The Ringer NBA Show - Ep. 5: What's Up With the Magic???

Episode Date: May 12, 2016

Quick pod: Bill Simmons and Ringer staff writer Kevin Clark (the world's only living Orlando Magic fan) discuss Scott Skiles's abrupt resignation and the Magic's always-confusing future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, it's the Ringer NBA show. We were taping this on a Thursday, early afternoon, West Coast time. OKC San Antonio's tonight. We will not have a take on that, but we do have Kevin Clark, formerly of the Wall Street Journal, now of the Ringer. One of, I think, the best football writers in the country,

but you're also more importantly, an Orlando Magic fan. I'm the one. You're the only Orlando Magic fan I've ever met. I love basketball. I wrote a 700-page book about basketball. I worked on basketball shows. I've written hundreds of basketball coms. I don't think I've ever met a magic fan.

And they fired their coach today after a year. And we were just sitting around and I was like, instead of just talking about it in the office, let's just turn the podcast on for 10 minutes. I don't say this lightly. This is the best day of my life. Great. I'm glad.

Because Skyles got fired or because you get through the podcast. No, I mean because Skyles is gone. He's out of my life. Yeah. A guy who allegedly develops young players where there's no evidence that he does that. He just ruins their lives. Yeah.

He just makes their lives. Hives harder and worse. He's allegedly defense first. Again, no evidence of that. Yeah. He was the wrong coach. He was, he was for that team, naming Skiles the coach of a young, raw team would be similar to like taking the Star Wars franchise and giving it to a guy who just hated scenes

in outer space. That's where we were at with Skiles. It, uh, in spaceships. Yeah. Wow. It was that bad. Yeah. It was, it just, who did he ruin the most, Oladipo?

I still believe in Oladipa. I would be trading for Aladipa right now. Well, first of all, I think the power struggle between he and Hennigan resulted in a Tobias Harris, you know. Push out. Push out. Who's a mistake? Yeah, bringing in two Skiles retreads, Jennings and Ilyasova. For no reason.

For no reason, except there was pressure to make the playoffs. There was a weird thought that went around that they weren't closing out games. They were playing these late, you know, blow it in the last 30-second games. Oh, we need veterans who can put us over the finish line. That didn't work. They got much worse. They were almost over in January, I think. Alfred Payton's confidence was shot after a while

because the problem was the interior defense, and everyone knew it. But then there'd be interviews and they say, Scott, what's up with the interior defense? And he'd say, well, Alfred Payton's not playing good enough defense, so they're coming full speed at Vukovic. So any chance Skiles got, he threw a... Do you think he was jealous of Alfred Patent's hair?

I mean, Skyless has no hair. He has a little bit, right? So I mean. He has to be very rare. He had to be very resentful. He's already probably jealous of everyone with hair. And all of a sudden here comes a point guard who's young, athletic, with a huge, beautiful, floppy bunch of hair. So, yeah, I would say that it was 98% the defensive lapses and 2% the hair.

It's when you have a young team like that and it's the wrong coach. It's almost like being a parent watching your kids in a situation that they're on some carnival ride and you realize they're too young for it or something. And it's just a nerve-wracking season, I'm sure it was like that for you. Yeah, I watch every game. And it's kind of like being stuck with the TV show that you just know is not going anywhere. Like the last three seasons of entourage. Yeah, yeah. Except imagine if you're watching the last three seasons of entourage, but you knew it was going to go on for another 50 seasons.

Yeah. That's sort of what watching the magic is like. So they have to figure out where they're going from here. What was the ideal lineup? Because every time I watched them, I found like they never had the right lineup. but I like their players. Like, I even like Chaining Fry for them. But I don't know, like, who should Chaining Fry have played with on that team?

Yeah, well, Chaining Fry was supposed to set screens for the shooters, like Mario Hizonia, okay? Who he buried. Who he buried. And Mario Hizonia was never on the court, and he couldn't play defense. He wasn't taught defense. By the way, defense first coach not teaching Hizonea had to play defense. Nobody know how to play defense. And so it was a team that never fit together.

