“Ubuntu, Y’all!”: The 2008-09 MAGICS!!ORLANDO: Where Winning Happens
(Yes, these are the collected trophies of our players.)
1. Roster:PG: Chauncey Billups / Sebastian Telfair / Jason Williams
SG: Rodney Stuckey / Matt Barnes / Devin Brown
SF: Danny Granger / Matt Harpring / (Matt Barnes)
PF: Tim Duncan / Sheldon Williams / Jason Thompson
C: Brad Miller / Adonal Foyle / David Harrison / Marcin Gortat
Overseas: Juan Carlos Navarro
Rotation & Minutes (see explanation below):Billups (29 min), Telfair (19)
Stuckey (27), Barnes (21)
Granger (30), Harpring (18)
Duncan (31), Sh. Williams (13)
Miller (29), Foyle (10), PF/C (13 - Harrison, Thompson, Gortat)
Situational minutes: Jason Williams, Devin Brown, Jason Thompson, Marcin Gortat
(pictures coming soon -- server issues
)
Front Office:General Manager/Team President 4 Life: Gainesville Celtic
Assistant to the General Manager: Krul J. T.
Head Coach: Hubie Brown
Asst. Coaches: Stan Van Gundy, Clifford Ray, Tommy Heinsohn
Mascott: Gob Bluth
Finally, the Magic have stuffed Stuff as their mascot and has hired Gob Bluth, founding member of the Magicians Alliance, to be our mascot.
2. Statistics****************************************************************************************************************
Player | Pos. | Draft Pos. | Age | Height | Games | Minutes | Points | Rebounds | Assist | Blocks | Steals |
Tim Duncan | PF/C | Via trade | 31 | 7-0 | 78 | 34.0 | 19.3 | 11.3 | 2.8 | 1.9 | 0.7 |
Chauncey Billups | PG | Via trade | 31 | 6-3 | 78 | 32.4 | 17.0 | 2.7 | 6.8 | 0.2 | 1.3 |
Danny Granger | SF | 2nd (28) | 24 | 6-8 | 80 | 36.0 | 19.6 | 6.1 | 2.1 | 1.1 | 1.2 |
Brad Miller | C | 3rd (28) | 31 | 6-11 | 72 | 34.9 | 13.4 | 9.5 | 3.7 | 1.0 | 0.9 |
Rodney Stuckey | SG | Via Trade | 21 | 6-5 | 57 | 19.0 | 7.6 | 2.3 | 2.8 | 0.1 | 0.9 |
Sebastia Telfair | PG | Via Trade | 22 | 6-0 | 60 | 32.2 | 9.3 | 2.3 | 5.9 | 0.2 | 1.0 |
Matt Harpring | SF | 7th (24) | 31 | 6-7 | 76 | 18.1 | 8.2 | 3.2 | 1.1 | 0.2 | 0.6 |
Matt Barnes | SG/SF | 9th (8 ) | 27 | 6-7 | 72 | 19.5 | 6.8 | 4.5 | 1.9 | 0.5 | 0.7 |
Shelden Williams | PF | 10th (5) | 24 | 6-9 | 64 | 12.1 | 4.0 | 3.2 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.3 |
Jason Williams | PG | 10th (19) | 32 | 6-1 | 67 | 28.1 | 8.8 | 1.9 | 4.6 | 0.1 | 1.2 |
Adonal Foyle | C | 12th (2) | 32 | 6-10 | 82 | 9.5 | 1.9 | 2.5 | 0.2 | 0.5 | 0.2 |
Devin Brown | SG | 12th (20) | 29 | 6-5 | 78 | 22.6 | 7.5 | 3.4 | 2.2 | 0.1 | 0.7 |
David Harrison | C | 13th (11) | 25 | 7-0 | 55 | 12.9 | 4.2 | 2.1 | 0.3 | 1.1 | 0.4 |
Marcin Gortat | C | 15th (14) | 23 | 7-0 | 6 | 6.7 | 3.0 | 2.7 | 0.3 | 0.2 | 0.2 |
Jason Thompson | PF | Waiver Wire | 22 | 6-11 | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a |
Juan Carlos Navarro | SG | Free Agent | 27 | 6-3 | 82 | 25.9 | 10.9 | 2.5 | 2.2 | 0.0 | 0.6 |
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3. Draft/Coaching StrategyGoing into the draft, our overall strategy was to to build the best team possible — hopefully one equipped to compete for a championship RIGHT NOW. Why?
Quite simply:
There are no guarantees of tomorrow.
