2024-2025 Regular Season Game 62: Toronto Raptors (18-42) at Orlando Magic (29-32) - 6pm

[89Magicfan]

Spoiler:

It’s a two way street.

Paolo and Franz cannot be your 1A and 1B, as max level players, if they are playing 35+ minutes and getting blown out or losing at home to bad teams in spectacular fashion.

None of that has to do with the supporting cast. There isn’t really a cope argument to be had with that fact. Good teams, being led by two potential all-stars, don’t lose like that even with questionable supporting casts.

That being said, yeah, the supporting cast IS trash. Especially without Suggs. That’s a Front Office issue and it was an issue 3 years ago. Weltman didn’t make moves because he thought it would disturb “organic” well now things are at a breaking point and not teams know he’s able to squeeze for assets to remedy this situation. People here for 3+ seasons fought with me here talking about how shite Weltman was incompetent and sitting on his hands waiting.

SO what does that mean for Mosely?

Mosely has to work harder at finding ways of getting players into better situations to win. He doesn’t do that. There are coaches that do more with less. Mosely can only go off “vibes” and “family” and “spirit” for so long. At some point you have to build a system. He never did, and you can only blame an incompetent FO so much. IF he had a voice at ALL he should have used it once in 3 seasons.

Weltman can go.
Mosely can go.
The coaching staff can go.
The training staff can go.
Get rid of anyone that isn’t Franz or Suggs.
I don’t really care if they move Paolo either, but they won’t. I’m not sold on his skillset, or especially his mindset, when faced with adversity this season. He’s inefficient and makes nobody better.

Elite players don’t need extremely niche or specific players next to them on the court in order to be great. They figure it out.

Up to this point he has found a way but you can’t expect a player to continue to be held accountable for a FO who doesn’t care enough about winning themselves.

Cuts both ways unfortunately.

Yes, the FO is shite and largely the reason this season has fallen apart for mismanagement.

Paolo is the guy leading this team and he absolutely hasn’t stepped up at all in the last month or two. Doesn’t matter what the roster looks like. That’s not his job.

Paolo is fine. He’s almost 3 seasons in and has lead this team quite a bit (especially last year).I in his short career. Last year everyone wanted to trade Franz while he struggled. Leading isn’t just something you are born with despite the stupid cliche. He’s a kid. A very talented kid who wants to win and has had a FO that doesn’t.

[VFX]

Paolo gets all the accolades when things go well
Paolo gets none of the criticism when things don’t go well.

What does the eye test tell you?
What do his advanced numbers tell you?

Quit being emotional about players that don’t know you exist. Paolo Banchero neither plays good defense, nor plays efficient offense. And yeah, I don’t care how old he is or how far into his career he is at this point. You are drafted #1 and in the league for 3 seasons? I have higher expectations for you than to make excuses for why you haven’t been good. You were given the keys and told to be a leader.

[89Magicfan]

Read on Twitter

22 and 23 respectively, these are the guys you build around.... Why did we make it so hard? Some don't get this lucky

Those are empty numbers tbh.
if you had actually two- as impactful as it looks scorers & all around well rounded players, no matter who supporting cast is, you would have at least competent offense.

Not that isn't case, you have 3rd worst offense with two worst being epic- tankers.

Last 15 games ( both Paolo & Franz played ) Magic still have 107 offensive rating. 107 offensive rating would be considered below average - 11 years ago.

We put way too much blame on "supporting cast" when in reality 60%- 70% off offensive load is carried out by two players.
And that is root issue with our offense. Predictable and people not involved.

But if others are more involved, it would mean Franz & Paolo simply average worst numbers.


Last night i watched Boston vs Denver, and by just watching 5 min of that game it becomes jarring how different those teams play offense vs our.
They accumulate points by involving everybody, that keeps defense honest and there is so little sloooooow iso plays.

