[high floorParticipant]

Read a very interesting article by Orlando’s beat writer, Mike Bianchi, today regarding orlando head coach Steve Clifford’s candidacy for Coach of the year. Those that read Bianchi, he is a very outspoken critic of this team…. and rarely holds any punches back. I tried to add the link but was having some problems…. so just google mike bianchi magic playoffs and you’ll find it. 

Personally, I feel that there are many candidates that are deserving of the award this season (Coach Bud, Mike Malone, Doc Rivers, Nate McMillan, even Dave Joerger to a lesser degree). But Clifford has at worst clinched the seventh seed for his team, amidst widespread speculation that Orlando would not even sniff the playoffs. Their Vegas over/under was 30.5 games.

The premise of Bianchi’s article was that Clifford saved a franchise. A franchise that was mired in a historically bad 6-season stretch of losing. A team that had no noticable star player to build around after six trips to the lottery. And he won this season with a team that was very similar to last season’s 25-57 squad. Orlando has the 4th best record in the league since January 31st, a 20-9 stretch. They are very disciplined, averaging the 4th lowest turnovers in the leage. A hallmark of a coach clifford team. And they are a terrific defensive rebounding team. He realized that Vucevic was the team’s best player, and empowered him as the focal point on offense. Resulting in his first all star season. He convinced Terrence Ross that the team was best served with him as a sixth man. So Evan Fournier could help facilitate more offense in Clifford’s balanced attack in the first unit. Ross has responded with a terrific season & was invaluable to the team’s bench.

No, I do not think Clifford will win. But I do feel he should finish in the top 3 in votes. He has done an outstanding job.

[Dazzling Dunks and Basketball BloopersParticipant]

Actually reminds me quite a bit of the job Clifford did with the bobcats in 2013-14, when he took over a team that had seemingly been awful forever with few expectations and led them to the eighth seed that season. Really found a way to maximize the talent he had on the roster and somehow built an adequate offense around al Jefferson’s low post scoring, and managed to hide him enough to build a competent defense. He didn’t win the coach of the year that season and I don’t think he wins it this year either, but he at least definitely deserves some recognition for the job he did. He’s a grinder who gets the most out of the talent he has. 

I guess the question for Orlando and Clifford is where do they go from here? In Charlotte, he was never really able to build on the momentum from that first season and the team basically remained mediocre throughout his tenure (although a lot of that can certainly be attributed to poor decisions by management). Orlando has some interesting decisions to make this summer. Do they spend big money to bring Vucevic back, a guy who is coming off a career season, but has limitations that may prevent him from ever becoming a true franchise guy? Is the goal going to be to just challenge for a low seed in the playoffs going forward every season? Is there a realistic path to build something more with this current roster? 

  

[The GoatParticipant]

 It will be interesting to see if they bring Vucevic back or not. If not, could it be possible to entertain an offer to Kemba and reunite him with Clifford? In getting themselves to the playoffs, my concern is that they have hit that no-mans-land, missing out on lotto picks and really pushing it trying to get out of the first round moving forward. They’ll need to heavily rely on the development of Bamba and Isaac. Clifford has done a really good job though.

[HitsterParticipant]

 Clifford has done a good job in Orlando but I don’t see him quite being up there foir Coach of the Year.

It will be interesting to see what the Magic do as regards Vucevic, we all thought they would still be in complete rebuild and when they retained Gordon and drafted Bamba the consensus was they might look to trade Vucevic or even let him walk. But with him having put up 20 ppg, 12rpg and 3.8apg as well as earning his first All Star nod there must be a strong consideration to keeping him.

I’m not sure exactly what sort of max deal he could get but his money will likely double at least to over $25 million a year and as he turns 29 this year it is his likely one mega contract offer. He has been in Orlando for 7 seasons now and moving elsewhere he’d leave a lot of money on the table. But would the Magic sanction a max type deal for Vucevic with Isaac and Bamba already on the books.

They may not seem a likely landing point for Kemba but it could just about be done if they streched and bought out Mosgov, it gould get their cap down to say about $73 million this summer. If the cap level then goes to a rumoured $109 million then they can make Kemba a max or near max offer. But that would mean Vucevic moving on.

[kobyzParticipant]

 He did something no one imagine possible, taking Orlando and their mess to the playoff, should get a lot of credit

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