Here's the link to the 5 reasons the Magic will not make the playoffs this year. Counterpoint to Swish's Article
I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that the East is loaded from. One look at the standings and you should be able to tell that the East is awful. 3 teams with an over .500 record. Atlanta and Philly had good starts but they've come back down to earth lately, as expected. Don't be mislead, they are mediocre teams at best. Not much has changed from each team's perspective from last season. Atlanta is somewhat improved because their younger players are developing but they are still a bad team. The Majic will have no problems in the East getting into the playoffs. Anything close to .500 will secure you a 5-6 seed. The Majic are 7 games above .500 right now so even if they're under .500 by 8-12 games the rest of the season, they'll still make the playoffs.
1) You took Dwight's quote completely out of context. Actions speak louder than words, anyway. Come on now, even ESPN writers admit we are not a fluke like the Warriors. We changed the makeup of our team at the end of last season-- that's why we won. We've gone 27-10 in the past 37 games, and there's still a lot of room for improvement. 2) Our playoff hopes do not rest on Darko. There are lots of us who still believe Darko sucks If Darko wants too much, he isn't going to get it. 3) How is our deepest position controversial? Arroyo has already said that he has no problem backing up Jameer. And Jameer starts every season playing like crap. Ain't no thang. Loads of room to improve. 4) We've yet to be tested? Beating that Atlanta team you think so highly of by 20+ wasn't enough? Beating the #1 team in the league, giving them their first home loss wasn't enough? We've gone 5-1 since you wrote this . It's not like we're playing great basketball either-- loads of room to improve. 5) There are 3 teams in the Eastern conference that are above .500. THREE TEAMS!! The East sucks!! The only players who can make significant contributons are Redick and Darko? Pardon? The "impact" that we needed to make the playoffs was to deal Steve Francis.
<div class="quote_poster">Eclipse Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that the East is loaded from. One look at the standings and you should be able to tell that the East is awful. 3 teams with an over .500 record. Atlanta and Philly had good starts but they've come back down to earth lately, as expected. Don't be mislead, they are mediocre teams at best. Not much has changed from each team's perspective from last season. Atlanta is somewhat improved because their younger players are developing but they are still a bad team. The Majic will have no problems in the East getting into the playoffs. Anything close to .500 will secure you a 5-6 seed. The Majic are 7 games above .500 right now so even if they're under .500 by 8-12 games the rest of the season, they'll still make the playoffs.</div> When I originally wrote the article, the teams in the East had better records, than their current standings. Maybe my choice of words was off by calling the East loaded, a better word would have been a lot of parity in the East. If you look at the Conference records of the teams in the East, most are playing .500 basketball. Everyone's beating up on one another in the East, and the teams who can win in the West have the strong records at this point in the season. The Magic have been on a tear since I wrote this article, especially Dwight Howard and his 20/20 games. Washington, Chicago, and Milwaukee have all been disappointing thus far, and the Atlantic doesn't have a single team over .500.
<div class="quote_poster">Chuck Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">1) You took Dwight's quote completely out of context. Actions speak louder than words, anyway. Come on now, even ESPN writers admit we are not a fluke like the Warriors. We changed the makeup of our team at the end of last season-- that's why we won. We've gone 27-10 in the past 37 games, and there's still a lot of room for improvement. 2) Our playoff hopes do not rest on Darko. There are lots of us who still believe Darko sucks If Darko wants too much, he isn't going to get it. 3) How is our deepest position controversial? Arroyo has already said that he has no problem backing up Jameer. And Jameer starts every season playing like crap. Ain't no thang. Loads of room to improve. 4) We've yet to be tested? Beating that Atlanta team you think so highly of by 20+ wasn't enough? Beating the #1 team in the league, giving them their first home loss wasn't enough? We've gone 5-1 since you wrote this . It's not like we're playing great basketball either-- loads of room to improve. 5) There are 3 teams in the Eastern conference that are above .500. THREE TEAMS!! The East sucks!! The only players who can make significant contributons are Redick and Darko? Pardon? The "impact" that we needed to make the playoffs was to deal Steve Francis.</div> The Magic have been impressive since I wrote this, I'll admit it. However, like I mentioned, I want to see how they do on their road trip. The win in Utah is great start and should give them a lot of confidence. To reply to your #3 response, winning solves a lot of problems for you. If the Magic had not gone 5-1 in the last 6 games, I'm sure there would be more drama surrounding the PG situation.
On the Dwight quote, seems to be stretching it too far considering talk like that is standard.. I mean I know for a fact Ray Allen talks about winning championships, ditto for Gilbert Arenas and I'm sure a host of other players who havent really achieved much The idea is always to set your goals as high as possible, after all But for the sake of writing the article I guess it works
Interesting post, write an article early in the season why the Magic wont make the playoffs and by a miracle of god it actually happens he looks like a genius... The way you wrote that article you might as well have said that the Mavs will be a lottery team, cuz they started off so poor... Let the hate begin....
<div class="quote_poster">NTC187 Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">They'll make the playoffs, but they arent winning anything.</div> What makes you say this?? I mean who in the East so far as dazzled you besides the Magic? I mean Dwight has played great as of late, Jameer has stepped up, Darko has been solid off the bench, and the bench itself has stepped up. The East has been horrible. Boston is winning their division with a 5-8 record. The 2nd place team in the Southeast division are the Hawks and they aren't even above .500. Arroyo doesn't mind coming off the bench. Ariza doesn't mind. Bogans doesn't mind. Darko doesn't mind. Everybody is playing great. The only small problem is Redick because of course he's gonna want minutes but he understands that the team is doing well of late so they don't need him.
the east is loaded??? wow, so 3 teams with a +.500 is pretty loaded...and cockiness??? dwight never guaranteed a championship...he said this team has the talent to win one, he didnt actually say "I guarantee the magic will win a championship this year"
