Orlando Magic Blog

Group Blog talking about the NBA 2009 Eastern Conference Champions. Due to the amazing success of the 2009 playoff run comments are now frequently deleted to kill offensive comments, incoherence, or asininity. Comments can no longer be anonymous and require either a Blogger or OpenID account.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Competition in East to get tougher for Magic next season

The Chicago Bulls, who had only a 1.7% chance of winning, are the surprise winners of the 2008 draft lottery, and will draft first with the Miami Heat drafting second.

The top two picks will almost undoubtedly be the two superstar college freshmen... Kansas State PF Michael Beasley and Memphis PG Derrick Rose. Both of them are can't-miss prospects (barring injury) and will have a significant impact next season for whoever drafts them.

The Bulls, who were the biggest disappointment of the NBA this last season, will be much better next season no matter which of the two they will draft. They have a talented group of players including Ben Gordon, Luol Deng, Drew Gooden, Tyrus Thomas, and Joakim Noah.

The Heat, after a disastrous season, will be much-improved also with the number two pick and a healthy Dwyane Wade for the whole season.

The Magic may not find it as easy next season to finish as the number three seed with the improved competition from the teams in the East; hopefully Otis Smith can make the right decisions this off-season so the Magic can be a legitimate challenger to either Boston or Detroit as the top team in the East.

posted by Mike from Illinois @ 3:41 AM  

3 Comments:

  • At 2:44 PM, Blogger Big Figure said…

    First thing first,any team playing rookies isnt going to be very good,there's just so much they have to learn about this league before they can put it all together,what you have to hope is that they can improve on the things that they dont do so well every year. Chicago cant draft rose with hinrich,duhon and gordon already playing point guard (unless they trade one of them of course),so they'll probably take beasley and play him together with deng at the forwards. Either way they are going to get younger,same for the heat. If rose is there at two the heat take him,but there again he's gonna take his lumps at that position in the east and the heat really dont have anything outside of wade and marion doesnt scare anyone anymore without steve nash giving him lob after lob on the break,so i dont really see the heat improving all that much,the bulls have more of a team in place but nothing the magic cant handle. For us i think we can actually get better and tougher throughout our roster,for so long guys that really arent ballers have taken space at the end of our bench and hopefully that will change this off-season. Carlos,pat and james's time is probably up. Looking at the other teams in the east,they all play traditional line-ups with a PF and Center,so we'll need to match up if were gonna take the next step,we were in the top four with the team we had so getting battie back to man the PF spot should make all the difference,letting him guard offensive minded bigs with his toughness and grit will allow dwight to be able to dominate games without having to waste a ton of energy guarding the other teams best low post player,this year he had to do that with two small-forwards on the floor in hedo and rashard,tony will protect dwight and more importantly we wont get killed on the boards with battie putting a body on folks. Dwight and tony played well under BSH who was clueless in his offensive approach,imagine how good they could be together under SVG. Rashard could move back to small-forward,and at that point i would favor bringing hedo off the bench and seeing if he could win the six man of the year award,two awards in back-to-back years would be awesome! But that leaves the shooting guard spot where i think we need an upgrade if hedo goes to the bench,there are options at shooting guard that can be added that would improve our toughness and make us a better team. For example a starting line-up of Nelson,maggette,lewis,battie and howard would give us a tough minded and physical starting five that i think could actually challenge the pistons next year cause we wont beat them playing two small-forwards. Then off the bench you would have keyon,keith,hedo,cook and marcin plus our first round pick(Mo Evans probably walks in this scenario,and JJ plus picks and cash gets traded to L.A. for maggette).

     

  • At 10:48 AM, Blogger Big Figure said…

    Another player that is possibly on the move would be Josh Howard. A line-up with J Howard at SG with jameer,rashard,tony and dwight would be formidable also. Looking at the draft prospects we will be working out next week,we may be in line to draft a PF in the first round and a SG in the second,whatever the case we should get two good players. My only wishes in a player that we draft is that the SG must be a solid defender that can shoot the three and create his own offense. As for the PF,if you draft a banger he has to be the dirty work type of player that will do the things that most players dont want to do,we have scorers. A PF with skills to develope would take time which with the team we have in place there's no need for that in my opinion.

     

  • At 7:53 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I have to agree with the line up of Corey Magette in the mix. I do also agree moving turk as the six man. If the Magic want to advance next year Magette is the right man to trade for what ever the cost. If Speights falls to the Magic then we should nab him. Trade JJ and for him. Clips need a pg. Draft C. Lee move him to PG Magette would be crazy not to come

     

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