Like , leading shot taker on Nuggets was Braun. On Celtics, Horford got 12 shots, in Cavs- Blazers game, Cavs leading shot takers was Ty Jerome, Hunter & Struss got 15 shots each.

If somebody has extra time to spend, feel free to find last game where Paolo and Franz didn't lead team in FGA.

Not only that they take most shots every night, they also often take 50% of all shots ( sometimes even more).

Last night they tried Paolo barely attempted a shot in first half. Just moving the ball around. Doesn’t matter. We don’t have smart and capable players to do that consistently.

[Jiwol]

Winners come stronger from hard times, losers crumble.
I am not the biggest fan of Mosley but he is only part of the problem.
Biggest problem is Banchero and no real PG. Banchero is not a #1 option and will propably never be. If we pay him max we are screwed becouse we wont have money for real PG and Franz is much more important player.
Paying Suggs so much was a risk, we all knew that but he is very important to our team.
I will write it every time. We must trade Paolo this summer.

You haven’t been been paying attention until this season have you?

Dude, Zaymon has been one of the most level-headed dudes on the message board for years. His predictions are on point even if unpopular at the given moment. Go bark on another tree.

[89Magicfan]

Paolo gets all the accolades when things go well
Paolo gets none of the criticism when things don’t go well.

What does the eye test tell you?
What do his advanced numbers tell you?

Quit being emotional about players that don’t know you exist. Paolo Banchero neither plays good defense, nor plays efficient offense. And yeah, I don’t care how old he is or how far into his career he is at this point. You are drafted #1 and in the league for 3 seasons? I have higher expectations for you than to make excuses for why you haven’t been good. You were given the keys and told to be a leader.

This has emotion all over it.

[89Magicfan]

Winners come stronger from hard times, losers crumble.
I am not the biggest fan of Mosley but he is only part of the problem.
Biggest problem is Banchero and no real PG. Banchero is not a #1 option and will propably never be. If we pay him max we are screwed becouse we wont have money for real PG and Franz is much more important player.
Paying Suggs so much was a risk, we all knew that but he is very important to our team.
I will write it every time. We must trade Paolo this summer.

You haven’t been been paying attention until this season have you?

Dude, Zaymon has been one of the most level-headed dudes on the message board for years. His predictions are on point even if unpopular at the given moment. Go bark on another tree.

He may have been but this one isn’t. I will say everyone who thinks trading Paolo after a season he had last year because of this season which was his first season of a major injury, major injuries with our main players (Mo, Suggs, Franz) and no signs of FO of giving a **** about improving a 8 year old issue, is not thinking clearly. We don’t make the playoffs last year without what Paolo did for this team. Y’all wanted to trade Franz last season while he struggled now Paolo, yall are not keeping context with any of this. The one common denominator is our FO. Not Paolo. Not Franz. They have their issues and they need time to work through them but our FO should be the first thing we change not our two young star players.

[Bergmaniac]

Pretty brutal loss. Our players have clearly lost their confidence and the lack of talent and offensive plan is more and more evident. It's just really hard to win when your guards are giving you so little game after game. The offensive gameplan doesn't help either, we don't make it easy on ourselves, it's basically tough shot after tough shot for Franz and Paolo on most nights, awful spacing, too little playmaking. The defence has slipped due to Suggs's absense and Goga and KCP being much worse on that end lately and without a top D we are quite simply a bad team.

Mosley was right to give Jett more of a chance given how poor Harris has been and that we need to see whether Jett has a future with us, but it's becoming clearer with every game he is just a poor player. As Knightron said, he needs to be a real sniper from 3 to be a positive impact player with all of his deficiencies in other areas, but he is nowhere near that.

What I like about the 7-21 three-point attempt line is not the 33% (which is actually bad, just not horrible), but rather the reduction to 21 attempts.
All the foul shots prove that the Magic must be taking this low20s range of three-balls.
Pound it inside. That has to be the path for the next 20+ games.