The history of the NBA is littered with talented young teams with loads of potential that for hundreds of different reasons (injuries, egos, trades, etc.) never made it. So we decided, "Let's go for it now..... Ubuntu, Y'all!".
“Ubuntu, Y’all!” was fully set in motion when the (then) Tehran Lakers approached us about a trade for Tim Duncan. Once the Big Fundamental was on board we set about surrounding him with the best talent possible — putting a high emphasis on players who had been key parts of winning teams, working to find players who we felt would fit together and build a TEAM, and striking a careful balance between experience and potential, youth and veterans.
But building a “win now” team is not, in our opinion, at odds with also building a young core. And while it’s not as flashy as the Blazers, Lakers, Grizzlies or Celtics, we think our “youth brigade” of Granger/Stuckey/Telfair/Thompson is as talented as most in the fake NBA. Pairing them with a solid vet core of Duncan/Billups/Miller/Harpring is our nod to the 1990-91 Celtics which paired the Big 3 with the dynamic trio of Reggie Lewis/Brian Shaw/Dee Brown. And we think playing with proven winners like Duncan and Billups will give them an edge down the road when they’re leading the Magics into the 2010’s.
We anticipated that our broad strategy of taking the BPA would help us with some Ainge-like packaging of assets to flesh out a winning team (see Iverson and Billups trades). We also tried to stay as flexible as possible to move up or down in the draft if it got us additional assets that we thought would help. In building a bench we followed the same general philosphy of taking the best player available, while factoring in a bit more positional need. We looked for versatile, 2-way players and put an emphasis on experience and the fundamentals: Rebounding, defense and passing.
Finally, by hiring Hubie Brown we committed early to employing his 10-man rotation throughout the regular season so we stayed committed to adding depth right up until the closing moments of the waiver wire (adding PF Jason Thompson about 10 minutes before the waiver wire closed). Brown explained his philosophy in a
2004 Chris Broussard article:
[T]he 70-year-old Brown has emerged as the unequivocal front-runner for coach of the year.
How the Grizzlies have achieved their record is remarkable. Unlike most coaches who use an eight- or nine-man rotation, Brown uses 10 players. Only Pau Gasol, the team leader in points (17.7 a game) and rebounds (7. going into last night's loss, averages more than 30 minutes a game, and he is at 32.2. Nine other players average from 18.2 to 29.6 minutes, and five players average double figures in scoring and eight average nearly 9 points or more.
''When I was an assistant with the Milwaukee Bucks from 1972 to 1974, we had the best record both years,'' said Brown, who was an assistant to Larry Costello. ''We only played eight guys, and I saw that four guys were always unhappy -- even though we had a great team -- because they didn't play much. So I said if I ever got a team, I would like to play 10 guys because there's very little difference between players 8, 9 and 10.''
The Grizzlies have bought all that Brown is selling, even reputed bad apples like Jason Williams and Wells, neither of whom has caused any problems in Memphis. In last week's come-from-behind victory over San Antonio, Williams's backup, Earl Watson, played the entire fourth quarter as Williams cheered him on. The winning has made it easier for the players to handle the lesser minutes, but the style of play has also been a factor.
That year—arguably Memphis' finest until
WalkerWiggle took over as GM—10 players (who each played in 75% of the games), played 19-31 mpg. Brown is bringing this rotation back to the Orlando Magics as part of "Ubuntu, Y'all!" and we feel that with team-first veterans like Duncan, Billups, Miller, Harpring and Foyle leading the way everyone else will fall in line. Cutting minutes for guys like Duncan, Billups, Miller, Harpring and Foyle will keep them fresh for deep Finals runs over the next 2-4 seasons. Putting our young-uns, Granger, Stuckey, Telfair and Thompson in end-of-game situations (where sometimes they'll succeed and sometimes they'll fail) during the regular season is they key to them being ready for pressure situations in the playoffs & finals.
4. Roster BreakdownTHE STARTING FIVE:Tim Duncan — The Big Fundamental — 4-time NBA champion, 3-time Finals MVP, 2-time NBA MVP. Duncan is the anchor to eveyrthing the Magics will accomplish this year. His career averages of 21 ppg, 11 rpg, 3 apg, 2.4 bpg, .8 spg are so consistent year-to-year you'd think they were made up.
AND he has more help up front in Brad Miller than with any other frontcourt teammate since a 34-year-old David Robinson (c. 1999-2000). If you're not yet sure of Duncan's greatness, nothing we write here will convince you.
