2021-2022 Regular Season Game 1: Orlando Magic (0-0) at San Antonio Spurs (0-0) - 10/20/21 at 8:30pm ET

[IllMagic04]

Nothing disappointing really last night, super young team with a new coach and their first game together. Hell we started two 20 year old rookies and a sophomore, not sure what anyone really expected if not what we saw. There's going to be a lot of role finding, rotation finding early in the season and we just have to sit back and enjoy the development.

I personally liked what I saw from Suggs as far as competitiveness and a short memory after missing some open shots. He didn't shy away or get discouraged. And for anyone concerned at all about him.. the first games/stretches of some all-stars/superstars:

Donovan Mitchell (21 y/o): 10/4/1 on 27/0/100 splits
Kyrie Irving (19 y/o): 6/7/3 on 17/20/100 splits
Bradley Beal (19/yo): 8/3/3 on 25/50/100 splits
Jamal Murray (Games 1-12, 19 y/o): 7/2/2 on 34/36/72 splits and 2 points total over his first 4 games on 0-16 shooting
Dwyane Wade (Games 1-3, 21 y/o): 9/4/4 on 28/33/80 splits

Lets give him like a dozen games before accepting him as a bust, fair?

Absolutely.

My issue isn’t the stats. It’s how are we developing him and who are we developing him with. Him and Cole should never be together. Never.

See I dont agree with that. I dont think him and Fultz should be together. I think Suggs and Cole can play together but Suggs should be the primary ball handler. We had to play Cole in that role last year due to injuries. But hes not a pure NBA PG. Cole is a off the bench scoring spark. If we used him in a role kinda like TRoss he'd develop fine. I wish we could stop trying to make him into a pure playmaking PG. It makes him less aggresive in getting his shot and he doesnt have the basketball IQ to flourish in that kinda role. Suggs still got a ways to go and RJ def cant do it. So untill Fultz gets back we gotta roll with Cole in that role.

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[89Magicfan]

Nothing disappointing really last night, super young team with a new coach and their first game together. Hell we started two 20 year old rookies and a sophomore, not sure what anyone really expected if not what we saw. There's going to be a lot of role finding, rotation finding early in the season and we just have to sit back and enjoy the development.

I personally liked what I saw from Suggs as far as competitiveness and a short memory after missing some open shots. He didn't shy away or get discouraged. And for anyone concerned at all about him.. the first games/stretches of some all-stars/superstars:

Donovan Mitchell (21 y/o): 10/4/1 on 27/0/100 splits
Kyrie Irving (19 y/o): 6/7/3 on 17/20/100 splits
Bradley Beal (19/yo): 8/3/3 on 25/50/100 splits
Jamal Murray (Games 1-12, 19 y/o): 7/2/2 on 34/36/72 splits and 2 points total over his first 4 games on 0-16 shooting
Dwyane Wade (Games 1-3, 21 y/o): 9/4/4 on 28/33/80 splits

Lets give him like a dozen games before accepting him as a bust, fair?

Absolutely.

My issue isn’t the stats. It’s how are we developing him and who are we developing him with. Him and Cole should never be together. Never.

See I dont agree with that. I dont think him and Fultz should be together. I think Suggs and Cole can play together but Suggs should be the primary ball handler. We had to play Cole in that role last year due to injuries. But hes not a pure NBA PG. Cole is a off the bench scoring spark. If we used him in a role kinda like TRoss he'd develop fine. I wish we could stop trying to make him into a pure playmaking PG. It makes him less aggresive in getting his shot and he doesnt have the basketball IQ to flourish in that kinda role. Suggs still got a ways to go and RJ def cant do it. So untill Fultz gets back we gotta roll with Cole in that role.

Sent from my SM-G970U using RealGM mobile app

Take the ball out of Cole’s hands, what is he?

[pepe1991]

Cole is running for Bacon's Tank Commander of a Year annual award

it's amazing that somebody plays PG for years and still doesn't know that you can't pick up dribble around half court ,and can't throw blind passes cross court... Just to display complete lack of ability to track down his own man on defense.


I'll still never understand, if goal was to draft combo guard , who is kind a terrible at everything but "upside" guy, why we didn't draft Maxey or Quickley... ( or god forbid, draft somebody who could shoot, like Bey)

Totally agree, but i remember you didn't rate Maxey. I remember because you kind of turned me off him late on, after me liking him most of the way up to the draft. Your point on his inconsistency was a valid one, but there were too many good tools there to ignore in hindsight. We did both like Bey though - I also really that. Quickley was considered a late round or even r2 guy who was viewed as a sniper and little more.

Point being, it's hard to project these "upside" guys. Seems to be just as hard for our recently promoted head scout guy....

I didn't like Maxey for same reasons i don't like most guards who can't shoot. Because they ...can't shoot.
But from athletical perspective, decision making, having better body, more uspide and in general bigger chance to not be worthless, he was better prospect and today is better player than Cole Anthony. He had that one game last year where he looked like rookie Derrick Rose, i don't know do I remember that game because i was impressed or because i had covid and was laying in bed dead tired

I wanted Bey. No secret there. Where i don't see Bey as some future allstar, but he is type of player ( 6'7, fine shooter, can dribble ball cross court, isn't blind as passer, doesn't try things that aren't there , isn't low BBIQ player) that should be nba rotation player for next 10 years.
I also liked Nesmith who hasn't been good , but also in little chance he got for Celtics wasn't really bad either.

