Matt Barnes agrees to 2 yr/$3.2 mil w/ Orlando (pg. 34)

Why are all these Magic fans coming out of the woodwork? Get em out of here.

action8 said:

Since we have the attention of all these Magic fans: Thoughts about Orlando's defense with the new acquisitions? My feeling is this is a step back, but I'll admit Orlando's D surprised the heck out of me last season. I thought it would be difficult to cover up for Lewis at PF, but Howard was such a monster that it didn't matter that Lewis is allergic to rebounds. The rotations were solid, they did a good job forcing ball handlers in directions they didn't want to go, and the closeouts were very sharp. Is SVGs system compatible with these new look guys?

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I think the D's effectiveness is predicated around Dwight Howard. As long as he's here, I think we should always be a top 5 defensive team regardless of the pieces we put, assuming quality effort is being put forward. That might just be a biased opinion, but that's how I look at it.... I think Bass could be could help Dwight in the post defensively and perhaps force Dwight to expand his game offensively. The frontcourt depth can allow our bigs to take more risks and be more aggressive IMO..... I guess we'll have to see how the chemistry works out tho, to know for sure... Im sure Jameer's little team retreat will get all of the guys on the same page get the team chemistry in a good place before training camp tho.

I think most members around here are holding back and being good sports. The real reason we are reverent towards Hedo is swag.

The guy was confident and fairly physical. When the cavs hit him in the mouth, he smiled.

You guys need to really watch carefully when Vince Carter faces a physical defender. The cavs have shut him down with Ira Newble Eric Snow and Sasha Pavlovic in the past. He fakes injury in 3/4ths of the games we face him. If he were in prison, he would be the guy who screams and cries for the first half hour and wears a contraband wig and bra the rest of the time.

You think Shaq is washed up, we think Wince Cater has a vagina. I guess we won't know the winner until the actual game is played.

Randolphkeys said:

If he were in prison, he would be the guy who screams and cries for the first half hour and wears a contraband wig and bra the rest of the time

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:rofl:

That's solid.

Blue Magic said:

I think the D's effectiveness is predicated around Dwight Howard. As long as he's here, I think we should always be a top 5 defensive team regardless of the pieces we put, assuming quality effort is being put forward. That might just be a biased opinion, but that's how I look at it.... I think Bass could be could help Dwight in the post defensively and perhaps force Dwight to expand his game offensively. The frontcourt depth can allow our bigs to take more risks and be more aggressive IMO..... I guess we'll have to see how the chemistry works out tho, to know for sure... Im sure Jameer's little team retreat will get all of the guys on the same page get the team chemistry in a good place before training camp tho.

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I wouldn't think you'd want the front court to be more aggressive. SVG seems to be all about keeping people off the foul line and Dwight out of foul trouble. I agree Howard is the biggest factor, but I'd be concerned that he's going to be caught out of position more often if Vince plays the same D he did in NJ (no intensity, lackluster lateral movement).

Randolphkeys said:

I think most members around here are holding back and being good sports. The real reason we are reverent towards Hedo is swag.

The guy was confident and fairly physical. When the cavs hit him in the mouth, he smiled.

You guys need to really watch carefully when Vince Carter faces a physical defender. The cavs have shut him down with Ira Newble Eric Snow and Sasha Pavlovic in the past. He fakes injury in 3/4ths of the games we face him. If he were in prison, he would be the guy who screams and cries for the first half hour and wears a contraband wig and bra the rest of the time.

You think Shaq is washed up, we think Wince Cater has a vagina. I guess we won't know the winner until the actual game is played.

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Hedo Turkoglu is the same guy who had a mental breakdown in game 5 of the Finals and was single handedly owned by Ariza on both ends of the floor..... His stupidness and mental frailty was the key element in Ariza pretty much taking over that game, and us giving up that 10 point lead in the 3rd qtr. Turk is bipolar. You guys dont know his other half, Turkoflu, which everyone like to ignore.

It's one thing to shut down Vince when game plan is centered to just shut down Vince. It's another to shut down Vince when your game plan is centered around shutdown Dwight & Vince & others..... we'll see how it works out. You believe in your team . We believe in our. All we ask is for the respect, but people still like to throw us under the bus like this is still 2007. People still dont want to see us.

action8 said:

I wouldn't think you'd want the front court to be more aggressive. SVG seems to be all about keeping people off the foul line and Dwight out of foul trouble. I agree Howard is the biggest factor, but I'd be concerned that he's going to be caught out of position more often if Vince plays the same D he did in NJ (no intensity, lackluster lateral movement).

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True. I dont know much about Vinces defensive capabilities, but we can run with Bass(or Gortat) next to Dwight now to help out Dwight with interior D. Shard was an adequate man defender, but not really effective covering Dwights back or covering those weakside dropoff passes when Dwight over-committed. Dwight has help now! Bass can they can help pack the lane, get weakside rebounds, and block shots when Dwight overcomittes to a block or is caught out of position. Last yr, Dwight and Gortat were usually the only shotblockers we could put on the floor, and they didnt play together.... Gortat will probably be getting more minutes next yr(some likely coming next to Dwight) and Bass will have a good shot at that starting spot. I think these guys playing at PF can only make our defense better.