Chauncey Billups — Mr. Big Shot — NBA Champion & NBA Finals MVP. We traded for him b/c we see Billups as the perfect compliment to Duncan in style, temperment and commitment to winning. Billups will be counted on to run this team, find the young wings on the break and initiate the half-court offense. Nothing suggests that he or Duncan are through competing for NBA titles.
Billups & Duncan might not be the flashiest duo in our Fake NBA, but we don't think there's any current duo that has a better track record of winning and LEADING teams. We have absolutely zero concerns about the 2 playing together and believe they will make all the players around them better and more confident. Both will "take the last shot" throughout the season and we know that their commitment to "Ubuntu, Y'all!" will lead to the best shot being taken 9 times out of 10.
Danny Granger — The next Shawn Marion?
Take a look at The Matrix's season just before Mr. Nash showed up in PHO compared to Danny G's season last year. We think Granger is poised for a breakout year where he'll join the ranks of elite young SFs, with guys like Iguodala and Caron Butler. Granger's long-range shooting (40.3% on 5.3 3PA/GM last year; 57.1 TS%) is a great compliment to Duncan's low post game and he will be asked to shoulder a big part of the scoring load as the Magic's secondary offensive weapon. Like Pierce on the Celtics during the mid-2000’s, Granger is being asked to carry too much of the load for IND simply because he’s the most talented player. As with Pierce, he’ll blossom by actually doing less.
Brad Miller — From undrafted to 2-time all-star, Miller knows hard work. When we saw him sliding in the 3rd round (we were without a 3rd round pick but had him ranked in the top 10 guys available to start the round) we moved back into the end of the round to grab him. One of the most prolific big men passers of the last 15 years (along with KG, Webber, Divac, and Karl Malone) Miller will fit beautifully with the core of Duncan/Billups/Granger. Toiling on bad SAC teams the last few years, he's also become kinda underrated — compare his output to Rasheed's at the same ages and they're remarkably similar. I've always loved Miller's game and believe that his passing and high post offense play to this team's strengths of efficient, ball-movement offense. In the spirit of "Ubuntu, Y'all" Miller will match up defensively with the opposing team's better offensive big to save Duncan from foul trouble and cut down on his wear-and-tear in the post.
Rodney Stuckey —
"I thought Stuckey really gave us problems, I think he was the X factor in the game." — NBA Finals MVP Paul Pierce on Stuckey's performance in Detroit's Game 2 ECF victory over the eventual champs. That will be Stuckey's role over the next 2 years for YOUR Orlando Magics: X Factor. The hype around Stuckey being the "Next Dwayne Wade" is a little overblown, but we do believe that like Wade he can be a solid contributor on both sides of the ball (and their
per36 numbers as rookies are closer than you'd think). Right now we're simply asking him to hold his own and play solid man-to-man defense — with the occasional 17-22 point game thrown in for good measure. At 6-5, 205, Stuckey is big enough to defend the big SGs scattered throughout the Fake Eastern Conference. Stuckey got better as the Pistons went deeper in the Playoffs and his ECF performance against the NBA's best defense showed that Stuckey is ready for a starting role, especially on a veteran team like the Magics.
THE BENCH:Matt Harpring — Miller, Harpring, and Adonal Foyle veterans hungry to do what it takes to win a title before their careers end. Harpring will be our 6th man. A veteran who can score in bunches and isn’t afraid to get physical with other wings.
Matt Barnes — Our poor man’s James Posey. Because of his versatiltiy, he’ll be asked to do a little bit of everything, moving between the SG & SF positions off the bench as needed. He’ll use his length, athleticism and huslte to bother and matchup with the bigger 2-guards in the East. He played a key role in GSW’s upset of DAL in the 2006 playoffs (11/5/2.4 in 30 mpg; 42% on 3’s) and Coach Brown plans to put him in a similar position to suceed as a key reserve for the Magics.
Sebastian Telfair — Had a 3.3 asst/to ratio last year in running the T-Pups and seems to have finally grown into an NBA-level point guard. Still just 22, Telfiar will be relied on to come in and run the team and get good looks for our defense-oriented backup bigs; play the drive and dish with Granger, Harpring, Barnes and Devin Brown; and get out on the break with Stuckey, Granger & Barnes. He’ll have the opportunity to learn from Billups and Jason Williams — both NBA champs — everyday in practice and will heed Asst. Coach Tommy Heinsohn screams of “run, run, run!” from the bench.
