The Warriors could realistically form a team with Lamelo, Curry, Wagner, Draymond and Sengün right now.

But they picked Wiseman, Kuminga and Moody instead.

A lot of people bring up Wiseman as the worst drafting decision by Golden State in recent years, but for me it was picking Kuminga over Franz.

That was such a baffling decision even back then because how much Franz seemed like a player Kerr would love (already good defense in college, high effort, great all around game, brings the intangibles, etc.).

The two man game he could have developed with Curry (either him feeding the latter kickouts from his drives or capitalizing on the immense gravity Steph brings) would have been incredible and the defensive pairing with Green downright terrifying.

Thank god they chose raw athleticism over skill there or otherwise we could be in a second Warriors dynasty right now.

Probably has something to do with 6 7

God Shammgod

I saw a high school clip of Black a couple years ago, where he was displaying change-of-direction footwork on his drives. That gave him a foundation to improve his ballhandling even though he wasn’t able to drive on defenders when he entered the league.

Last year when both Franz and Paolo were out this mad man still won games without them

Casual 68 TS% this season

Controversial topic amongst magic fans right now

Yeah.

Thin today

They’re still an elite offense, they just have issues on the defensive end which has led to their struggles on the road. But part of that was expected having a new coach and system.

same, finally buying in and pushing for greatness

bane has been cooking for several weeks now

We’re not even 20 games into the season

Franz+Paolo=😎

Brunson might be a problem, but he’s not THE problem. Knicks need to get it together bad.

I don’t really see how a tough 6 game series loss on the road in the Eastern Conference Finals after losing a heartbreaker in Game 1 is getting “exposed”…

It’s Brunson but also the fact that the starting line got OG carrying the perimeter D like he’s Atlas cuz Bridges isn’t like he was in Phoenix and you got Brunson at the 1 and KAT at the 4. They lack playable big wings, Bridges is too small and skinny to guard someone like Franz while KAT is too slow. Hart is a physical defender but he’s still only 6’4.

Comparatively GS was stacked with good defenders in the starting line 2-5 plus guys like Livingston and Iggy who could come in for the death lineup. Steph is both a better defender than Brunson and also has a much better defensive infrastructure around him in GS with Klay on the best guard, Barnes, Iggy and Dray guarding the best wings/forwards and Bogut/Javale/whoever was starter inside.

Not only is curry unique in that he could score in a way no one in nba history ever has or ever will, he also had an absolutely perfect cast around him for all his success outside of that final ring.

It’s not easy to win with a small guard as your best player. In fact its basically impossible and has only happened a few times in nba history with curry being most of those times lol

Yeah Brunson’s the problem and not the 60m dollar big man with no defense and 31% 3pt shooting

Comes down to coaching Mike brown was never a defense guy. They look lost and unorganized

Chill on us. Our PG was super injured (and still kind of is). We have a lot of flaws in our team with and outside of Garland, but our PG’s issues in the playoffs had nothing to do with size.

Regurgitating random lines you’ve heard from elsewhere, nice 👍

Brunson is unguardable in the playoffs

He kicks the tv over if he saw this.

Against the same team, too.

We’ve seen crazier finishes

The magic are a bad matchup for a lot of teams. Kinda like the Ravens in football.

Knicks aren’t a very physical team. They can blow a lot of teams out with their offense but they get punched in the mouth by heavy, strong teams like the Magic are. Magic make shit into a slugfest

I haven’t watched a lot of the knicks, but in the few games i have seen, it just felt like the team does not look as good as the single players do. The defence is just not good enough without og and offensively it isn’t as dominant as you would think a team with Brunson, Bridges and Kat could be. The names in the roster just seem a little scarier as an opponent than the actual on court production.

I was certainly grateful he had Mitchell Robinson guarding Franz for large chunks of the game.

The offensive system is fine and generates open shots. He’s bad at calling timeouts and lighting a fire under the team to get effort. The team has too much talent up and down the roster to be losing due to literally not wanting to play the game

run set plays

One big one that Mose seemingly never did was put our center on a non shooting wing and have him play help. We did that when Hart was in the game and trusted Franz to guard Towns. Plus we ran a couple of sneaky good backdoor cut plays in the 4th that led to layups.

Big issue last year was Paolo and Franz were the 3PA leaders and both were bad shooters.

Franz finding his shot again, TDS improving, Suggs being healthy and Bane addition should put us in a way better position. Hopefully Paolo can shoot better too but that might be a stretch.

I swear if this all sets up for OKC to take advantage and go back to back……

In the one game the Magic won last playoffs Franz was the best player lol

Game 3 against the Celtics 95-93 Magic win

Franz: 32/7/8 with only 1 turnover and 8 assists

Paolo: 29/6/1 with 4 turnovers on only 1 assist

Only one way to find out. I’m surprised as a Magic fan you can’t see with your own eyes how much better your team looks when he isn’t playing. Everything flows. Last year’s streak when Paolo was injured and Franz put the team on his back was the best basketball I’ve ever seen this Magic team play.

I mean, the actual results are saying something else.

But I do think they’ll be MUCH better if they ever get an extended stretch with Paolo healthy and jelling with the core.

They do not