2023-2024 Regular Season Game 58: Orlando Magic (32-25) at Atlanta Hawks (24-32) - 7pm

[richi_v25]

The fact that they picked Jett 11th over all possible players available at that point in the draft implies he holds a high value to them.

That isn't the point I'm making. The other players on the board are irrelevant.

The point is Jett went 11th because the Magic were picking 11th and liked him. Not because he was worth the 11th overall pick.

Had the Magic been picking 18th instead of 11th, Jett would have gone 18th.

Oh, I got your point while putting my kid to bed. You are saying Jett's actual value is much worse than 11. I don't disagree with you there, he looked like a terrible prospect to me and was mostly mocked outside the lottery.

That said, my point is that the same talent evaluators took Jett 11th and Houstan 32nd, so they think one is a lotto talent and the other is a fringe NBA player. So holding talent evaluation constant which you can do cuz it's the same talent evaluators it makes more sense to prefer Jett to Houstan. And considering they selected Jett 11th it implies they expect Jett to have lottery talent upside, upside that includes All Star outcomes.

I too put my kids to bed they have school in the morning, the weekends go by way to fast.

[Mauro Pedrosa]

I’m tired boss

[richi_v25]

I actually think Franz has a bit of the same problem Markelle has (when he’s healthy) in the respect that they both drive to the basket a lot, but when they do drive, they’re primarily looking to actually put the ball in the basket. They’re not looking to get contact and draw a foul.

There are numerous possessions every single game where Paolo drives and knows 1-2 dribbles into it that he very likely isn’t going to make the shot, but he doesn’t care because he knows the defender isn’t in a position to do anything but foul him. A little yelling, a little embellishment of the contact and you go to the line for two.

Franz doesn’t really do that. He and Markelle will both twist their bodies and do crazy long strides or goofy foot jumps or aggressive Eurosteps to actually avoid contact and give themselves the best possible chance of actually making whatever shot they put up.

If he was better and more willing flopper, his FT rate would probably spike given how often he goes to the rim.

Pb yells on every drive like he's getting killed, he even did it in the meaningless all star game but it works.

[thelead]

Jett has a handle. Houstan does not. I'll take Jett because of that alone. That said, they're both on the team and are young. Hopefully they both become the shooters we need.

[Knightro]

That's a lot of counterfactual leaps you need to make in order to bridge the difference between Jett and Houstan. Not worth the squeeze. Just use Occam's Razor and accept that Jett has more upside and more value than Houstan to the Orlando Magic organization.

Jett has more value that Caleb does from a pure resources invested perspective, certainly.

But from a practical perspective, I don't think it's true.

[Knightro]

Jett has a handle. Houstan does not. I'll take Jett because of that alone. That said, they're both on the team and are young. Hopefully they both become the shooters we need.

I’m not sure Jett truly has the first step or the explosiveness to actually take advantage of the fact his handle is better than Houstan’s.

I would love to be wrong, but I just don’t see a very good prospect in there and the fact that he literally can’t get a single non-garbage time minute on a team that can’t shoot or score is a massive red flag to me.

And for as much as we rag on Houstan for being BBQ chicken out there defensively, that was one of the very biggest knocks on Jett as a prospect too.

[eyriq]

Goga with 19 mins, +1
WCJ with 34 mins, -11

Suggs with 28 mins, +3
Cole with 30 mins, -22

Fultz was hot garbage as usual

[CocoaFan]

Franz issue is he became a two level scorer when he was 2.5 or 3 levels.... For whatever reason he completely discarded the midrange out of his game except for floaters.... He's either driving or shooting a 3 but for him to take a step forward he has to shoot those middys like he did in his second year.... They're locking up the paint, dejounte Murray just killed us in that 3rd with just middys for the most part

Sent from my [Hands] using RealGM mobile app

I agree actually, he needs a bit of wiggle in his game.

He seems so mechanical at times. Like he's a beast when he gets rolling and then other times he sort of has that Ryan Anderson style of game which is.. fine but not elite.

Agreed, like I remember that little dirk fade he would do which he was hitting and hard to block.... This year he hasn't done that once, maybe he wanted to be more efficient but you need a bit more in your bag... He has it, he just doesn't go there anymore which is a shame

Sent from my [Hands] using RealGM mobile app

I think Franz will develop a mid range game. He's only 22 and he's going to have to to take his game to the next level. Teams are starting to play zone where they wall up and have 3 players waiting to guard Franz or Paolo when they drive to the basket. All the more reason to get a PG they can kick out to that can make shots.

