On December 19 2010 08:23 Judicator wrote: Carter isn't a big loss, Lewis isn't that big of a loss either at least in terms of production (how many times has he just disappeared at critical points), Gortat is a big loss but Anderson hasn't exactly been a chump. I would say Orlando made out alright on this, you add Arenas and J-Rich to make up for something you weren't very good at and lose a little on the things you were great at. The biggest thing is Hedo's and Arenas' contracts which can be problematic if they don't pan out.
What? This trade is a huge loss for Orlando.
1.) Contracts. You got rid of Rashard Lewis's terrible contract for Hedo and Arenas. /facepalm
2.) You lost your matchup advantage. No more Rashard Lewis sitting in the corner. While he wasn't as good as 2 years ago it still spaced the floor and allowed Vince to drive at will when he wasn't being lazy and gave Dwight room to do as he felt. Now you've got Brandon Bass in the paint too. Not a good look vs Chicago, Boston or even Miami. They are now conventional and Bass isn't going to be able to stand up to all three All-Star level forwards.
3.) Orlando's other big thing - 3 point shooting and defense. Hedo is terrible but decent at team defense. Well, he was 3 years ago. Arenas and J-Rich thankfully will help them there. They will still be a monster 3pt shooting team but not against the top defenses in the league - which crushed Orlando before. So Orlando is still going to be a 3 point shooting team but even worse defensively.
4.) Hedo is no longer good. At all. He was terrible in Phoenix when they gave him the keys to play with a strong bench unit. He can't play he 4 and he can't guard even mid-level Small Forwards. So he's only good offensively and he isn't even THAT good anymore.
5.) None of the players Orlando have push them over the top. Even Jason Richardson as good as he can be isn't going to help them beat Boston in a playoff series and at this point Chicago and Miami either.
6.) Most importantly they have no fucking bench. Orlando's bench with Pietrus, Gortat, Bass, Reddick was a killer squad because of the defense and 3pt shooting of Pietrus and Reddick. It's gone. Which means in the playoffs they are freaking finished. If that bench couldn't get it done vs Boston and LA the last 2 years then how the hell do they survive this year?
7.) Orlando also gave up a first round pick. 2 bad contracts, 1st round pick, no bench, and no match up advantage.
So Orlando will be a good regular season team and terrible in the playoffs. Say hello to your Orlando Hawks.
Just to give you a look at why I think Otis Smith is a terrible GM - this is Orlando's front court line up. And no I'm not kidding. They need to make another trade asap:
Dwight Howard - C Brandon Bass - PF Ryan Anderson - PF Malik Allen - PF Daniel Orton - C Hedo Turkoglu - SF*
Turk isn't a PF but let's put him in there just to make it look better. If Dwight Howard gets into foul trouble, and in the playoffs vs Chicago and Miami he will since Rose/Wade/Lebron attack the basket all day Orlando is left with Daniel Orton at Center.
By the way he's a 3rd string Center that doesn't play.
You've got Brandon Bass - a very good player but not All-Star or great 1 on 1 defender as your starter. He's going to be good given them minutes. However his backups are Ryan Anderson and Malik Allen.
I don't think I need to pull the fire alarm here for any of you. They'll plug Hedo in and go small when they have to. Unfortunately for Orlando this means lots of nights getting abused on the boards.
So Orlando's front court in the playoffs will compete with:
Boston - Shaq/Jermaine O'Neal/Garnett/Big Baby/Perkins*/Erdin
Even before this year Boston always crushed Orlando. Taking out Erdin and Perk that's still a terrible match up. Erdin is getting playing experience and Orton isn't but will now. Even with Perkins out and saying Shaq and JO injured that's a Garnett/Big Baby frontline that will tear Orlando apart. To give you an idea of how bad that can be look at the recent game between the Knicks and Boston. You had Wilson Chandler trying to stop Kevin Garnett from posting him up because the Knicks had to go small. Not a good sign for Orlando.
Chicago - Noah/Boozer/Gibson/eng/Asik
This is actually the line up I'm worried about for Orlando. Those first 3 are all monster rebounders and in the case of the latter 2 offensively gifted. Boozer of course being the absolute nightmare. The star is next to Deng's name because while he plays PF at times he's really a SF. Kind of like how Orlando and Phoenix try to do with Turk except Deng is a far better player than Turk at this stage of his career on both sides of the ball. Asik is just another serviceable big body that unfortunately for Orlando has been playing decently so far. Even worse, unlike Boston this group is not only athletic: they have 3 guys that are either elite rebounders (Noah, Boozer) above average (Gibson) and also run the floor.