In general, sure mid first round picks are hit or miss, but Cole himself is likeable person off court but on court he just stirkes me as young Mike James, Brandon Jennins, or as Xat mentioned (and who also was on my mind) young Shane Larkin. Undersized guard with mentality of scorer in league where he is dwarfed by lenght and strenght of other players .
Other than Trae, most small guards struggle to influence a game. ( probably main reason i was trae hater comes from fact that people of his size , with clear lack of athletic pop are almost never good nba players)

[Skybox]

I'm certainly not going to defend Cole's playmaking but you have to consider who Maxey is playing next to when you make any comparison. Last year, Harris was flirting with 50/40/90, Simmons was All-Star level (until the last game), and Embiid is MVP candidate...Cole was, arguably, the best player on the court for ORL most of the time (certainly the biggest offensive threat).

[Optimus_Steel]

I'm certainly not going to defend Cole's playmaking but you have to consider who Maxey is playing next to when you make any comparison. Last year, Harris was flirting with 50/40/90, Simmons was All-Star level (until the last game), and Embiid is MVP candidate...Cole was, arguably, the best player on the court for ORL most of the time (certainly the biggest offensive threat).

Certainly an excellent point. Those young guys on those teams have little pressure because the main vets take the pressure away and give them more room to operate. We don't have that. On our young guys are the main guys and the are limited.

[tooler]

Cole's biggest strength right now is his antics helping the team jell off the court. I'd keep him around just for that.

[89Magicfan]

Cole's biggest strength right now is his antics helping the team jell off the court. I'd keep him around just for that.

Sure. My issue is Suggs though. Not Cole. Cole is what he is. How we are using Suggs...Is it ideal? Sure you can play him off the ball at times. I see no issue with that since he has size for it. However, he’s a playmaker. Taking the ball out of his hands so he can camp isn’t how I’d develop him or even use him majority of the time. I don’t care who’s on the team. Apparently he was dominating the ball in the first game. I didn’t see it. If so, good, let’s continue.

[jonbob17]

Cole's biggest strength right now is his antics helping the team jell off the court. I'd keep him around just for that.

Sure. My issue is Suggs though. Not Cole. Cole is what he is. How we are using Suggs...Is it ideal? Sure you can play him off the ball at times. I see no issue with that since he has size for it. However, he’s a playmaker. Taking the ball out of his hands so he can camp isn’t how I’d develop him or even use him majority of the time. I don’t care who’s on the team. Apparently he was dominating the ball in the first game. I didn’t see it. If so, good, let’s continue.

Cole and Suggs shouldn't be on the floor at the same time. I am interested to see how Fultz and Suggs pairing works (I am plenty skeptical), but the Cole/Suggs experiment should be over after that showing. And I don't think that is being too reactive

[89Magicfan]

Cole's biggest strength right now is his antics helping the team jell off the court. I'd keep him around just for that.

Sure. My issue is Suggs though. Not Cole. Cole is what he is. How we are using Suggs...Is it ideal? Sure you can play him off the ball at times. I see no issue with that since he has size for it. However, he’s a playmaker. Taking the ball out of his hands so he can camp isn’t how I’d develop him or even use him majority of the time. I don’t care who’s on the team. Apparently he was dominating the ball in the first game. I didn’t see it. If so, good, let’s continue.

Cole and Suggs shouldn't be on the floor at the same time. I am interested to see how Fultz and Suggs pairing works (I am plenty skeptical), but the Cole/Suggs experiment should be over after that showing. And I don't think that is being too reactive

I mean I get it. I don’t see why you can’t have them at times but some things would have to drastically change for it to work. Gotta have Cole play off the ball more. He’s not a distributor. Suggs is so why switch those roles?

Again, didn’t see the game so I could be wrong in how it was. I’m more speaking of future reference.

Fultz and Suggs? Yeah I’m very skeptical myself. Two ball dominate guards who distribute. I fee Suggs has more ability to be a decent outside shooter but I don’t see how it works at all unless Fultz finds that shot he had in college.

[Bensational]

The game started well with everyone executing and players doing the right things. Lasted for about 4-5 minutes and then they came off the rails. I liked what Mosley had managed to get them all doing - a lot of ball movement and movement off the ball. We just need to spend the season building off that and getting them to play that well for longer stretches until the season is over.

Bamba was the standout for me. He’s the most exciting guy on the court to watch on both ends of the court. Seeing him go straight in for a backdown and beating his man for a layup, followed by a block and trailing three, then a couple really nice assists - he’s showing a very well rounded game and I think we could/should look to feature him more as the season goes on.

Franz was the other standout with his movement and his plays attacking off the dribble.

WCJ was solid.

Suggs doesn’t quite look like he’s found his role or the system yet, but I’m not worried about him.

[p0peye]

I don't want to be too worked up about one game, nor i want to make conclusions based on 1 game, and will wait 10-15 before claim anything... BUT... I remain sceptical how many young players is possible to develop at once without turning team into laughing stock and them stop playing for anything but personal stats&gains.
There is clear pattern between giving defined role to young player and allowing him to master some things vs throwing young player without plan out there than acting suprised when he is runned over . Some of best, most versitale nba players such are Kawhi, Butler, Siakam, Gobert, even Jokic, Giannis were brought into nba with smaller roles, given clear instructions what to do, and their game expended over time. Looking at bunch of failed rebuilds there is always blueprint how to f*** it up. Put bunch of young players without role and purpose and enjoy watching how inflated egos and crying for max contract on 15 wins teams is being born.

When you build roster without veteran ballhandler, without any serious leadership and without wings worth anything, you know what you are going to be.

Injuries don't help. But as i've said in past, if you keep drafting and trading for broken players, you don't get "injury"as excuse, it's self inflicted.

You cannot build team without purpose or having losing as purpose. You can, however, build losers.

[BadMofoPimp]

It is way too early in the season to get over-analytical over how rookies are being used in the game. All that is being figured out and until all-star break, I leave that to the coach.