Fanshots

Half the Magic wins have happened when EP scores 18 or more points

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Seems when Elfrid Payton is offensively aggressive, our team does very well. When Elfrid Payton scores 18 or more points, the Magic win/loss record is 7-1. When he scores 20 or more points, the Magic are 5-0. This stat nugget of gold is definitely worth watching closely as the Magic continue to push for playoff seeding this year.

Finals or Bust

Good Question

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Mika Honkasalo ‏@mhonkasalo 3h3 hours ago Why is Jeff Green starting?!? Magic are -17.7 per 100 possessions with him on the floor. Green's defense is comically bad

https://twitter.com/mhonkasalo

Otis lives on

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D-League Digest ‏@DLeagueDigest 21h21 hours ago Detroit Pistons are expected to promote Otis Smith to front office position sources tell D-League Digest. 8 retweets 7 likes

https://twitter.com/DLeagueDigest

I miss Stan

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"I got screwed, OK? And I want to make this clear: When Sports Illustrated came out with their 50 most fashionable people in sport, the fact that I wasn't on that list is a travesty. I mean, I'm known for my fashion, am I not?

http://espn.go.com/blog/nba/post/_/id/18241/stan-van-gundy-has-a-beef-with-most-fashionable-list

Oladipo/Payton No. 9 Backcourt

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Because argument and rage are the source of all modern entertainment, here are the top nine young backcourts in the NBA. Criteria: which backcourt would you want for success over the course of the next four seasons? Remember that I am infallible before you disagree..... No. 9: Elfrid Payton and Victor Oladipo This duo is lower than you might expect for a couple of reasons. The first is that Payton, though young, is a tremendously horrific scorer. His current True Shooting percentage is .435. He's averaging 0.86 points per shooting possession. League average is 1.06. It's a huge difference. The other is that Oladipo is probably not the best shooting guard in Orlando (Evan Fournier) and within three years might be the third-best shooting guard on this current roster (Mario Hezonja)! That's primarily because Fournier and Hezonja are neat -- Oladipo is real good, too -- but it doesn't inspire confidence in the future dominance of Payton-Oladipo. That's all.

Tom Ziller's The Hook, "Brandon Knight is turning into one of the NBA's best guards" Nov 18, 2015

Why Tobias Harris is a breakout candidate

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If Harris starts to figure things out defensively under Scott Skiles and continues to improve his shooting stroke, he’ll morph from a player with no real position into one capable of starring at either forward spot.

Yaron Weitzman of SB Nation NBA on why Tobias Harris is one of ten young NBAers set to have a breakout season

Scott Skiles dishes on Magic's defense

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Well, the defensive end has to be addressed. One of the things that jumps out at you is this team was eighth in the league in defensive rebounding percentage as a young team, so that's a good defensive rebounding team, but we're leaving offensive opportunities on the table because we don't get enough stops. So that end has to be addressed, and I'm totally confident that this is going to be a much improved defensive team.

Scott Skiles, in an interview with Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated

Alex Martins on the Magic's coaching search

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"We’re not sticking ourselves to any sort of timeline. We’ve had an incredible amount of interest in the job."

Via Zach Lowe of Grantland

another writer sees Vaughn in trouble

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sixers_steve What’s wrong with the Magic? I really thought they would be better than this. Is the coach the problem? Mary Stevens All signs are pointing to coach Jacque Vaughn. They have several young talent players but something (or someone) is not working. Some have criticized Vaughn’s style of managing his players (for example, Maurice Harkless and Andrew Nicholson). I am based out of Orlando and have gone to every Magic game in the past three seasons. From talking to players and being in the locker room I get the sense that the coaching staff and the players are not on the same page. This is just making things harder for both the players and the coaching staff. If things don’t start going in the right direction I don’t see Vaughn being around another season.

http://www.basketballinsiders.com/chat/nba-chat-with-mary-stevens-12715

Bill Simmons take on Vaughn

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because we have to take every current Magic player’s career with a grain of salt — it’s unclear whether Jacque Vaughn should be managing a Costco, much less coaching an NBA team. That reminds me: There’s a heated six-way race right now between Vaughn, Monty Williams, David Blatt, Byron Scott, Scott Brooks and Ty "I’m Baaaaaack!" Corbin for 2015’s coveted Vinny Del Negro Award, given annually to the bumbling NBA coach who generated the most night-to-night Twitter snark.

http://grantland.com/features/2015-nba-trade-value-part-1/