2021-2022 Regular Season Game 7: Orlando Magic (1-5) at Pistons (0-4) 10/30/21 at 7:00pm ET

[SOUL]

I mean people were complaining about those teams too. Only the last few years did we have "success" and it was 8th seeds.

[GelbeWand09]

give me back vuc and gordon,even fournier,give me back cliff and those 35 W every year and i'll never complain again i promise;this is simply atrocious and useless from every point of view

You can rewatch like 600-700 games of this old rinse & repeat dreamteam of yours, but please spare the rest of us.

[pepe1991]

give me back vuc and gordon,even fournier,give me back cliff and those 35 W every year and i'll never complain again i promise;this is simply atrocious and useless from every point of view

lol that was the most depressing team in our history in my books. Give me this team every day of the week and twice on sunday. What did we all expect? its year 1 or a rebuild/retool. We are missing our best three players, 2 now that Chuma is back and putting out the youngest team in history. How exciting are our young guys though, Cole is ballin, needs to improve his defence, Suggs is messy but will be awesome, he's a dog and Franz friggin Wagner. wow. We still need to add one or two more top picks to this core to be a serious contender in a couple of years, which we should be the way it looks. I think the FO is happy to rack up losses now then finish well with all our players but not stuff up our draft hand. I think the future is bright. Were doin it right now. No shortcuts
For mine the core as of now is

Fultz
Suggs
Cole
Franz
Chuma
WCJ
Bamba

I think that you, and many, many others are setting yourself for huge lackdown ,expecting from Fultz & Isaac to "save" this team.

For start, they didn't play basketball in ages. Second, non of them showed any ability to stay healthy for longer streached. And reality about their talent is that they used to be 4th and 5th options on 40 wins team.
Fultz will most certainly disrupt floor spacing. We will ( probably ) replace Cole, who has been shooting lights out so far ( 19-44/ 43% ) for 3 for complete no treat. And it's almost guaranteed that Fultz, Wendell and Bamba can't coexist on same floor in competitive team.

Isaac, for all love he gets, he pretty much brings copy past same things and occupies same spaces as Bamba does. Another guy who has no inside presnce on offense, who's screens are kind a poor and who curles off screens and shoots ,but can't take ball off dribble and isn't big volumen shooter or scorer.

And in general Magic won't shoot as good as they have been shooting. This roster 100% isn't season- 36.6% three point shooting team ( 8th best right now) . More like 32%, top 10 worst by the end of season.

In general tanking is only objvective scenario , and winning lottery ,or at least top 3 pick is best case scenario for this team and season. But if Magic indeed win Paolo Banchero -run, than i really don't want Weltman & Hammond making long time decisions ( or commitments) to build around him. There is so much wrong with current roster built and their past failures to make me belive they are capable of building anything but perennial 38 wins team.

[drsd]

Anthony proves he is an NBA stater and the Magic prove their bench is awful: rinse and repeat.

[drsd]

It is on Coach Mosley to break the cycle of incompetent bench play.

[drsd]

I think that you, and many, many others are setting yourself for huge lackdown ,expecting from Fultz & Isaac to "save" this team.

Orlando lost the TO differential going +4 in this game. Bringing in two rusty players is not a path of improving TO differential!

Orlando spot about 5 points to the Pistons from their TOs (and lack of Pistons TOs) in this game.

Orlando will not be a winning team until forced TOs go up and team-TOs go down.


...


But to take the either side (the bring Isaac and Fultz back as saviors side): the Magic need Isaac and Fultz to return "now". There will be a rough patch of tn games, or so, but that rust needs polishing as soon as possible for the Magic to salve the TO differential nightmares.

..

[tooler]

People are cranky right now. We needed that Toronto win for a morale boost. Oh well.

[JBSouthpaw]

Minutes were fine, rotations need tweaks

I don't think I'll ever forget the 3 SG 2 F lineup from tonight. Historic moment of silliness.

I know positionless basketball is the wave of the future, but not with our personnel!

Lopez was out and WCJ got dinged up too (only 17 Min). Someone somehow had to spell Bamba.

I'm not wasting anything on this game, this was a schedule loss, it just sucked it happened against DET.

Super glad to see Franz come back shooting well.
Cole staying focused.

[Ducklett]

Rebuilding team struggles with typical rebuilding team issues.
Rookie head coach makes rookie head coach mistakes.
Blue sky is surprising blue this evening.
This and more on News Channel 13 @ 11.