Sheldon Williams — The Landlord — Williams is a good kid from a great college program that hasn’t lived up to being picked #5 by the Hawks. But coaches Brown, Heinsohn and Clifford Ray will simplify Shelden’s role and playing behind Duncan will put Williams in a great position to come in, defend, rebound, block shots and get some offensive putbacks. Over the next few years we see Williams settling into a Ed Pickney/Tony Battie role of very solid bench big man and solid locker room guy.
Adonal Foyle — Defense, defense, defense. And some defense. Over the past 10 years, only 5 players (Jim McIlvaine, Shawn Bradley, Keith Closs, Theo Ratliff and Alonzo Mourning) have more blocks per/min than Foyle (min 82 games). He’s overlooked because of the ridiculous contract GSW gave him a few years ago, but he’ll come in and provide 10-15 minutes of defense for Miller and Duncan. Another solid teammate and community presence. After winning a ring, he’ll give way to David Harrison and Marcin Gortat.
Jason Williams — White Chocolate — the 3rd member of the Orlando Magics with an NBA Championship ring, Williams will be asked to be a mentor to our PG-of-the-future Telfair while keeping himself ready for emergency duty should something happen to Telfair or Billups. After missing 25% of his team's games during the last 3 years due to knee problems, JWill is looking forward to the reduced minutes/regular-season-rest and preparing for a Lindsey Hunter/Sam Cassell role during the Magic’s playoff run.
Devin Brown — The 4th member of the Magics with an NBA Championship ring (18 mpg for the 2004-05 Spurs) Brown was also the 2002-03 D-League MVP. He is one of those guys who doesn’t do anything great, but doesn’t do anything to hurt your team either. He’s part of the depth at the 2/3 position, which is so necessary in the East. We know that he’ll buy into “Ubuntu, Y’all!” and will be ready to come in and hit shots and play solid man-to-man defense (0.7 spg in 22 mpg for the Cavs last year).
David Harrison — Depsite averaging only 14 min/gm over his career Harrison (U of Colorado’s career leader in blocked shots) has averaged a robust 1.0 blk/gm and is the 18th ranked shotblocker per/min over the last 4 years (min 82 gms). Harrison will work with Clifford Ray and we hope that he’ll push Foyle for minutes by midseason.
Jason Thompson — A shocking waiver-wire pickup, we won’t be surprised if Jason Thompson pushes for playing time (a la Big Baby and Ryan Gomes as rookies) by January. A skilled passing big man and 4-year college senior (like teammates Duncan, Shelden Williams, and Brad Miller) coming off back-to-back 20/10 seasons, Thompson will fit right in with the Magics. He showed a willingness to work and get better during the summer league.
Marcin Gortat — Expected to eventually be Dwight Howard’s primary backup with the real Magic (perhaps as early as this season), the 7-foot Gortat will follow up another strong summer league (12 pts, 8 reb, 2.5 blk in 35 mpg) with a year as the fake Magic’s 15th man and working with Big Man coach Clifford Ray.
Juan Carlos Navarrro — Navarro came over into a dysfunctioanl situation in MEM last year and quickly went back to Spain. We think that the chance to join a title conteder next season will be a strong incentive and like Carlos Arroyo, Navarro will become the darling of the Orlando Latino community.
5. TRANSACTIONS5a. Toughest Decisions1. 2nd round picks: Jason Richardson vs. Antwaan Jamison (we thought Jamison who rebounds and shoots 3’s very well would be a great compliment with Duncan in the frontcourt, but JRich is 4 years younger); Danny Granger vs. Richard Jefferson (RJ has been to the Finals 2x, and is probably the better defender; we felt Granger is more dynamic and has a higher upside for the post-Duncan/Billups era).
2. Hornets trade: Being new to the game we were nervous about moving so far down in the 1st round and were worried that we wouldn’t get a good enought talent at #24; it took us much longer to agree to the Hornets offer (ORL 1st (14) for NOH 1st (24), 3rd (13) and 3rd (24)) than it should have (or will next time).
3. Thaddeus Young vs. Jerryd Bayless — At the start of the 5th round we wanted to get the best young player to add to our veteran core of Duncan/Iverson/Granger/Miller. We thought VERY HARD about taking Bayless (who we think will be a star), but were just not comfortable enough to pair with Iverson. In hindsight Young was probably the right pick (but Ronnie Brewer would have been the pick had the T-Pups not snatched him away with the last pick (#29, late) of the 4th round).