Hanigan's really good at collecting assets, but I don't think he thought the whole thing through. The lineup, I mean, you know, you could play Gordon. It sounds like Sam Hanke by the way. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Where it's just like you're just buying things at Best Buy and you're not thinking about if they all belong in the same room. I think the thing starts to fall apart when you consider that Vukovic can't really play much defense and then he's not fast enough to play the four or really play anywhere outside the five.

Is he officially like a good stats bad team guy? Like he's going to put up his 17 and 10. but you're going to win 30 games. Yeah. Danny Chow the other day, one of our editors here at the ring compared him to a very, very rich man's Enos Cantor. So I was going to ask that because I always, when I look at guys on bad teams

and I wonder if it's just their destiny to be in a bad team or you look at somebody like Enos Canter, it's like, all right, so if you put Vosvik in that Enos Canter's spot, could he have bang bodies, could he have played with Stephen Adams? I don't know if he could have played with Stephen Adams. But I think some of the skills he had he has could have translated that way, right? Or am I overthinking?

He is a good mid-range game. There's a lot of things he can do, but he's certainly not the best player on a top four Eastern Conference team. That's not going to happen. And right now, he is the best player in the magic. And you're paying him like $15 million a year. Right, exactly.

And in a couple of years... No, I don't think that was working. Again, there were too many defensive lapses. And again, part of that, Sciles probably had a point that the guys are going full speed at the basket. So is a problem. Because Peyton was probably having some laps of Sazonia, really was struggling the first half of the year.

I mean, I think the roster made so little sense. There were games in November, I think, where Shabaz Napier was getting fourth quarter crunch time plays called to him because he was the only guy who could shoot a basketball. He was a slashing kick shooter. Yeah. Napier fell out of the rotation shortly thereafter. But like there just wasn't the guy. There wasn't the Hito Turculu like we had five years ago who was going to say, okay, there's two minutes left. I'm going to carry the ball up the court and I'm going to make a quick three.

They're just not that guy on the team. So you had a big man who really can't be the only big man if you play small ball, right? You have Chaining Fry who's a screen and pop guy, but you have no shooter. No shooter. To be the guy who shoots so that the defense just goes with Cheney Fry. And then you have a team that can't shoot. Right. No outside shooting except a guy who can't get on the court in Hizoneo.

So why isn't this Rob Hennigan's fault? It's not. Okay, so it is Rob Hennington's fault in a limited sense, which is that he put together a team that doesn't make sense. And he was hoping that a coach could bring the best out of them and maybe Hizonia is the shooter who develops. And then the backcourt, Ola Dippo and Peyton develop as better superstars. Could you play Hizonia and Ola Dipo together as a back court?

I think you could have, yes. Hizonees also. Because they tried Ola Dipo, point guard. They tried Ola Dipo point guard. He was fine. Hizonia has floated something that I think no one is getting. giving enough attention to, which is he says that point guard is his natural position. So he said that in I think December, okay?

Let's take that at face value. If Mario Lozonia is quick enough and can guard point guards. Probably not. Probably not. But if you could develop into something like that, you would be, you have an absolute freak playing point guard. Remember, the magic ad Hito Turcalu playing point guard for large swaths of the final season in 2009, okay?

They had that tradition there of having, and also it makes, I mean, Penny Hardaway was an amazing tall point guard. We had that tradition there. I just think you might want to get a little more creative with Hezonia and find out ways to put him on the floor. And I didn't think Skiles wanted to do that. So Hizonia, Ola Depot, where does Gordon play, in your opinion? Is he a small ball five? Is he a four?

He's not a three. No, it's not a three. He is athletic enough to carry a unit at the five. We like Aaron Gordon. He killed the Celtics couple times. We love Aaron Gordon. He's developing a little bit of a mid-range. game, he's athletic, he's an energetic defender.

I love Aaron Gordon. So the future your team is the back court with Aaron Gordon and your lottery pick and all these other guys figure that part out later. If we can get an interior defender at 11, assuming we stay at 11. Is that your pick? Yeah. Why don't you have a better pick? We won too much in the first half of the season.