Most other teams won't be as foul prone as the Raptors. And at the end of the day even with all the times we got to the line in this one the offense was still pretty awful overall (108.5 ORTG) against one of the worst defenses in the league.

You haven’t been been paying attention until this season have you?

Dude, Zaymon has been one of the most level-headed dudes on the message board for years. His predictions are on point even if unpopular at the given moment. Go bark on another tree.

He may have been but this one isn’t. I will say everyone who thinks trading Paolo after a season he had last year because of this season which was his first season of a major injury, major injuries with our main players (Mo, Suggs, Franz) and no signs of FO of giving a **** about improving a 8 year old issue, is not thinking clearly. We don’t make the playoffs last year without what Paolo did for this team. Y’all wanted to trade Franz last season while he struggled now Paolo, yall are not keeping context with any of this. The one common denominator is our FO. Not Paolo. Not Franz. They have their issues and they need time to work through them but our FO should be the first thing we change not our two young star players.

Most people didn't want to trade Franz last season, why would they, he had a pretty great year apart from his struggles from 3. Plenty of us were saying he was our best player, his impact numbers were always way better than Paolo's.

[89Magicfan]

Pretty brutal loss. Our players have clearly lost their confidence and the lack of talent and offensive plan is more and more evident. It's just really hard to win when your guards are giving you so little game after game. The offensive gameplan doesn't help either, we don't make it easy on ourselves, it's basically tough shot after tough shot for Franz and Paolo on most nights, awful spacing, too little playmaking. The defence has slipped due to Suggs's absense and Goga and KCP being much worse on that end lately and without a top D we are quite simply a bad team.

Mosley was right to give Jett more of a chance given how poor Harris has been and that we need to see whether Jett has a future with us, but it's becoming clearer with every game he is just a poor player. As Knightron said, he needs to be a real sniper from 3 to be a positive impact player with all of his deficiencies in other areas, but he is nowhere near that.

What I like about the 7-21 three-point attempt line is not the 33% (which is actually bad, just not horrible), but rather the reduction to 21 attempts.
All the foul shots prove that the Magic must be taking this low20s range of three-balls.
Pound it inside. That has to be the path for the next 20+ games.

Most other teams won't be as foul prone as the Raptors. And at the end of the day even with all the times we got to the line in this one the offense was still pretty awful overall (108.5 ORTG) against one of the worst defenses in the league.

Dude, Zaymon has been one of the most level-headed dudes on the message board for years. His predictions are on point even if unpopular at the given moment. Go bark on another tree.

He may have been but this one isn’t. I will say everyone who thinks trading Paolo after a season he had last year because of this season which was his first season of a major injury, major injuries with our main players (Mo, Suggs, Franz) and no signs of FO of giving a **** about improving a 8 year old issue, is not thinking clearly. We don’t make the playoffs last year without what Paolo did for this team. Y’all wanted to trade Franz last season while he struggled now Paolo, yall are not keeping context with any of this. The one common denominator is our FO. Not Paolo. Not Franz. They have their issues and they need time to work through them but our FO should be the first thing we change not our two young star players.

Most people didn't want to trade Franz last season, why would they, he had a pretty great year apart from his struggles from 3. Plenty of us were saying he was our best player, his impact numbers were always way better than Paolo's.

The conversations were there.

[VFX]

Paolo gets all the accolades when things go well
Paolo gets none of the criticism when things don’t go well.

What does the eye test tell you?
What do his advanced numbers tell you?

Quit being emotional about players that don’t know you exist. Paolo Banchero neither plays good defense, nor plays efficient offense. And yeah, I don’t care how old he is or how far into his career he is at this point. You are drafted #1 and in the league for 3 seasons? I have higher expectations for you than to make excuses for why you haven’t been good. You were given the keys and told to be a leader.

This has emotion all over it.

Not really.

Trade him? Wouldn’t care.
Keep him? Ok, sure whatever.

