2022-2023 Regular Season Game 77: Orlando Magic (32-44) at Washington Wizards (34-42) - 7pm

[eyriq]

I like tanking as a rebuilding strategy. We are not rebuilding. We are building around Paolo and Franz. I think this is a very important distinction. It increases the psychological value you get from winning.

[VFX]

I like tanking as a rebuilding strategy. We are not rebuilding. We are building around Paolo and Franz. I think this is a very important distinction. It increases the psychological value you get from winning.

Kinda.

I’d say Orlando is currently in rebuild mode (talent acquisition) before claiming they are competing.

The higher % of landing Wemby, Scoot, or Miller would potentially have fast forwarded Orlando into “competing”.

I don’t buy into a win against reserves in April as a educational moral victory. They probably should have sat Fultz or Cole. Beating a healthy Cleveland team would have been less painful in terms of the standings.

Nevertheless, if Wallace and George are still on the board it can be a good draft in my opinion.

[Skybox]

As Jocko Willink would say "Good..." we can't count on the crapshoot draft to pull us out of purgatory. We have to get active on the trade market and Free Agency. Luckily, we're set for that this summer. Move forward. If the lottery Gods reward us...even better. If we draft incredibly well in the second half of the lottery...even better.

[VFX]

This is ridiculous. Will someone explain exactly what you want is to do? Our best players are our young guys. Paolo is a rookie. Do you want to sit him out even though he wants to play. Franz is in his 2nd year. Do you wanna sit him out when he wants to play. Also we are NOT mathematically eliminated. Long shot yes but still alive. What message are you sending to your young guys if you force them to sit when they want to play while still technically alive

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There is ZERO chance we win all of our games and the Bulls lose all of theirs. Funny enough (and sadly), cutting Pat Bev and letting him walk to Chicago kickstarted a lot of these events.

As to what we should have done... not much. One can be frustrated with reality without things being in their control, no?

I, personally wouldn't sit any of the guys but playing Mo over Goga might have been enough to lose the game.

Magic will draft 8th and 11th based on odds.

Magic, who will climb to 8th worst , will have 79% chance at drafting 8th, 9th or 10th
Bulls pick, by them standing at 11th worst (and not making playoffs) will have 88% chance at drafting 11 or 12.
If they make playoffs that pick converts into 15 or 16 automaticlly, and if they don't and don't draft 11 or 12 it means they keeping pick because they can't draft 5,6,7,8,9 or 10th.

If you have time and energy to scout throught college hoops you can focus on Black,Walker, worst Thompson twin, Whithmore, Hendrick , Nick Smith, DIck and George. Because Magic will draft one or two of them.


As for 1st overall pick, my guts tells me Hornets are getting first overall pick,
1) they never did
2) there are some owners selling rumors
3) they gave up on Bridges to avoid bad PR for NBA

It's time for Silver to return favor, as usual

My conspiracy vote is that the #1 pick is going to the Hornets or Spurs.

Hornets for the reason you stated. Spurs because they have zero star power.

Rockets and Pistons have been in the lotto far too often for them to have the karma of landing Wemby. Which is probably what every other fan would say if Orlando landed back to back #1s.

[flying_mollusk]

I like tanking as a rebuilding strategy. We are not rebuilding. We are building around Paolo and Franz. I think this is a very important distinction. It increases the psychological value you get from winning.

Agreed. But man VW or Scoot could take us to 60 win level. Haha. Those are generational talents. Problem is we had the best of both worlds. Playing and winning but somehow still at 5th worst. Then these other teams got shameless. So close!

[drsd]

This is ridiculous. Will someone explain exactly what you want is to do? Our best players are our young guys. Paolo is a rookie. Do you want to sit him out even though he wants to play. Franz is in his 2nd year. Do you wanna sit him out when he wants to play. Also we are NOT mathematically eliminated. Long shot yes but still alive. What message are you sending to your young guys if you force them to sit when they want to play while still technically alive

Sent from my SM-G970U using RealGM mobile app

There is ZERO chance we win all of our games and the Bulls lose all of theirs. Funny enough (and sadly), cutting Pat Bev and letting him walk to Chicago kickstarted a lot of these events.

As to what we should have done... not much. One can be frustrated with reality without things being in their control, no?

I, personally wouldn't sit any of the guys but playing Mo over Goga might have been enough to lose the game.

The odds the Bulls lose all their five games is 0.49% (( 0.48*0.343*0.64*0.581*0.08 ))
The odds the Magic win all five of their games is 0.8% (( 0.845*0.341*0.344*0.257*0.316 ))

So the odds of both events is 0.004% , or about 1 chance in 25,000.







Seriously: The Magic just finished game 77 and is still mathematically capable of making the playoffs. None of us thought tis team would achieve so much!

The dream is still alive. Even if for just for only one more day.


..

[drsd]

With the 24 and now 30 point games in these last two, Banchero is again on pace for a 20 ppg season. Currently he is on 20.04 ppg.

F-Wagner is inching back towards 19 ppg.

[drsd]

Neither the players nor the coaches and management learn anything from beating the Wizards' reserves.

Watch this and cone to a conclusion the Magicians aren't learning:

https://youtu.be/KDozAO0XUqg?t=168

[Bergmaniac]

Neither the players nor the coaches and management learn anything from beating the Wizards' reserves.

