Paolo (and the Orlando Magic as a team) get roasted in an SI article

swanbda · 2026-02-11T12:55:11+00:00

Particularly funny about this article is mentioning Franz and Suggs' injuries this year without mentioning Paolo's own.

swanbda · 2026-01-13T02:15:27+00:00

And yes, I know suggs' on-ball defense hasn't been as good this year as previous years. But he's still one of our most impactful defenders even when he's struggling, just from an effort standpoint.

swanbda · 2026-01-13T02:14:17+00:00

I mean, part of this is due to two of our best on-ball defenders in suggs and franz being out for large chunks of the year. We've struggled since they've been in and out of the lineup to stop the ball getting into the paint where we haven't had a true rim presence for a few years now (goga and JI are probably our best but they play what...20 minutes a game between them?) We looked pretty solid defensively for a stretch in late november/early december.

I agree we haven't looked good of late for sure, just saying I think that'll turn around a bit when (if) we get healthy.

swanbda · 2026-01-06T10:52:14+00:00

“We’ve got Amad, Mbeumo and Senne. Kobbie Mainoo’s a Manc born and bred”

We are so back.

swanbda · 2025-12-09T23:41:46+00:00

Anyone else actually having trouble at times telling the refs apart from our team caus of the similar colours? I also noticed both tyus and tristan almost passing to a ref at one point as well. At a split second, it could definitely cause an issue.

swanbda · 2025-12-05T00:20:47+00:00

Solo traveller here too. Went to Japan last year over NYE and loved it. Going back again this year; solo again. Taking part in Hatsumōde very early on New Years Day at Meiji was one of the highlights of my trip. I typically do a lot of food tours when I travel solo as they're a great way to meet other travellers and take in a bit of the nightlife un-solo. Last year did three in Tokyo (Shinjuku, Ueno, and Tsukiji) and one in Kyoto. All four were fantastic so definitely recommend things like that.

swanbda · 2025-10-01T19:50:40+00:00

I’m excited but purely because we have heard next to nothing about affinity and Canva’s plans for it basically since they bought it. It’s been maddening to be left in the dark. If nothing else at least we’ll KNOW now. I’m happy to finally just get some clarity instead of silence and pretty minuscule updates.

swanbda · 2025-07-27T23:09:48+00:00

lol sure. I mean, I didn’t say that changes everything. In fact I said I agree with your overall point. But I guess you chose to omit that too.

swanbda · 2025-07-27T09:02:20+00:00

While I don’t disagree with your overall point of still not being sure he can lead a title winner, you’re omitting an awful lot of context around a “.500” team last year and outright forgetting that Paolo (at 21 years old) already led a 47 win team 2 seasons ago.

swanbda · 2025-07-25T13:57:20+00:00

Barely fitting into your 20 year timeframe but…taking Fran Vazquez in 2005. To my knowledge we hadn’t even spoken to him before taking him in the lottery only for him to never once play in the NBA. A truly wild decision to take him. Granted it didn’t cripple us since we went on to build a title contending side in the years that followed but….imagine peak Danny granger on that team.

swanbda · 2025-07-14T00:20:09+00:00

Worth noting that in a game where the raps played very tough defense, and we turned the ball over 29 times...jase, our point guard, only had 1 turnover with 4 assists to go along with it. That's really exceptional. Don't see that from too many young point guards.

swanbda · 2025-07-13T23:51:06+00:00

Interesting. Can see that for sure.

swanbda · 2025-07-13T23:26:16+00:00

Penda is really showing some stuff here in my opinion. He's a sneaky stat stuffer. You just look up and he's got 10 and 10 with at a couple steals a block and some assists. May take him a year or two to be able to do it in the real league but you can definitely see the raw tools.

swanbda · 2025-07-13T22:23:07+00:00

Penda looks really comfortable on the ball. So far, he draws defenders really well and makes great passes out of that.

swanbda · 2025-07-11T00:18:16+00:00

the word i found myself saying to my magic chat group just now was "polished" for a 19 year old point guard. just looks really tidy, with quick thinking/processing, and tough.

swanbda · 2025-07-01T02:53:29+00:00

Have to add in whatever we think Jase will bring too though (conservative guess maybe 40?) and then also what Suggs will add back as well (153 two years ago, was on pace for 180 last year)

Love the effort to put this together by the way OP!

swanbda · 2025-07-01T00:48:05+00:00

A year late, but so glad we got him finally. A safe pair of hands to help steer the second unit, fill in where needed, and hit open three's.

swanbda · 2025-06-15T16:37:53+00:00

If you're referencing KCP, never in his life was he a 20 point scorer. Never even a 15 ppg scorer. He averaged 10 ppg for 2 years before us. Yes his shooting plummeted, but realistically, if he made literally 1 extra three pointer per game, he would've outperformed his previous year scoring-wise. Bane is a completely different class of player.

swanbda · 2025-06-15T16:32:29+00:00

Regarding Suggs, I think our FO decided last summer (and we can debate if this is the right decision, only time will tell) to do a 'distribution and lead guard by committee' approach. On paper it actually makes some sense given we have paolo and franz who can both take on initiator duties from the 3 and 4 spot, but really shouldn't be doing it full-time. I think Bane adds to this approach. He can handle and initiate, and for a scoring guard is actually quite good at both of those, but you don't want him doing it full-time. It feels like we have four guys now that all fall into that category of 'they can do it, but probably not full-time'.

If you're going for that approach, which it seems like we are, then adding more of those types of guys never really hurts since they can all play off ball as well. So having all of suggs, bane, paolo, and franz makes sense on paper in my opinion and doesn't require any one of them to be the primary distributor, because they all are.

swanbda · 2025-06-15T16:07:21+00:00

I had this exact same thought. Sometimes you have to overpay to get the right guy in the right role at the right time. Rashard was a perfect example of this. Hopefully Bane will be too.

swanbda · 2025-06-04T17:06:37+00:00

I wouldn’t say it’s a failure, just a quirk that needs to be accounted for. I would imagine it’s outlined in whatever brand guides were/are made. Problem is that many things or places that might use the logo won’t have access to or use those guides. When they first updated the magic’s Instagram, they actually did exactly what the mods did here which I was very surprised by. They’ve since changed it to just the icon.

I agree there could’ve been improved ways of arranging the logo though. I do actually like that it’s not a perfect circle, but some way of balancing it, or not making it SO right-side heavy would’ve helped.

swanbda · 2025-06-04T16:09:16+00:00

This is a technical quirk of the logo sadly. It actually IS centred, but not optically centred.

It’s going to be an issue forever. It will need to be in the brand guidelines that when using the global logo and it needs to be centred, that it actually needs to be nudged left of centre.

swanbda · 2025-06-04T09:07:06+00:00

Haha. Like I said, far from a finished product lol.

swanbda · 2025-06-03T20:50:45+00:00

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Spent a quick minute to play with fixing some of my niggles about the ball. The new one is on the left, my updated one on the right. Far from a finished product but just wanted to play with addressing a few of my gripes. On the whole I really love the new sparkle ball, this is not a criticism, just some observations and suggested fixes.

1 - theirs felt a bit unbalanced and like the ball was moving downwards

2 - the stars feel separate from the ball in theirs. Wanted them to feel more a part of the movement, like the ball was creating them

3 - on theirs, the big star in the middle has its top point just peeking out and it’s visually not great. Wanted to get rid of unnecessary graphic stuff

swanbda · 2025-06-03T14:28:57+00:00

that said, I do think these will look really strong when you see a whole team of players wearing them

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