The more I look at this post, the more I just find it laughable. You really need to look at things from a baseball-like VORP perspective (Value Over Replacement Player). When you do things like that, you'll see that it's the C's that have improved dramatically, not the Magic. Let's examine rosters.
2009 Magic
PG Alston
SG Lee
SF Turkoglu
PF Lewis
C Howard
Bench
PG Johnson
SG Reddick
SF Pietrus
PF Battie
C Gortat
2010
PG Nelson
SG Carter
SF Lewis
PF Bass
C Howard
PG Johnson
SG Reddick
SF Pietrus
PF Barnes
C Gortat
I mean where's this dramatic improvement? Is Nelson better than Alston? Yes, but not dramatically so, especially considering how Alston played last year. Elsewhere in the starting lineup they lose Turkoglu and Lee and add Carter and Bass. That's about a wash. On the bench they add Barnes, but where does he really fit in? If they really want to get Gortat serious minutes, they're going to have to play him next to Howard, which means Barnes isn't going to get any minutes at the backup 4. That leaves him as part of the 2/3 rotation. Lewis and Carter are each going to see 35 mpg or so, leaving a whopping 25 mpg for Reddick/Pietrus/Barnes, who are roughly equal in talent. So in many ways, the addition of Barnes is absolutely meaningless unless there is an injury, as there's really only room for one of those three, and at best two.
As for the C's, the playoff roster looked like this:
PG Rondo
SG Allen
SF Pierce
PF Davis
C Perkins
PG Marbury
SG House
SF Allen
PF Scal
C Moore
Even leaving Baby and Marbury out of the equation for now, the roster looks like this for next year:
PG Rondo
SG Allen
SF Pierce
PF Garnett
C Perkins
PG House
SG Daniels
SF Daniels
PF Wallace (put Scal here if you like)
C Wallace
We see a dramatic improvement with KG over Baby in the starting lineup. More importantly, we add a player in Wallace who not only is better than anyone we had off the bench against Orlando last year, but is actually better than Baby. That means that in a series against Orlando next year, we will always have a better 4/5 combo on the floor than we did for any minute of the series last year.
Similarly, at the 2/3 spot, we'll now have a guy in Marquis Daniels who is clearly better than anyone we had last year. This will dramatically improve the rotation as well. Instead of going undersized defensively at the 2 with guys like the 6-2 Marbury or at the 3 with the 6-4 Allen, we'll now have the 6-6 Daniels to lock down both positions. Beyond that, Daniels has proven that he can contribute to a championship caliber rotation in his time in Dallas. That's more than we can say for the rusty and hesitant Marbury and the perpetually boneheaded Tony Allen.
Ultimately, the Magic have simply replaced outgoing players with comparable new ones. The C's, on the other hand, have dramatically improved areas of huge vulnerability by adding high quality players.
I thought the depthless C's (with a healthy KG) would have beaten the Magic last year in 5-6 games. Now with a bench they can actually rely on, I think they'll absolutely destroy them.
Topic: Magic make another pickup with Barnes puts them ahead of Celtics/Ainge (Read 27393 times)