[eyriq]

What a fugly game. 44.4% from the free throw line, 20 turnovers.

[eyriq]

6th Man Show pushing the "AB is the starting PG" narrative is a love letter straight to my heart.

[byeganyo]

That said, my point is that the same talent evaluators took Jett 11th and Houstan 32nd, so they think one is a lotto talent and the other is a fringe NBA player. So holding talent evaluation constant which you can do cuz it's the same talent evaluators it makes more sense to prefer Jett to Houstan. And considering they selected Jett 11th it implies they expect Jett to have lottery talent upside, upside that includes All Star outcomes.

This is not necessarily true though man.

Just because they picked Caleb at 32 doesn’t mean he wasn’t on their board much higher than 32 and they just had the good fortune (in their mind) that other teams didn’t evaluate him as highly as they did.

Just because they picked Jett at 11 means they had a high lottery grade on him necessarily either. It’s possible they only had high grades on like 7 or 8 guys and all of them were off the board and they simply had to pick someone.

It just so happens 11 and 32 were where they were drafting those two years.

If they had been drafting 18th and 25th, doesn’t it stand to reason they pick Jett at 18 if he’s there and Caleb at 32 if he’s there? Then all of a sudden they don’t see one guy as a lotto pick and one guy as a 2nd rounder, ya know?

That's a lot of counterfactual leaps you need to make in order to bridge the difference between Jett and Houstan. Not worth the squeeze. Just use Occam's Razor and accept that Jett has more upside and more value than Houstan to the Orlando Magic organization.

Houstan is playing more - he played more as a rookie and is playing more currently while roughly competing with Howard for a playing time. He is obviously better right now. They are both born the same year. Where they were picked doesnt matter anymore. He is also the only 2nd round pick we've decided to keep and is proving why. He is 15th in 3pts made out of all 2022 rookies, while being 24th in minutes played. So he is being used as a 1st round pick and is doing what he was picked for at above average level for his draft class.
It is very simple - the draft should not matter anymore.

[byeganyo]

Jett has a handle. Houstan does not. I'll take Jett because of that alone. That said, they're both on the team and are young. Hopefully they both become the shooters we need.

I’m not sure Jett truly has the first step or the explosiveness to actually take advantage of the fact his handle is better than Houstan’s.

I would love to be wrong, but I just don’t see a very good prospect in there and the fact that he literally can’t get a single non-garbage time minute on a team that can’t shoot or score is a massive red flag to me.

And for as much as we rag on Houstan for being BBQ chicken out there defensively, that was one of the very biggest knocks on Jett as a prospect too.

I liked Jett in the summer league and a lot of things can change in a year, so im not counting him out, but so far he looks like an all time blunder -49 minutes in the season so far, played without an injury is well a bit humiliating for a draft pick.

[eyriq]

This is not necessarily true though man.

Just because they picked Caleb at 32 doesn’t mean he wasn’t on their board much higher than 32 and they just had the good fortune (in their mind) that other teams didn’t evaluate him as highly as they did.

Just because they picked Jett at 11 means they had a high lottery grade on him necessarily either. It’s possible they only had high grades on like 7 or 8 guys and all of them were off the board and they simply had to pick someone.

It just so happens 11 and 32 were where they were drafting those two years.

If they had been drafting 18th and 25th, doesn’t it stand to reason they pick Jett at 18 if he’s there and Caleb at 32 if he’s there? Then all of a sudden they don’t see one guy as a lotto pick and one guy as a 2nd rounder, ya know?

That's a lot of counterfactual leaps you need to make in order to bridge the difference between Jett and Houstan. Not worth the squeeze. Just use Occam's Razor and accept that Jett has more upside and more value than Houstan to the Orlando Magic organization.

Houstan is playing more - he played more as a rookie and is playing more currently while roughly competing with Howard for a playing time. He is obviously better right now. They are both born the same year. Where they were picked doesnt matter anymore. He is also the only 2nd round pick we've decided to keep and is proving why. He is 15th in 3pts made out of all 2022 rookies, while being 24th in minutes played. So he is being used as a 1st round pick and is doing what he was picked for at above average level for his draft class.
It is very simple - the draft should not matter anymore.

So you think the narrative about the org wanting to get Jett PT in the G-League is BS? You think Caleb just flat out beat him out and is better?