I didn't realize you were all the way at 11. Yeah. Oh, no. But there's two good. So Skyles really hurt you. We knocked you back like seven spots. Well, they won 10 more games than they did. under Jacques Vaughn.

They want to... But Jack Vaughn was like, I mean, it's like having a corpse. But you could have like this phone microphone thing we're talking into and he probably would have won 20 games like Jacques Vaughn did. The only thing Scott Skiles improved on

is that he was a better... The 10 games and he was a better guest on the Coaches Show. On the Coaches Radio Show. You can't sleep on that. No. No, I always like... Like even Brad Stevens,

I enjoy his pre-game shows, even though he's like a politician the whole time, but when you have a shitty coach, it's really bad. No, a great magic drive time guest. I remember when I did a game once where I was in the booth, and we met with the coaches beforehand when Keith Smart was the Warriors interim coach. And it was pretty rough.

Yeah. Just kind of, hey, Keith, so what do you see? And he was talking and I was like, wow, I could probably, we could have picked fans out of the stands who would have had more insightful opinions on this game. But I've also been in a thing like with pop. Popovich when you're in the trust circle. Because for some reason, if you're announced at the game, you're in the trust circle. And he was amazing.

I've heard that Belichick... Like amazing. Belichick is the all-time greatest production meeting coach, if he wants to be. Oh, if he wants to be. Oh, yeah. And I've heard Belich and Popovich are like the greatest dinner companions of all time. If it's like off the record, we're drinking wine. Nobody knows.

It's like those are the best. So your dream scenario. Oof. You want to keep... So who do you want to keep on this team? I still believe in Oladipo, and I still believe that Alfred Paiton has a role on a good team. So he's like a seventh man? Maybe.

Yeah, energetic, second unit guy. Yeah, third guard. He's long. I feel like he can play on a good team. I think you build around Aaron Gordon. I think Olo Dipo. You build around Aaron Gordon. Oh, no.

Well, what are you going to get? It's too bad you don't have any magic fans to talk to about this. Would they disagree with me? No, I don't know. I actually agree with you. Yeah. I mean, he is going to. to be, him and Hizonia

are the pieces that have to develop if this rebuild is going to make any sense at all. Because they're not going to get a superstar at 11. No one's going to come, I mean, give it cap space? Tons of cap space. You traded Harris. Harris was, that was a cap space move. But everybody has cap space this summer.

That's the problem. So Harris is basically you bought a Mercedes at the dealership and four months later. You're like, I'm just going to return this. I don't like the car. Well, we had to match the offer just to keep the asset. But how did you not know during the summer that you didn't like Tobias Harris.

That must have been Skiles. That was, so, so, so Skyles had Harris in Milwaukee and hated him. And so then they, and then I said he ended up with them again. Yeah, exactly. And so then they had to go through this weird dance where Skyl said, I have no problem with Tobias Harris.

He's quite. He, he, yeah, I love him. He was, you know, did everything he was asked of him. Meanwhile, Skiles basically begged Milwaukee to get rid of him. And that's why Harris, he was just thrown into a J.J. Redic rental trade. I'm not I was on the Tobias Harris Island and I'm I'm not sure now I'm wavering I might I might leave he's okay he's okay I do think he was good enough to sucker a team into giving up more

than Brandon Jennings and Ersinole's Sova that's for sure and why not wait for the summer Mike Keith Morris got a like a lottery protected pick they got him for that he's I feel like they're in the same phylum of forwards yeah I don't understand why you couldn't make more than two calls on that. Who do you want as your next coach? Frank Vogel. Okay. I just want an adult.

I would just like to see some of these players actually be developed. You know, Vogel actually took some of those guys in Indy and made them into actual players. I just feel like that would be a great fit. I think David Blatz out there. I think he'd be good. You win over Israel. Yeah, exactly. That's great.

