6/6/2017 - Would our OPP community members make quality NBA general managers? We’re going to find out. The NBA Draft is an event that all basketball fans seem to enjoy. Orlando Pinstriped Post community regulars and new members alike have become all too familiar with following the draft in the last half-decade. Everyone has an opinion when it comes to the draft; prospects we love, prospects we think will bust; prospects we want the Magic to target, etc.I’m as guilty as anyone when it comes to my draft obsession, so I thought, why not celebrate my obsession with other OPP community members through a good ole’-fashioned fun, and (hopefully)-enjoyable community mock draft?For some of the OPP community members who’ve been around for a while, you may remember that Tyler Lashbrook orchestrated this Mock Draft exercise for a couple years, and then BigMac12111 followed his lead for a couple years after that. I’m just hoping to carry on the tradition and get a little community building going with Collapse

5/25/2017 - Dotson and Sindarius Thornwell top our list of potential diamonds in the rought The 2017 NBA Draft is the next big league event for all but two of the NBA’s fan bases at the moment. The Orlando Magic currently hold four selections (6th, 25th, 33rd, 35th) in the top-35 of this year’s draft, and will assuredly be ushering in prospects from around the country into Orlando for workouts throughout the next four weeks.It could be likely that the Magic decide to package one or two of their picks in the 25-35 range to try and better their roster via the draft, trade, etc. But for the moment, the Magic will operate under the premise that they will be using all of their picks to improve the team, and Orlando needs help everywhere.In the first part of this two part series, I will preview some backcourt options that should/will be available for Orlando when their picks are made. Everyone knows the names of the top guards available in this draft: Fultz, Ball, Fox, Smith Jr., Monk, Ntilikina. Collapse

5/23/2017 - Weltman has been in line for a head role for some time now, and will have the power to pick the GM that will work under him. Multiple outlets, including Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical, reported that the Orlando Magic have finalized a 5-year deal with Toronto Raptors GM Jeff Weltman to make him the Magic’s President of Basketball Operations. Weltman joined the Raptors in 2013, and was promoted to GM under Masai Ujiri last year. Before that, he had stretches with the Clippers, whom he started his NBA executive career with, as well as the Bucks and Nuggets. The move signals a shift in the leadership structure of the Magic to a President-GM relationship, an increasingly popular arrangement throughout the NBA. Weltman will have the authority to select his GM, though if the structure mirrors his experience in Toronto under Ujiri, Weltman will still have final say on personnel decisions. Early indications are that interim and former assistant GM Matt Lloyd will be retained in some role, Collapse

5/16/2017 - Complications at the top of the draft make things a little more interesting this year than most A couple weeks ago, Aaron put together an excellent preview of what’s at stake for the Magic entering tonight’s lottery. I strongly encourage you to read up on that to get an idea of the odds that the ping pong balls bounce in the Magic’s favor. I figured I’d put together a few other scenarios, too, including some more...exotic possibilities. Before we get to those, though, let’s start with the obvious: Best-case scenario: Magic pick 1st, Lakers pick 6th Not too much to say here. The Magic could sorely use the top pick to start building some momentum back in the right direction. The interesting twist, as with many of these scenarios, is that the ideal outcome involves not just the Magic’s positioning, but the Lakers’ as well. The Lakers conveying a first to the Magic doesn’t actually depend on them being 6th specifically, of course. They only have to fall out of the top-3, and if you Collapse

4/19/2017 - The NBA finalized the non-lottery First Round draft order Tuesday afternoon by settling some tiebreakers. At 3 p.m. Tuesday afternoon, the NBA settled a few tiebreak situations amongst teams around the league to square away the non-lottery first-round draft order for this June’s NBA Draft. The format for these proceedings involved ping-pong balls and a lottery machine; it was quite dramatic. Only the NBA, am I right?.The NBA held five separate tiebreakers, and one of the tiebreak-lotteries directly involved the Orlando Magic. Four franchises—the Toronto Raptors, the Los Angeles Clippers, the Utah Jazz, and the Cleveland Cavaliers—all finished the regular season with identical 51-31 records. The NBA needed to resolve who would be selecting 23rd-26th in the first round of this year’s draft. All four teams received three balls placed in the lottery machine, and the team whose ball at random was selected would be awarded the 23rd pick, and so on.Of course, the Magic received a 2017 Collapse