Offense is where they could hurt us a tad bit, but at the same time, playing one of them next to Dwight can possibly allow Dwight to further his offensive development. Usually he wouldn't take chances or wouldnt have the oppurtunity to develop his jumper because there was never anybody to clean up if he missed. Playing one of those guys next to Dwight, allows him to possibly expand his game a little bit and see what he can and cant get away with. It should be interesting to see how it all plays out. Our overall talent pool has gotten better, but you're right that SVG will have his work cut out to figure out the right combinations to make it work. I have confidence that he can make it work though, as he has a pretty good track record for maximizing his talent(from both his Miami days and since he's been in Orlando).

Orlando decided to trade for Vince Carter to get past the Lakers. Not the Cavs.

Three6Pavia said:

Orlando decided to trade for Vince Carter to get past the Lakers. Not the Cavs.

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The lakers gave us real BIG match up problems. Bynum, Gasol and Odom/ariza all on the court at once, thats pretty scary. Cleveland is a good team but they don't create huge match up problems for teams except for lebron, there really isn't a team that has someone to match up with him. IMO I thought SVG's defensive strategy in the ECF was genius, by letting lebron do his thing and shutting down the other players. It will be interesting to see how things will pan out this year

There's a reason why our resident genius (Danny Ferry) did not get vince carter when he was being shopped for wall-e. You, Orlando fans, will be able to see that reason this coming season.

maomaopukspuks said:

There's a reason why our resident genius (Danny Ferry) did not get vince carter when he was being shopped for wall-e. You, Orlando fans, will be able to see that reason this coming season.

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Lol, I thought you guys wanted Vince, but just didn't have the pieces to get him? Lol, Since NJ is trying to get LBJ, they didn't want to give CLE any help and your expirings werent enough to convince them...

I mean if they just wanted expirings, we would have just tossed them Anthony Johnson or JJ Redick, but we had to give up a damn good prospect, Courtney Lee, to get him. Lol, Danny Ferry is a failure. He been trying to get Vince for 2 or 3 years now and couldnt get the job done... Otis Smith >>>>



(lol, just givin u guys a hard time, dont take it the wrong way)

Marcin Gortat#1 said:

The lakers gave us real BIG match up problems. Bynum, Gasol and Odom/ariza all on the court at once, thats pretty scary. Cleveland is a good team but they don't create huge match up problems for teams except for lebron, there really isn't a team that has someone to match up with him. IMO I thought SVG's defensive strategy in the ECF was genius, by letting lebron do his thing and shutting down the other players. It will be interesting to see how things will pan out this year

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Cleveland made moves last season to defeat Boston, who Danny Ferry assumed would be our opponent in the ECF.

Now Orlando is making the same mistake by preparing for LA while giving up the matchup advantages against Cleveland and Boston.

I believe Cleveland did a good job this offseason since they addressed their weaknesses from last season without giving up a major piece of their roster (such as TurkeyGlu).

Could be wrong though.

Blue Magic said:

Lol, I thought you guys wanted Vince, but just didn't have the pieces to get him? Lol, Since NJ is trying to get LBJ, they didn't want to give CLE any help and your expirings werent enough to convince them...

I mean if they just wanted expirings, we would have just tossed them Anthony Johnson or JJ Redick, but we had to give up a damn good prospect, Courtney Lee, to get him. Lol, Danny Ferry is a failure. He been trying to get Vince for 2 or 3 years now and couldnt get the job done... Otis Smith >>>>



(lol, just givin u guys a hard time, dont take it the wrong way)

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We're trying to make a dynasty, Ferry only does one sided deals.

We probably wouldn't have given up Courtney Lee and Alston if they had been on our roster.

This guy MarcinGortat#1 keeps rattling off these PM's to me. It's bizarre. He keeps inviting me to these "Greek bath-houses" downtown. He also keeps peppering these PM's with comments about about how "I got more length than Tree Rollins, and I clutch like Nick Anderson" He keeps saying he wants to know what it's like to "play for the other team." Something tells me he's not talking about the Cavs...

Randolph, being that you live in San Francisco can you offer any advice on what might be going on here??? I know Chardon is very familiar with this lifestyle as well.

Three6Pavia said:

Cleveland made moves last season to defeat Boston, who Danny Ferry assumed would be our opponent in the ECF.

Now Orlando is making the same mistake by preparing for LA while giving up the matchup advantages against Cleveland and Boston.

I believe Cleveland did a good job this offseason since they addressed their weaknesses from last season without giving up a major piece of their roster (such as TurkeyGlu).

Could be wrong though.

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I dont think we gave up any matchup advantages. Opposing fans can say we did as much as they want, but the reality is that we can still run a line-up of:

Meer
Pietrus/Barnes/JJ
Vince
Shard
Dwight

and exploit everything we did last year. Only problem is, other teams(such as Cleveland) made move to counter that..... It was inevitable..... We're not going to continue to beat and embarrass these other good teams in the same ways.... We saw CLE's counter coming, which is why we've made our own chess moves to get better as well. We added some size, beef, and depth to our roster so we dont only have to be limited to small ball anymore. We can play any which way, and now so can Cleveland.

You guys should know this better than anybody... We weren't gonna beat you guys in the same ways next year with the moves you were inevitably gonna make. You guys made good moves to counter us, and we made good moves to fill our holes as well. Everyone's trying to fill in their holes so that they can best matchup with any and everybody they may face. Both teams have only gotten more versatile. That's the reality here. Boston has only gotten more older. That's their reality.