I’m pretty indifferent toward him as a player. His game isn’t interesting or efficient. His defense is nearly non existent and he isn’t nearly as much of a self creator as he thinks he is. Doncic can get by with that flaw. Jokic can too. Curry? Sure. Not Paolo in 2025.

If I wanted to watch Carmelo Anthony circa 2014-15 I’d go watch highlights on YouTube. I wouldn’t be vying to pay Paolo Banchero a max deal to watch that “system” fail for another generation.

Now if I were making a million excuses as to why he absolutely isn’t as shite as my eyes have been witnessing all season, with the advanced metrics to back it up, then maybe I’d question whether I was being emotional. Or maybe you arent familiar with my tone on this board?

[JoshuaPotter]

Paolo gets all the accolades when things go well
Paolo gets none of the criticism when things don’t go well.

What does the eye test tell you?
What do his advanced numbers tell you?

Quit being emotional about players that don’t know you exist. Paolo Banchero neither plays good defense, nor plays efficient offense. And yeah, I don’t care how old he is or how far into his career he is at this point. You are drafted #1 and in the league for 3 seasons? I have higher expectations for you than to make excuses for why you haven’t been good. You were given the keys and told to be a leader.

This has emotion all over it.

Not really.

Trade him? Wouldn’t care.
Keep him? Ok, sure whatever.

I’m pretty indifferent toward him as a player. His game isn’t interesting or efficient. His defense is nearly non existent and he isn’t nearly as much of a self creator as he thinks he is. Doncic can get by with that flaw. Jokic can too. Curry? Sure. Not Paolo in 2025.

If I wanted to watch Carmelo Anthony circa 2014-15 I’d go watch highlights on YouTube.

Now if I were making a million excuses as to why he absolutely isn’t as shite as my eyes have been witnessing all season, with the advanced metrics to back it up, then maybe I’d question whether I was being emotional. Or maybe you arent familiar with my tone on this board?

Me personally, ill give grace for this season and this season alone, yet i'd be a fool to bury the head in the sand one more season. No, we do not need to max him yet even though he is a max player.

There are so many things that contribute to Paolo playing his weaknesses though that I'm not sure. This season reminds me so much of Paolo rookie season where i'd be thinking / asking why Paolo doesn't get setup in the offense beyond isolation by Mose. I'm no longer thinking that because I'm conditioned yet this kinda offense without an elite level display of shot creation is malpractice against Paolo.

[thelead]

Of all nights, this is the night to bring up Paolo’s inefficient offense?

What’s missing from both Paolo’s and Franz’ game is the contested step back 3 that most stars make at a decent clip. It’s what keeps defenses honest and makes them more difficult to guard. It opens up the floor a bit more for their drives. You see it when players are guarding Luka, Tatum, Ant, LeBron even. Unfortunately, both have a lot of work to put in to get anywhere close to that right now.

[zaymon]

Pretty brutal loss. Our players have clearly lost their confidence and the lack of talent and offensive plan is more and more evident. It's just really hard to win when your guards are giving you so little game after game. The offensive gameplan doesn't help either, we don't make it easy on ourselves, it's basically tough shot after tough shot for Franz and Paolo on most nights, awful spacing, too little playmaking. The defence has slipped due to Suggs's absense and Goga and KCP being much worse on that end lately and without a top D we are quite simply a bad team.

Mosley was right to give Jett more of a chance given how poor Harris has been and that we need to see whether Jett has a future with us, but it's becoming clearer with every game he is just a poor player. As Knightron said, he needs to be a real sniper from 3 to be a positive impact player with all of his deficiencies in other areas, but he is nowhere near that.

What I like about the 7-21 three-point attempt line is not the 33% (which is actually bad, just not horrible), but rather the reduction to 21 attempts.
All the foul shots prove that the Magic must be taking this low20s range of three-balls.
Pound it inside. That has to be the path for the next 20+ games.

Most other teams won't be as foul prone as the Raptors. And at the end of the day even with all the times we got to the line in this one the offense was still pretty awful overall (108.5 ORTG) against one of the worst defenses in the league.