That's a big win. O'N is a very international market. A lot of tourists and stuff. stuff. So, you know, you get the, you get some fans from Israel. You can do that. I'm going to give you 30 seconds to make your pitch to Frank Vogel. Frank? Frank, this is Kevin Clark talking. He's making a pitch for you. Frank. No state income tax. Oh, good one. I like how you started with that. Beautiful golf courses. I don't know if you're a golfer. He probably is. It probably is. Beautiful. We'll get you in Isleworth. I think Bubba Watson selling his house. He's moving in there.

young team, new building, Alfred Payton is ready to be developed. Mario Hizoni has confidence as an all-time low. He's already been broken down. It's your job to build him back up. You can do it. Trade chips everywhere because no one is untouchable. And the 11th pick, you can take whoever you want.

Build a future here. It's a very good franchise with lots of tradition of superstars, Shaq, Penny, T-Mack, Dwight Howard. I like we did there. You didn't throw on Grand Hill. Grand Hill was a superstar who played for the magic. He was not a superstar on the magic. We've also had Sean Kemp.

Fair. You know, we just happened to pay more. You had Vince Carter. We had Vince Carter, yeah. Hito Turquilu, magic legend. You had one of the great PED teams that's ever happened. You had two guys who were involved with PEDs, and Lord knows how many more. Right.

And then the third player in that ring was Dwight Howard who had a stickham scandal. Oh, that's true. You had multiple scandals. There's no one who's clean in that team. Your two highlights in the history of the franchise were the Nick Anderson game and Courtney Lee missing the alley-out. Well, we did win a finals game in 2009. Oh, nice. We beat the Lakers in game three.

Is it a weird opinion to say that I didn't feel like you were that far away from that Lakers team? If they played that series 10 times, I think like at least four of the versions go to seven games. This is the argument I make when I'm three drinks in at every bar. I just grab people. Let's save that. Okay. Let's save that. Okay.

That should be a, Joe, that should be a podcast for us, a rational fan evidence. Because I think there's a world where the magic win two of those ten times in the finals. And four go to a game seven. You don't need to convince me of this. Yeah. And we almost won in L.A. in game one. So we could have won in game seven in L.A. You kind of went toe to toe with them.

By the way, the best moment in Magic history, Richard hit a three in game six of the, I'm sorry, game four. of the 2009 East Finals against the... Right. Against the Cavs. I was going to say you beat LeBron at his first apex, and you beat MJ in a playoffs series, which nobody did in the 90s. Stan Van Gundy's performance against LeBron in 2009

was one of the underrated coaching performances. He just let him score and just said, we're going to take away the rest of the roster, which was Wally Zurbiac and God knows who else, Anderson Verajiao, and it was genius. And Dwight was really good in those playoffs. Very good. Young Dwight was great.

We had an argument. Chris Ryan, remember, and I, about whether Dwight's, Hall of Famer. I think he's 100% Hall of Famer. And I think the people don't realize it was the matchup problems that got the magic to that finals because no one could handle Rashard, Hito, and Dwight. Too many tall guys?

Unbelievable. I think Hito's ability to handle the ball really screwed with teams. They didn't know what to do. Here comes some 6-11 guy who can pull up and take a three at any point. Plus, I look at that team like I look at like the 1976 East German track and field team where it's just you know, the science that went into that team really

made it magical. No pun intended. Yeah. You want to plug your Andrew Luck interview? Yeah, Andrew Luck interview dropping Thursday night. We talk about his life. He started a book club. He's got some weird interests. We talk about that. Plus, we talk about the very interesting 2015 Indianapolis cult season in which basically anything that went wrong, anything that could go wrong went wrong. And we get into it all. That's going to be on the Ringer NFL show. And here's a quick clip. Oh, Kevin. It's an honor to be.

on the Ringer NFL show. Thanks for having me. Great. That was a clip from the Andrew Luck show. That was the best part. That's the Ringer NFL show. You can subscribe to that feed now. You can read Kevin when we launched the Ringer.

He's going to be kicking ass for us. And it's really fun to work with you. Glad to be here. All right. Check out the Ringer NBA show, The Watch. Keeping it 1600. And this is the Ringer NBA show. You can subscribe to all these feeds on iTunes,

SoundCloud, Google Play. Everywhere else. This was a Quicky NBA show. Enjoy. the basketball tonight. Thanks, Joe Fuentes.