[eyriq]

Quick comp of the G-League statistics:

Jett: 24.5% Usage, 20/3/3 on 46/84/37 shooting, +/- (1.9), ORtg 116.5, DRtg 113.1, NRtg 3.4
Caleb: 22% Usage, 16/5/2 on 41/91/37 shooting, +/- (-3.7), ORtg 107.9m DRtg 114.1, NRtg -6.2

[Knightro]

So you think the narrative about the org wanting to get Jett PT in the G-League is BS? You think Caleb just flat out beat him out and is better?

If the Magic drafted Jett with the intention of not playing him at all and basically sending him to the friggin G-League all season, then he shouldn’t have been the pick in the first place. Not with the 11th overall pick.

It’s obvious that Houstan, who isn’t all that great in his own right, beat him out.

There’s no reason for Houston or Okeke or Trevelin freaking Queen to have logged a single minute ahead of Jett, yet all three of them are ahead of him on the pecking order when there’s injuries and guys out of the lineup.

[byeganyo]

That's a lot of counterfactual leaps you need to make in order to bridge the difference between Jett and Houstan. Not worth the squeeze. Just use Occam's Razor and accept that Jett has more upside and more value than Houstan to the Orlando Magic organization.

Houstan is playing more - he played more as a rookie and is playing more currently while roughly competing with Howard for a playing time. He is obviously better right now. They are both born the same year. Where they were picked doesnt matter anymore. He is also the only 2nd round pick we've decided to keep and is proving why. He is 15th in 3pts made out of all 2022 rookies, while being 24th in minutes played. So he is being used as a 1st round pick and is doing what he was picked for at above average level for his draft class.
It is very simple - the draft should not matter anymore.

So you think the narrative about the org wanting to get Jett PT in the G-League is BS? You think Caleb just flat out beat him out and is better?

Right now very clearly - yes.
Admiral and Queen have more minutes for Magic this season than Jett. So even if we have to reach for GL guy, its not Jett. Maybe in a year thhings will be different, who knows. And Caleb is not a bum, he was considered top player in his high school class.
https://www.espn.com/college-sports/basketball/recruiting/playerrankings/_/class/2021

[Knightro]

Quick comp of the G-League statistics:

Jett: 24.5% Usage, 20/3/3 on 46/84/37 shooting, +/- (1.9), ORtg 116.5, DRtg 113.1, NRtg 3.4
Caleb: 22% Usage, 16/5/2 on 41/91/37 shooting, +/- (-3.7), ORtg 107.9m DRtg 114.1, NRtg -6.2

The G-League doesn’t mean anything man. I’m genuinely shocked you even went that route to cite those stats.

Trevelin Queen was quite literally the MVP of the G-League and is obviously not an NBA player.

[eyriq]

So you think the narrative about the org wanting to get Jett PT in the G-League is BS? You think Caleb just flat out beat him out and is better?

If the Magic drafted Jett with the intention of not playing him at all and basically sending him to the friggin G-League all season, then he shouldn’t have been the pick in the first place. Not with the 11th overall pick.

It’s obvious that Houstan, who isn’t all that great in his own right, beat him out.

There’s no reason for Houston or Okeke or Trevelin freaking Queen to have logged a single minute ahead of Jett, yet all three of them are ahead of him on the pecking order when there’s injuries and guys out of the lineup.

I'd believe you if the same organization didn't put Black on the 3rd string roster. They clearly gave established players an advantage in tryouts because continuity with the most injury prone roster in the league was such a high priority.

All the evidence screams to me that they approached this season like a gap year, thinking they could run it back and "try to win" with what they had while plugging lotto talent into their development pipeline with no real expectation of immediate playing time. You've said it before, they refused to pick a path. I don't think Jett got beat out by Caleb, I think politics favoring established players won the day.

[eyriq]

Quick comp of the G-League statistics:

Jett: 24.5% Usage, 20/3/3 on 46/84/37 shooting, +/- (1.9), ORtg 116.5, DRtg 113.1, NRtg 3.4
Caleb: 22% Usage, 16/5/2 on 41/91/37 shooting, +/- (-3.7), ORtg 107.9m DRtg 114.1, NRtg -6.2

The G-League doesn’t mean anything man. I’m genuinely shocked you even went that route to cite those stats.

Trevelin Queen was quite literally the MVP of the G-League and is obviously not an NBA player.

It really isn't that hard man, this is basic analysis 101, control for the competitive environment so that the differences between the two players can be taken as apples to apples. G-League stats allow you to control for competitive environment so you get a fair comparison between the two players. Both were rookies, both were in the G-League, Jett clearly clears Caleb. Sorry if you don't like the indicators.

[pennyfan94]

Man, a healthy CP3 (for a year) would work wonders for this squad, and even coach Mosley.