooter (48% last year). Do you think the Magic are significantly better if they were able to add Joe Harris? Or is Joe Harris good because all the gravity created by the 3 initiators they have up in Brooklyn?

I agree shot creators create more gravity than shooters I never stated otherwise.

You’re a good poster but I’m not sure how we ended up here.

I don’t think Joe Harris makes us significantly better (also he shot 47% before the big 3 came). But I do think Joe Harris or Duncan Robinson makes our spacing a bit better.

Simply - I think good shooters create spacing. You think bad (or below average) shooters can create spacing. We fundamentally disagree. We will see the results this upcoming season. I don’t really care to debate this any further

[jonbob17]

I agree shot creators create more gravity than shooters I never stated otherwise.

You’re a good poster but I’m not sure how we ended up here.

I don’t think Joe Harris makes us significantly better (also he shot 47% before the big 3 came). But I do think Joe Harris or Duncan Robinson makes our spacing a bit better.

Simply - I think good shooters create spacing. You think bad (or below average) shooters can create spacing. We fundamentally disagree. We will see the results this upcoming season. I don’t really care to debate this any further

No, I don't think bad shooters create spacing. The way you set up and run your offense creates spacing. The players don't matter as much.

[pepe1991]

Magic don't have shot creators nor shot spacers so i don't get what difference it makes?

Terrence Ross is painted as "good "shooter but in last 2 years he isn't even average one in terms of efficiency.

Ross, in season when he was efficienct, took 346 out of 566 threes either open or wide open (61%).

After injuries, clogging paint and adding more non-shooters this year, only 126 out of 264 (47%) of his shots were open or wide open. Needless to say, his efficiency got worst by almost 5%.

It really doesn't matter how you set up and run offense if you don't have players to finish plays.
Warriors are prime example how much talent matter. Same coach, same system, from Durant, Curry, Klay and one of greatest offense ever ended up having 15-65 record and dead last offense without them.
Same team, with Curry, Wiggins instad of Durant, no Klay- 10th worst nba offense.


And yes, one Joe Harris would not make us significantly better, but Joe Harris AND another 40% shooter would open space for everybody else. Simply having 2 guys who keep defense on high alter allows others to slip into pockets and break down defense.
Orlando can execue perfcet play and if ends up being Wendell or Fultz shooting threes, probability of miss of "perfect" play is 75%.

[drsd]

Magic don't have shot creators nor shot spacers so i don't get what difference it makes?

Terrence Ross is painted as "good "shooter but in last 2 years he isn't even average one in terms of efficiency.

Ross, in season when he was efficienct, took 346 out of 566 threes either open or wide open (61%).

After injuries, clogging paint and adding more non-shooters this year, only 126 out of 264 (47%) of his shots were open or wide open. Needless to say, his efficiency got worst by almost 5%.

It really doesn't matter how you set up and run offense if you don't have players to finish plays.
Warriors are prime example how much talent matter. Same coach, same system, from Durant, Curry, Klay and one of greatest offense ever ended up having 15-65 record and dead last offense without them.
Same team, with Curry, Wiggins instad of Durant, no Klay- 10th worst nba offense.


And yes, one Joe Harris would not make us significantly better, but Joe Harris AND another 40% shooter would open space for everybody else. Simply having 2 guys who keep defense on high alter allows others to slip into pockets and break down defense.
Orlando can execue perfcet play and if ends up being Wendell or Fultz shooting threes, probability of miss of "perfect" play is 75%.

There was a recent comment about the lack of talent in the 2013 roster, so I looked it all up. Arron Afflalo was the "star" that season. But, actually, if Gary Harris has numbers like Afflalo's 20213/14 season, the Magic might be OK: eFG of 52% and a nice 42% three-ball.
Do I think Harris will offer that this season? Nope.

But that all Orlando needs this season is "Arron Afflalo" really reveals the scoring problems this team will have. I am not expecting a 110 ppg average, a high probably means I expect the Magic to be amongst the 5 worst scoring teams. Bluntly, I would not be surprised if the Magic fail to get 100 ppg on average. The last time that happened was 2017-18, and the game was played a bit slower then (about 3 FG attempts per game less on average, I believe).