5b. Trade Grades (trades involving players only)TRADE #1 (A+): Kevin Durant (#24), 3rd (13), 5th (14) ==> Tim Duncan, 5th (1) — By now everyone knows what happened with the Lakers’ first pick and they really wanted to build a team around someone they had chosen — feeling they’d panicked and taken Duncan. This was a no-brainer and were able to move up in the 5th while getting Duncan for Durant & a 3rd. With our 24th pick we would not have taken Durant — we were looking very strongly at Brandon Roy or Allen Iverson (along with Iguodala and Areans).
TRADE #2 (C): Jason Richardson, 4th (30), 7th (22) and 9th (15) ==> Allen Iverson, 11th (14), 14th (9), 15th (22, 23) — This turned out to be our worst trade but not for the reason you’d think. We LOVED the idea of pairing Duncan with another proven winner like Allen Iverson (judging by the chatter & how far he slipped, we’re much higher on Iverson than a lot of folks). Iverson is a league MVP, took a bunch of scrubs to the Finals in 2001, and is still stuffing the stat sheet — including 7 assists per game. It didn’t trouble us at all that he’d have the ball in his hands a lot b/c he’d also know when and how to get it to Duncan — a la Wade to Shaq duirng their Title run. In hindsight though we simply gave up too much to get Iverson — Jason Richardson (22/5/3/1.4 stl/2 3’s) plus 3 mid-draft picks that could have become Ronnie Brewer, Thabo Sefolosha and Darius Songaila.
TRADE #3 (A): Allen Iverson + Thaddeus Young ==> Chauncey Billups, Jared Dudley, 12th (20), 13 (11), 14 (20) — We took the ultra-athletic Thaddeus Young with the first pick in the 5th round and had intended to make him our 7th man and a key player in the future of our team. But when DET asked about him, we took the opportunity to expand the deal to include Billups, who we simply thought was a slightly better fit with Duncan, and get some late draft picks (that became David Harrison, Devin Brown and D-League MVP Kasib Powell, who was later waived).
TRADE #4 (B): Delonte West, Joakim Noah, Dorell Wright, Jared Dudley ==> Rodney Stuckey, Sebastian Telfair — Once we got Billups as the PG for our championship-driven team, we went about trying to upgrade at the SG spot. We felt comfortable that Delonte West could reprise his role as SG from his St. Joes days, but decided that Stuckey, who’s a little bit bigger than West and therefore better equipped to handle the big SGs in the East, was a better fit. Telfair gave us a very good backup PG and our frontcourt depth allowed us to include Joakim Noah (our depth at SF also allowed us to overpay just a little in the 4-for-2 deal).
5c. Best/Worst MovesBEST MOVES —
(1) Hard to call the Duncan trade the best move since it sort of fell in our laps, so I’ll say trading Iverson for the younger Billups late in the draft was our best move. Billups was a slightly better fit with Duncan (we continue to disagree that Iverson/Duncan wouldn’t have been a championship-level pairing).
(2) Getting Jason Thompson (who we loved in the 9th/10th round) off the waiver wire 10 minutes before rosters were due was an absolute steal.
WORST MOVES —
(1) Taking Eddie Jones (15th (23)) over Randy Livingston — We were very happy with our picks/trades throughout the draft, so this was our most boneheaded move. We’d been targetting Livingston (a class act, D-League MVP and lifer, and amazing PG) since the 10th round. We wanted him to get a chance (like I did personally with the Celtics last year) to close out his career with an NBA Title contender. Few players would appreciate it more. But we got worried about the SG position (this is before the Stuckey trade) and inexplicably took Eddie Jones (for similar reasons — wanting a good guy who could still contribute to get a chance to close out his career with a ring). Livingston was taken 2 picks later by the Clips. Livingston, like Jones, might have been waived but that was the one time during the 3-week draft that I immediately knew we made a mistake. I guess better the 15th than 1st round.
(2) The Iverson trade, but just b/c we gave up too much when we probably could have gotten a similar 1A-star (Iverson, Billups, etc) later for a little less.
6. Outlook for the coming seasonThe Orlando Magics feel like anything less than multiple Finals appearences will be a disappointment. As much as we really like the other GMs (TPs for everyone!!) in the Southeast Divison, we feel we are the best constructed, most talented team. And while the matchups with New Jersey, New York and Detroit look tough on paper, we think the edge goes to the Magics for getting through to the Finals b/c of (a) our unparalleled championship experience in the East and (b) our superior talent and depth in the frontcourt, where titles are won and lost.
We will now open the floor for questions, comments, praise and ridicule.
“Ubuntu, Y’all!”