What Chris Paul's Meeting with New Orleans Hornets Management Means for the Orlando Magic

The issue is that Otis Smith has made some grave errors in judgement which may in the end cost this franchise its first ever championship. What the Magic need now is some cap flexibility to make some moves and bring in a few more pieces, or 1 more very nice piece.

The grave errors were:

1) Rashard Lewis. This was a tragic error of mass proportions! To pay Rashard soo much money was pure lunacy. No one at the time understood it, and no one understands it now. Believe me, I was raised in Seattle, the sonics used to be my team, and so i have very good feelings towards Rashard. It’s just that he is not worth anything near the contract he got. And it’s not as though he didn’t live up to expectations, he has lived up to expectations and still is no where in the same vicinity of the contract.

2) The Vince Carter move. Luckily his contract was only 2 years long so it won’t cause too many problems. However, he was NEVER going to be the answer for a ring. He simply is a loser. I’ve been arguing this very same point since he was signed. A loser doesn’t come through in the clutch, they don’t come big in must win playoff games, they don’t carry teams in important times —-that’s a thing winners tend to do. And so picking up VC was never going to result in a ring. Now 1-2 years of Dwight’s prime are lost, cap flexibility over those years were lost, and some key pieces were lost (c lee anyone?).

3) Bass/Gortat. For the life of me i cannot figure out what in the world Otis was thinking with these two. They are overpaid and don’t fit anything you guys are doing in Orlando. The excuse for Gortat was most amazing as he said the reason was they couldn’t just “give away” assets or something to that effect. Well, you wouldn’t have given anything away, you would have saved $35m dollars for a backup center that barely plays. And then to sign Bass while the coach never gives him a chance. Bass was simply a bad fit.

Those were the errors, however, the positives are that some HUGE championship pieces are in place. The most important, obviously, Dwight Howard. Then you have role players like Jameer and JJ, etc.

All you guys are missing is an offensive post threat. If somehow you could have picked up Bosh, or next year Carmelo, i think a dynasty would have been born. The issue is that due to the mistakes of the past, you don’t have the cap room to sign anyone like that. You’re stuck in “mediocre” championship contender mode, which in the current climate is good enough to make deep playoff runs but not good enough to win it all.

From where i stand, you don’t have many options. Hope that Dwight gets better on offense, but hoping is not a good solution to a problem. Hope you can find some gems in the draft? Again, see prior sentence. Gut the team completely and start over with your core? Make a play for Carmelo next year? Never for a team so close, even though Carmelo+dwight=dynasty.

I think the best bet is to attempt to get some final pieces by overpaying (again) while attempting to shed some salary the best you can. Perhaps just get Bass/Gortat out of there, but i’m not sure that there are many places that would take their contracts without giving you bad ones in return. I think the biggest key is move away from this offense and towards a more traditional one with an offensive minded PF. Bosh or Gasol would be perfect. Since that’s not happening, get the next best thing. There are some teams looking to get away from bad contracts, you may have to overpay for some talent which may put you guys over the top.

Tough position to be in, although not that tough since you are a championship caliber team after all! Sorry for the long essay…