He may have been but this one isn’t. I will say everyone who thinks trading Paolo after a season he had last year because of this season which was his first season of a major injury, major injuries with our main players (Mo, Suggs, Franz) and no signs of FO of giving a **** about improving a 8 year old issue, is not thinking clearly. We don’t make the playoffs last year without what Paolo did for this team. Y’all wanted to trade Franz last season while he struggled now Paolo, yall are not keeping context with any of this. The one common denominator is our FO. Not Paolo. Not Franz. They have their issues and they need time to work through them but our FO should be the first thing we change not our two young star players.

Most people didn't want to trade Franz last season, why would they, he had a pretty great year apart from his struggles from 3. Plenty of us were saying he was our best player, his impact numbers were always way better than Paolo's.

The conversations were there.

Conversations between people who now dont want Paolo traded ?
Franz was better player than Paolo from the start. Hot headed people wanted him gone after last year playoffs. Most decent posters didnt want him gone.
We would propably make PO last year without Paolo, but we would not without Franz.

ps. Jiwol i am blushing. Always ready to state unpopular opinion !

[AdamTheGreek]

There’s a clip going around of Mosely having words with Paolo on the bench tonight and it appears Paolo says, I’m good, I’m willing to do whatever, or something like that. Looked painful.

Doesn’t look good

Read on Twitter

I see nothing wrong with this clip.
Pretty normal NBA bench behavior.

[YosemiteSam]

Trading Paolo would be dumb.

Mosley needs to explain why he can't get this team to respond with effort and improvement. Focus and execution have been glaring for 20+ games now and that is not OK. IMO, this is a confidence issue which is not unusual for a team led by mostly young guys. So to me the main issue was the FOs inability to acquire some vets to help manage the team's psyche. KCP and others have not stepped up in that area. Weltman put all that on Mosley and his young stars - but what happens when their confidence is shaken? The last 20+ games happen.

This season is in a free fall and with Suggs and Mo out for the season we should look towards the lottery IMO.

[thelead]

Players can only play so hard until their bodies break down. Is it possible that the players just don’t want to get injured because the FO refuses to fix the offense? I mean, almost every key rotation player has missed a good chunk of time this season.

[Knightro]

Paolo since returning from injury (23 games)

22.5 PPG, 6.5 RPG, 4.7 APG, 0.7 SPG, 0.7 BPG, 3.3 TOV, .415 FG%, .289 FT%, .697 FT%

.509 TS%, 33.7 USG%, 101.6 ORTG, 110.2 DRTG, -8.6 NET

Franz since returning from injury (17 games)

25.8 PPG, 5.5 RPG, 3.4 APG, 0.9 SPG, 0.4 BPG, 2.0 TOV, .473 FG%, .281 3PT%, .818 FT%

.558 TS%, 32.5 USG%, 106.9 ORTG, 106.0 DRTG, +0.9 NET

Since Paolo Banchero returned from his injury on January 10th, FRANZ WAGNER IS THE ONLY PLAYER ON THE ENTIRE ROSTER WITH A POSITIVE NET RATING.

[eyriq]

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[MartinsIzAfraud]

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when there is no offensive gameplan this is what happens. Mose clearly lacks vision offensively outside of forcing Franz/Paolo and things can easily go astray if someone wants to play hero that night aka Cole

[VFX]

Read on Twitter

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This is clearly Mosely saying

“We need to get other guys involved. We can’t get by with Paolo and Franz scoring 60 points and nobody else able to score throughout games”.

The roles here are clearly defined. Paolo and Franz are 1A and 1B options. How Mosely utilizes them in a system that isn’t iso kick outs 100% of the time is another question entirely. The FO building a roster is also yet another question.

Mama Banchero can take multiple seats if she doesn’t feel Franz has earned the right to attempt a game winning shot.

[OrlandoDream]

I will be shocked if Corey Joseph isnt starting next game.