Miami: Bosh/Joel Anthony/Ilgauskas/Howard/Haslem*
Really, just bodies. Except Joel Anthony/Howard/Ilgauskas are much better than the Orlando bench. Haslem might be out but I don't think it matters here. Wade, Lebron and Bosh are all above average rebounders. But the real problem here is that Orlando can not go small at all or they lose. Period. This is the match up where if Dwight gets in foul trouble and Orlando goes small we might kiss them good bye in 4. No Dwight means Wade and Lebron driving all day. Add in no one good enough to hold Bosh down and this is a blow out in the making.
I guess the Orlando standpoint is Lewis and Carter are irredeemably below average/worthless players right now, so gambling on Arenas and Richardson.
Lewis is shooting .420 right now, even .75 at free throws, 3's down from .4 to .37. Averaging 1.4 free throws a game. Rebounding the same, assists are down.
Too bad that's still better than Ryan Anderson
Surprisingly, Vince seems to be doing ok, especially for a 34 year old. His free throw attempts are down, free throws percentage down, rest is better.
Pietrus is not getting to the rim, kind of odd at 28 years old.
Supposedly Arenas is injured, so in theory he can recover. Richardson looks pretty good, Carter for Richardson is defensible.
Hedo for Lewis is probably marginally better for Orlando.
Losing Gortat is probably Orlando's biggest mistake.
On December 19 2010 11:34 igotmyown wrote: I guess the Orlando standpoint is Lewis and Carter are irredeemably below average/worthless players right now, so gambling on Arenas and Richardson.
Lewis is shooting .420 right now, even .75 at free throws, 3's down from .4 to .37. Averaging 1.4 free throws a game. Rebounding the same, assists are down.
Too bad that's still better than Ryan Anderson
Surprisingly, Vince seems to be doing ok, especially for a 34 year old. His free throw attempts are down, free throws percentage down, rest is better.
Pietrus is not getting to the rim, kind of odd at 28 years old.
Supposedly Arenas is injured, so in theory he can recover. Richardson looks pretty good, Carter for Richardson is defensible.
Hedo for Lewis is probably marginally better for Orlando.
Losing Gortat is probably Orlando's biggest mistake.
This is how I was looking at it. It's not a HUGE loss that some are making it to be, and it can feasibly work out in Magic's favor. Lewis and Carter weren't doing what they needed them to do, hence this change. Pietrus for whatever reason hasn't show the development they were expecting out of him (more than a bench player). Anderson has shown he can produce but whether he can sustain that remains to be seen, Orton don't count on him as he is potentially the biggest dumbfuck in the world (if you watched him at UK). The Gortat loss was significant though and we'll see how the Magic will recover that.
What matters is not just the position by position analysis. ORL had two franchise choices: accept they are not championship contenders and plan for a re-build; or try to improve to win now.
They were actually in an OK position to do the former, since expiring contracts, cap space + playing with Howard could have helped lure someone interesting to ORL. The danger was failing to attract anyone and/or losing Howard in the interim if he got unhappy. It can be tough, but if you keep your star around through a coupe of bad seasons you can come out very strong - like MIA did with wade or LAL with Kobe a few years ago.
ORL of course opted to go for the "win now" alternative", pretty much giving themselves no long term plan. Now, whether you think this trade is a short term upgrade or not, I think we can all agree it still does not make them clear championship contenders. If they stay healthy they might do a bit better, but I don't see them beating BOS/MIA/LAL in the playoffs. With Arenas and JR playing great they may get past CHI in the east though.
Why does Yao always have to be injured Stress fracture and out for the season!? COME ON MANNN..
Rockets still comin' back, bout to break even on the season. Too bad we're in a division with the Spurs and Mavs because they're on fire this year.
At first I would've thought that the trade would definitely benefit Orlando, as I would think Arenas would step up playing for a new team, but after reading some of y'alls posts I'm not so sure. Their bench is definitely the primary concern.
I wouldn't say they're significantly worse, but they definitely aren't any better. They're pretty much the same team with different players (if that makes sense).
Does Arenas become the starting PG now in favour of Nelson? I imagine J Rich will be starting SG or no?
Jameer Nelson is going to remain the starter. Gilbert isn't a pure PG so Jameer is going to run the offense.
Their firs few games aren't easy either.
@ Atlanta - a game if they lose will be blown out of proportion.
vs Dallas - oh no...
vs San Antonio - uh ohhh...
vs Boston - JACKPOT
4 tough games that will be magnified like crazy, and those last 3 teams are all in the top defensive rankings in the league. Unfortunately for Orlando Dallas and San Antonio tend to put up lots of points when they feel like it also. Not a good week coming up.
On December 20 2010 11:59 KOFgokuon wrote: It's already been said, but I don't understand why ANYONE (other than maybe phoenix who gets to dump contracts for vince's expiring) made this trade
Washington gets use out of Lewis more than they would Arenas, the contracts for each are pretty bad.