[The Real Dalic]

Oof. Mohsley with an awful decision to just hand them the game while we were up late. Why do coaches always go to an all-bench lineup? I just don't understand that.

Casey had two starters in the game against our entire bench to end the 3rd quarter. Then started the 4th with Ignas.

I've gotta be honest, I know he's a rookie coach, but he's made two insanely bad decisions in two games in a row.

[The Real Dalic]

Every game our starters are positive or near positive and our bench is like -30

I'm praying for the triumphant returns of Isaac, Fultz, and MCW.

[basketballRob]

Winning isn't the number 1 objective this season. Remember beating the Pistons towards the end of last season, giving them the worst record? They ended up with the first pick. If we end up with a top 3 pick, the losing now is worth it.

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[89Magicfan]

give me back vuc and gordon,even fournier,give me back cliff and those 35 W every year and i'll never complain again i promise;this is simply atrocious and useless from every point of view

lol that was the most depressing team in our history in my books. Give me this team every day of the week and twice on sunday. What did we all expect? its year 1 or a rebuild/retool. We are missing our best three players, 2 now that Chuma is back and putting out the youngest team in history. How exciting are our young guys though, Cole is ballin, needs to improve his defence, Suggs is messy but will be awesome, he's a dog and Franz friggin Wagner. wow. We still need to add one or two more top picks to this core to be a serious contender in a couple of years, which we should be the way it looks. I think the FO is happy to rack up losses now then finish well with all our players but not stuff up our draft hand. I think the future is bright. Were doin it right now. No shortcuts
For mine the core as of now is

Fultz
Suggs
Cole
Franz
Chuma
WCJ
Bamba

I think that you, and many, many others are setting yourself for huge lackdown ,expecting from Fultz & Isaac to "save" this team.

For start, they didn't play basketball in ages. Second, non of them showed any ability to stay healthy for longer streached. And reality about their talent is that they used to be 4th and 5th options on 40 wins team.
Fultz will most certainly disrupt floor spacing. We will ( probably ) replace Cole, who has been shooting lights out so far ( 19-44/ 43% ) for 3 for complete no treat. And it's almost guaranteed that Fultz, Wendell and Bamba can't coexist on same floor in competitive team.

Isaac, for all love he gets, he pretty much brings copy past same things and occupies same spaces as Bamba does. Another guy who has no inside presnce on offense, who's screens are kind a poor and who curles off screens and shoots ,but can't take ball off dribble and isn't big volumen shooter or scorer.

And in general Magic won't shoot as good as they have been shooting. This roster 100% isn't season- 36.6% three point shooting team ( 8th best right now) . More like 32%, top 10 worst by the end of season.

In general tanking is only objvective scenario , and winning lottery ,or at least top 3 pick is best case scenario for this team and season. But if Magic indeed win Paolo Banchero -run, than i really don't want Weltman & Hammond making long time decisions ( or commitments) to build around him. There is so much wrong with current roster built and their past failures to make me belive they are capable of building anything but perennial 38 wins team.

There’s where my issues lie. Building the team. I’m not concern with wins and losses. I’ve been around. I know how this works. My issue is how we’re building. Are we putting guys in the situations for proper development? Suggs as an off the ball guard? Hell no. Give the kid the ball and let him “develop” into a elite PG regardless who else we have. Then build around that. If he becomes the best PG over Fultz, you make proper moves to build around that player. You don’t build by putting a square peg in a round hole. By forcing players to be what they’re not.

I get Mosley is a rookie coach but he’s been around. If you draft a guy not knowing his strengths, where he excels at, and you’re still in season trying to figure out, you got a problem.

[Bergmaniac]

I hope there weren't that many neutrals watching this game because of Cade's debut, this was some horrendous basketball by both teams for most of the game. Cade himself looked dreadful too. It was 5th game in 7 nights for us, so some of it was definitely fatigue, but still, pretty poor display even under the circumstances. We couldn't take advantage of Detroit being unable to make a shot from outside until midway through the 3rd and they killed us on the glass in the first half.

Mosley is trying a bit too many weird lineups for my liking. And the starting lineup is playing too few minutes together despite killing it according to the stats. 80 minutes in 7 games is way too little considering they have all been healthy. I get that the bench is bad, especially with all the injuries, but the team needs at least a bit of continuity. Still very early days, hopefully he'll find his way.