4/13/2017 - The Magic’s win was big, and they got some experience that was needed, but it came at a price. With hopes of making the playoffs for the first time since Dwight Howard’s last season in pinstripes, the Orlando Magic had high hopes going into the 2016/17 season. With a roster chalked full of new players, many of whom held high praise in NBA circles for their play on the defensive end, the Magic figured to be stout defensively. Add in coach Frank Vogel, who had built the Indiana Pacers into one of the best in the league on that end year after year, and it seemed likely the Magic would have some success. That, ultimately, was not the case, with the roster proving to be a jumbled mess, and Vogel failing to get the most out of his guys on that end consistently. As March approached, the Magic, fresh with a new look from a trade just before the leagues trading deadline, were in an all too familiar position of seeing their playoff chances dwindle with every passing game. Then, the losses Collapse

4/9/2017 - The offense was pretty good by Orlando’s standards, but it meant nothing when there was no defense to be had. The first quarter was one of those bizarre shootouts the Magic seem to get wrapped up in at the start of a game every now and then. For the Magic’s part, they shot 6-7 from deep, including three consecutive triples from Terrence Ross to give the Magic an early 9-4 lead. Aaron Gordon also added 9 points of his own for the Magic, who assisted on 10 of their 14 baskets in the quarter. The Pacers came back at them with equal force, using 7-7 free throw shooting and 2-3 makes from distance to fuel their own offensive outburst. It was clear right from the get-go that the Magic were going to have a hard time containing George early, and he led all scorers with 10 in the first, and the Pacers took a 39-38 lead. Like many of these early shootouts, however, the Magic were unable to maintain the scoring momentum on their end, while simultaneously failing to find any defense to contain Collapse

4/4/2017 - How could this happen? Just when it seemed like the painfully underwhelming 2017 NBA season was going to uneventfully come to completion for the Orlando Magic, the organization was able to accomplish what can only be described as inconceivable at this point. The Magic organization somehow found a way to again puzzle, confuse, and honestly amuse the rest of the NBA universe. No mas, enough already.In case you hadn’t heard, the Orlando Magic signed Patricio Garino and Marcus Georges-Hunt to contracts on Monday for the remainder of the season. Garino, an Argentinian who has spent his 2016-17 season in the D-League playing for the Austin Spurs, played for the Magic this past summer on their White team. That’s not the controversy. “Whiteboardgate” arose innocently via Twitter from someone close to Garino who posted a picture of the swingman signing what looked to be a contract. Unfortunately, in the background of the photo, a whiteboard with some very interesting names of players Collapse

4/1/2017 - The Celtics have dominated the Magic this season with two 30-point wins, but this one was arguably the most deflating. After the Orlando Magic suffered an epic collapse in their last outing, giving up a 21-point lead to Russell Westbrook and the Oklahoma City Thunder, they were given a chance at redemption against the Boston Celtics at the TD Garden on Friday night. Like Deja Vu, the Magic would give up a 17-point lead in Boston, falling to the Celtics by a final score of 117-116. After the two teams traded blows in the game’s final minutes, the Magic grabbed an Isaiah Thomas miss with just over 10 seconds left in the game. Frank Vogel elected not to call a timeout, and Magic point guard Elfrid Payton’s layup rattled off of the rim as time expired. There was a bit of contact on the last play, but at the end of the day, Payton called his own number and came up short. “[forgoing the timeout] was our plan that we had from morning shootaround on,” said Vogel, “we all knew that was Collapse