Phoenix gets rebuilding pieces.
Orlando, again, I don't know why people are shitting on this like crazy, it's not a bad gamble given what they had to work with short of somehow getting Melo to come in a miracle. It does put the organization in a bind, but they were already in a bind if D12 leaves or becomes dissatisfied. Like citizen already pointed out.
PHO: I would consider Carter for JRich a bit of a wash. JRich is the better spot-up shooter and better rebounder, but Carter is a better all around scorer and playmaker (ballhandling and passing). As such, I see this as the Suns getting Gortat, which I think makes it a solid deal. No guarantee that Gortat fulfills all the promise people have been putting on him for the past few seasons, but he's a relatively mobile big guy who I see as an upgrade over Lopez and Frye. A Gortat, Lopez, and Frye frontcourt rotation doesn't look that bad actually.
WAS: I think they realized that Arenas is done in WAS at this point. Too much has happened and Arenas has never been the same since last season. It seems pretty clear that he has to go somewhere else and start anew if he wants any chance at returning to form. Plus, they have Wall to be their franchise player now, so it makes even less sense to pay Arenas so much when he doesn't play well off of him. Rashard's not much of an improvement, but his game is more Wall-friendly than Arenas' is, so it's not a bad gamble. Just not sure what this means for Blatche, although they could just play Rashard at SF, where they have a pretty glaring hole.
ORL: This deal was obviously just an attempt to do "something" rather than sit pat on a roster they knew wasn't going to do what they wanted (be a championship contender). I read it somewhere, and I agree, that what really prompted this deal is the fact that Rashard had basically been replaced by Bass and, to a lesser extent, Anderson at this point. While Bass doesn't have 3pt range, he has a pretty consistent mid-range game that can still spread the floor a bit for Dwight in the middle. While it's very questionable whether Arenas will fit the Magic, Lewis was literally doing nothing for them and was eating up a bunch of money at the same time. Pietrus wasn't doing much either, and they still have QRich who does a lot of the same things.
It'll be really interesting to see how Turk fits back into the roster. While it's true that he has looked nothing like the player he was when he was a key figure in the Magic pushing far into the playoffs as of late, there's a chance he may bounce back in the system that he's had the most success in. His biggest deficiencies, defense and rebounding, are compensated for with Dwight in the middle, while his playmaking, passing and 3pt shooting make him a good fit next to him. I used to think commentators were exaggerating when they said that Turk was the only ORL player who knew how to make a decent entry pass into Dwight, but I began to believe it watching the Magic after Turk left and seeing how poorly everyone else made those passes. If Turk can rediscover the pick and roll proficiency to some degree, and do just enough on defense and rebounding to allow Dwight to cover the rest, this could be a good deal for the Magic.
Lastly, Arenas. I'm not sure how they intend to use him, but it seems most likely that he's used as a 6th man for off-the-bench instant offense. I could see him being used alongside Turk, as Arenas isn't a pure point and Turk could run the offense as a point-forward. Arenas is also a pretty dynamic, if inefficient, scorer, who could do a lot of damage against opponents' second teams. His gambling style of defense would also be less of a problem with Dwight in the middle.
There is definitely an issue with ORL's frontcourt rotation going forward. While Bass has played backup C before in Dallas, and done a decent job of it, he's not a good solution for Dwight's backup, especially since he's their starting PF. I know nothing about Orton, but I doubt he's going to be of much help either. This will be something else I'll be interested in going forward.
After all that's said and done though, ORL still has pretty good depth post-trade apart from the C position:
PG: Nelson, Arenas, Duhon, JWill SG: JRich, Redick SF: Turkoglu, QRich (although I think Turk may come off the bench since QRich might fit better with the other starters, and can play alongside Arenas) PF: Bass, Anderson C: D12, Orton
Helps that Arenas can play PG/SG, JRich can play SG/SF, Turk can play SF/PF, and Bass can play PF/C.
But are they actually a better team? I really have my doubts.
They've strengthened some areas but weakened others. I guess we're never going to know till we see them play, but the trade looks pretty uninspiring overall to me.
Who's going to get the ball in the last 2 minutes with the game on the line? Jameer Nelson is a solid player but if you look at the top teams, they have way better finishers in their squads.
Maybe I'm a bit of a pessimist but it looks to me like Orlando is just shuffling chairs on the Titanic.
They'll probably go on a tear now and win the whole thing
I think Turk and Arenas DO give Orl two people who live for big shots at the end of a game. They sorely lacked a closer since they traded Turk since neither Carter nor Lewis really took to that role.
PHO is in a very interesting spot now, with future salary flexibility, some decent role players + expiring contracts as trade assets. All while remaining a decent playoff team and selling out games.
EPT
eng/Asik
Stress fracture and out for the season!? COME ON MANNN..