Ross on-off stats so far are mindboggling. When he's on the court, we have -34.0 net rating. When he's on the bench, our net rating is +15.1. That's a 50 points swing by 100 possessions, which is a uber superstar impact, only in the negative direction. And unlike most of the others from the bench lineups with poor net rating he's been playing a lot of minutes with some of the starters yet he's still almost killing every lineup he's been put in. Just look at this - https://www.nba.com/stats/team/1610612753/lineups-advanced/?Season=2021-22&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&GroupQuantity=2&CF=GROUP_NAME*E*ross . He's played most of his minutes so far this season together with Cole Anthony, who has been overall our best player by net rating (+3.5). Yet when Ross and Cole have played together, we have a -18.3 net rating. Ross and Bamba together are - 19.7. Ross and Franz together are -23.7. These are incredible swings given that overall our starters have a net rating around -1 or -2. Basically when the starter plays without Ross, we are doing great. When Ross comes on court, we are dreadful. Obviously small sample size and all, but Ross' impact so far has been quite extreme in the negative direction. Tank commander extraordinaire.

Also, we are 1-6 despite Cole, Bamba, Franz and RJ shooting lights out from 3 on unsustainable percentages. Currently we are 8th in the league in 3P%, which seems unlikely to last.

[Last Guardian]

Okeke return was a bit boring but some defensive possessions in the first half with him and Franz on floor together were pretty magical (pun intended). He also immediately looked pretty assertive about scoring. When he's back in game shape it will be interesting to see his progress.

I continue to be amazed at how bad Orlando vet players continue to be. I don't know if it is a curse or what but wow, you expect them to be a calming presence but they make the most mistakes out of anyone. Harris and Ross are near unplayable on this team. Maybe its more noticeable because they have to create more then their skillset allows on this team, and both would still be good on a much better team. I'd hand them off to contenders they are not helpful for this team. In a very brief time I thought Mychal Mulder could replace them and we wouldn't be any worse.

RJ...its frustrating but I'll try to be patient. His shot looks really good and he gets to the basket easily...he just cannot finish to save his life. I think he's near 50% 3's but like under 30% 2's, its really insane. And he's turning himself into a real pest on defense. Despite all the frustrations watching him there still might be something there.

Not going to try and understand what Mosley is doing. The lineups are out there but he clearly is not being pressed to win games and seems to just be experimenting to see what works. His patience is great, I'll give him that.

[Optimus_Steel]

Guys, we shot 50% for 3 in last 2 games, things won't get any better from offesnive side with this team. We have like 9 men shooting over leagues average. By the time season ends, we will have 1-3 at most

Almost every time a team shoots 50% from 3 and makes 16 3s and they overall outshoot the opponent they win, unless you are the Magic. It's pretty special how bad you have to be to not win that game.

Sent from my Pixel 5 using RealGM mobile app

[JTG_92940618]

I hope there weren't that many neutrals watching this game because of Cade's debut, this was some horrendous basketball by both teams for most of the game. Cade himself looked dreadful too. It was 5th game in 7 nights for us, so some of it was definitely fatigue, but still, pretty poor display even under the circumstances. We couldn't take advantage of Detroit being unable to make a shot from outside until midway through the 3rd and they killed us on the glass in the first half.

Mosley is trying a bit too many weird lineups for my liking. And the starting lineup is playing too few minutes together despite killing it according to the stats. 80 minutes in 7 games is way too little considering they have all been healthy. I get that the bench is bad, especially with all the injuries, but the team needs at least a bit of continuity. Still very early days, hopefully he'll find his way.

Ross on-off stats so far are mindboggling. When he's on the court, we have -34.0 net rating. When he's on the bench, our net rating is +15.1. That's a 50 points swing by 100 possessions, which is a uber superstar impact, only in the negative direction. And unlike most of the others from the bench lineups with poor net rating he's been playing a lot of minutes with some of the starters yet he's still almost killing every lineup he's been put in. Just look at this - https://www.nba.com/stats/team/1610612753/lineups-advanced/?Season=2021-22&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&GroupQuantity=2&CF=GROUP_NAME*E*ross . He's played most of his minutes so far this season together with Cole Anthony, who has been overall our best player by net rating (+3.5). Yet when Ross and Cole have played together, we have a -18.3 net rating. Ross and Bamba together are - 19.7. Ross and Franz together are -23.7. These are incredible swings given that overall our starters have a net rating around -1 or -2. Basically when the starter plays without Ross, we are doing great. When Ross comes on court, we are dreadful. Obviously small sample size and all, but Ross' impact so far has been quite extreme in the negative direction. Tank commander extraordinaire.