Watch this and cone to a conclusion the Magicians aren't learning:

https://youtu.be/KDozAO0XUqg?t=168

Done.

What was so interesting about this completely standard interview with canned answers throughout? Serious question.

[drsd]

I love to see us winning but it would be horrifying to see us drop from 5 to 8.

Horrified? Really ???

The current NBAdraft.net mock for 5 to 8 is: Amen Thompson-5, Nick Smith-6, Anthony Black-7, and Gradey Dick-8. Are you seriously saying that it is "horrible" that the Magic get Dick over getting Thompson?

I agree with pepe's point that really what one should be "horrified" by is that the Magic is at a 50% reduction in odds to go top-4. That's the point of tanking.

..

[drsd]

Neither the players nor the coaches and management learn anything from beating the Wizards' reserves.

Watch this and cone to a conclusion the Magicians aren't learning:

https://youtu.be/KDozAO0XUqg?t=168

Done.

What was so interesting about this completely standard interview with canned answers throughout? Serious question.

Sure. But can you conclude from that the Magicians are not learning?

..

[drsd]

Are we all being serious or in jest with the lottery being fixed?? I guarantee if it was fixed we would have never won it in our history much less 4 times.

Here is last year's actually lottery. Excluding that it is the most boring thing ever broadcast, I mean worse than CSPAN, it is proof in the functioning of the lottery itself as fair.

Watch on YouTube

[zaymon]

I am not thrilled with the win, but we need to play Franz and Paolo simple as that. Coach who demotivates his young stars by sitting them when they want to play should be fired asap. This win was hard to avoid.
We have 2 max players on the roster already, building around 3 max players is extremely hard. I also dont like top of this years draft. I like Miller and thats all.
From this game
1. Bitadze is not a gem, but very good find. Strong, skilled big man are hard to come by. Propably better than Mo in our rotation. Pacers too many big man.
2. Fultz is getting better as a scorer but not really as a passer. I just dont like how he manages the game outside his numbers. I still think that changing pg is our first priority.
3. WCJ needs to rebound better or his 3pt shooting is not that valueable.

[thelead]

I am not thrilled with the win, but we need to play Franz and Paolo simple as that. Coach who demotivates his young stars by sitting them when they want to play should be fired asap. This win was hard to avoid.
We have 2 max players on the roster already, building around 3 max players is extremely hard. I also dont like top of this years draft. I like Miller and thats all.
From this game
1. Bitadze is not a gem, but very good find. Strong, skilled big man are hard to come by. Propably better than Mo in our rotation. Pacers too many big man.
2. Fultz is getting better as a scorer but not really as a passer. I just dont like how he manages the game outside his numbers. I still think that changing pg is our first priority.
3. WCJ needs to rebound better or his 3pt shooting is not that valueable.

Simply playing Mo more would have likely lost us this game. Not sure why coach is now wanting to play Goga this late in the season.

[VFX]

I am not thrilled with the win, but we need to play Franz and Paolo simple as that. Coach who demotivates his young stars by sitting them when they want to play should be fired asap. This win was hard to avoid.
We have 2 max players on the roster already, building around 3 max players is extremely hard. I also dont like top of this years draft. I like Miller and thats all.
From this game
1. Bitadze is not a gem, but very good find. Strong, skilled big man are hard to come by. Propably better than Mo in our rotation. Pacers too many big man.
2. Fultz is getting better as a scorer but not really as a passer. I just dont like how he manages the game outside his numbers. I still think that changing pg is our first priority.
3. WCJ needs to rebound better or his 3pt shooting is not that valueable.

Simply playing Mo more would have likely lost us this game. Not sure why coach is now wanting to play Goga this late in the season.

Playing Mo. Okeke, Bol, and Scho played 0 minutes.

Fultz and Cole each played 28-33 minutes. I would have also been ok with more Houstan.

There are ways to play Franz and Paolo without grinding out a win.

[Knightro]

Simply playing Mo more would have likely lost us this game. Not sure why coach is now wanting to play Goga this late in the season.

Because Goga might actually be a rotation player next year?

[VFX]

Simply playing Mo more would have likely lost us this game. Not sure why coach is now wanting to play Goga this late in the season.

Because Goga might actually be a rotation player next year?

Cool. Let him be in the rotation next year.

[flying_mollusk]

I wouldn’t mind playing specific guys like Houstan and Okeke to see what we have. I also think we need to reduce stress in Franz’s ankle.

That said, I know Mosley wants the wins. In fairness, this is for his resume. Especially since people have called for his job. If he wins 35 games, that’s a large jump and with such a young team.

[Bakomagic]

The Magic's 20-year-old Rookie of the Year just had 30-12-6-3 on a .648 TS% in a road win, ya know?

But we're losing our collective minds over a 5% drop in odds of hitting a top 4 pick.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Right. Its crazy. We have our star

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Naw, draft Wemby at 1, then package Wemby, Paolo and Franz to acquire moar future 1st round picks!!!

[AaronB]

The Magic's 20-year-old Rookie of the Year just had 30-12-6-3 on a .648 TS% in a road win, ya know?

But we're losing our collective minds over a 5% drop in odds of hitting a top 4 pick.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Right. Its crazy. We have our star

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Naw, draft Wemby at 1, then package Wemby, Paolo and Franz to acquire moar future 1st round picks!!!

Better yet, trade them all for Serge Ibaka!!