Also, we are 1-6 despite Cole, Bamba, Franz and RJ shooting lights out from 3 on unsustainable percentages. Currently we are 8th in the league in 3P%, which seems unlikely to last.

Good post.

I've been following this because it's so egregious. He hurts us in a lot of ways but it looks to me that the biggest issues are rebounding and opponent field goal percentage. Obviously, all of this is with a small sample size and Ross has never been much of a rebounder in terms of rebounds per game, but there's obviously more to rebounding than that (e.g. boxing out, chasing long rebounds etc.).

Anyway, when he's off-court, our defensive rebounding rate is 81.8%. That would be good for third-best in the league. When Ross is on the court it falls to 67.9% - that would be the worst in the league. So when he steps on the court this season we go from a very good defensive rebounding team to the worst. Overall we rate 23rd in this metric.

Of players who have at least 100 minutes this season, the following have a lower defensive rebounding rate than Ross so far - Frank Jackson, Monte Morris, Herb Jones, Korkmaz, Conely, Okoro and Corey Joseph. That's it - just 7 guys. You get better defensive rebounding from Malik Monk, Patty Mills or Eric Gordon.

In terms of analysis over time, here's how Ross has affected team defensive rebound rate when on the court over the years:

21-22: -13.9 (The figures above: 67.9% of rebounds with him minus 81.8% of rebounds with him)
20-21: -0.6
19-20: -3.0
18-19: +1.3
17-18: -0.2
16-17: -3.4 (Toronto)
15-16: -2.0

And so on...

There's a pretty obvious outlier there. Now, yeah, this will moderate over the course of the season and it's kind of unfair to compare previous full seasons to a 7 game sample but it's interesting to me regardless.

It's a similar story with opponent's effective field goal percentage when he's on the court - it goes up 14.5%. That's the worst on the team excluding Mulder and his 3 minutes of game time. It's also the difference between the 2nd best in the league when he's off to the worst in the league by a mile when he's on.

Prior to this season, Ross on the court has usually resulted in opponents shooting a little worse. His worst season for this metric was his 3rd season in the league when him being on court meant that opponents shot about 2% better in terms of eFG%. Only 2%! So far this season it's 14.5% better!

Anyhow, he's been bad and he'll have to work a bit to get these figures into respectable territory. Luckily for him, he has 75 games to do it in.

[tiderulz]

It is on Coach Mosley to break the cycle of incompetent bench play.

6 games into a season and people expect him to have exact rotations down? he is still learning the players, what they can and cant do. We were going to lose a lot this season before it ever started. Our coach will be learning as our young players are.

(not that you were doing this criticism)

[zaymon]

After some consideration i dont think giving Suggs the ball to create is the best way to develop him. He has flaws which will not be improved with playing time. Its mostly ball handling and finishing at the rim. His decision making is not that bad. Playing him mostly on ball would propably kill his confidence (which he still has). I would like to see more Wagner and now also Okeke handling the ball.
Our defense was poor, the most glaring thing to me was Bamba and Ross leaving shooters too much space to stand in no mans land. Bamba had positions in transition where he didnt contest Bey (if i remember correctly) to go for the rebound but not boxing out and giving offensive rebound. Watching him is so painfull for me.

[89Magicfan]

After some consideration i dont think giving Suggs the ball to create is the best way to develop him. He has flaws which will not be improved with playing time. Its mostly ball handling and finishing at the rim. His decision making is not that bad. Playing him mostly on ball would propably kill his confidence (which he still has). I would like to see more Wagner and now also Okeke handling the ball.
Our defense was poor, the most glaring thing to me was Bamba and Ross leaving shooters too much space to stand in no mans land. Bamba had positions in transition where he didnt contest Bey (if i remember correctly) to go for the rebound but not boxing out and giving offensive rebound. Watching him is so painfull for me.

Never in my life have gotten better at something or gained confidence by not doing that thing.

I think it’s because with Fultz returning down the road and no real SG with decent size, they are forcing him to learn a different role.