The Magic Make A SNEAKY Good Move...

The Magic make a sneaky good signing, bringing a former first-round lottery pick to fight for a regular season rotation spot. But one reporter thinks the move was completely unnecessary. And speaking of reporters, the Ringer's Michael Pena has pissed off a lot of fan bases with his NBA power rankings. But I'll tell you why I actually agree with where he has the magic. We'll get into all that and more on this episode of Magic Digest. What's good with it? It's your big uncle, Eric. Welcome in, tap in. Go ahead, jump in those comments. Let's go ahead and get involved. I'm excited, man. Woke up today in Central Florida and it was cooler than the other side of the pillow. I was like, ooh, this is my time of the year, man. And you know, I wanna say thank you. I hope it's feeling good wherever you at. Let me know what it's like and why you're doing that. I'm gonna let you know that this video was brought to you by our good friends over on Calshy. 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If you're interested in trying out Calshi, use the link in the description and pin comment and code DigestNBA to get $55 added to your account instantly when you trade your first 25. Again, that's big thanks to our friends over at Calshi. Now let's go ahead and get into it, man. We have this report by nba.com. In fact, there was a bunch of training camp related news that came out recently with less than a week. Oh man, training camp starts next week. This off season has been taking forever, so I was excited. But let's go ahead and get into this. The Orlando Magic have signed free agent Ford Kevin Knox, the second president of basketball operations. Jeff Weltman announced per team policy, terms of the deal are not disclosed. Knox, a 6'8", 215 pound player, played and started in 26 regular season games last season with the Windy City of the NBA G League, averaging 22.7 points per game, 8.2 rebounds per game, and 2.5 assists per game in 34.7 minutes per game, while shooting 41% from three point range and 83% from the free throw line. So Kevin Knox, man, I remember him being signed by the Knicks. You know, he was supposed to be a really big athletic wing. And he was a lottery pick. You know, this guy is one of those guys who you just hope would turn into some sort of potential, even like an Obie Toppin level of big forward who could hit the shot and rebound and do things like that. And he just never has come to fruition fully in the NBA. When I saw this, at first I saw people saying that, yeah, with the way he was shooting last year, that could help improve the Magic shooting. And I was just like, I don't know. I don't know. And I did a little digging and I'm not the only one who has their concerns. Don Struble, who covers the Magic for Yahoo, had this to say about Kevin Knox. In seven NBA seasons, since he was drafted by the New York Knicks with the ninth pick in the 2018 NBA draft, Knox has a career 39.3 field goal percentage and a 34% three point percentage. He has played in 320 games at the NBA level and he has proven that he is not a shooter. And I mean, it's one thing to be in the G League, looking good, killing it. Then what do you do when you get your opportunity playing with the big boys? What do you do? How do you take advantage of that? Do you make your staple? And that seems to be the problem with a lot of guys who just never quite hit in the NBA. You don't become elite enough at one thing to just make you indispensable. If you look at the guys who have long careers, who were veterans, they get really good at one thing at least. You can point to them and say, this guy does this really well. I don't know if you can really say that about Kevin Knox II. Don Struble goes on to say, for Orlando, this signing just did not feel necessary. It is understandable that the roster needed to be filled out with training camp less than a week away, but the front office could have added a player with more upside. And I don't disagree. I really think that this front office has been making moves this whole off season that I and a lot of people are just questioning. What are they doing? What is the goal here? If you tell me, I get it. You gotta bring in a player to fill out the roster. This is pretty much what that move is. We're not gonna spend too much time on Kevin Knox as he's not gonna be, I doubt he'll actually be with the main team this year. If he does, cool. But all of this is training camp machinations to get guys in and to get them paid. There was actually a couple other moves, guys who were signed to 10 day deals or exhibit 10 deals and then immediately waived. And that's because they can end up with the Osceola magic and get a little bit of bonus this year, almost like a guaranteed contract, if you will, bonus. But if we look at the roster going into training camp, we are now officially at 20 players. So I have it up here on the screen. If guys are gonna be cut, I'm sure it'll be names like Malachi Branham, JD Davidson, Colin Castleton, Kevin Knox II, guys, Alex Morales. These guys will probably be back and forth between the magic and the Osceola team. There's some two-way contracts in there. We still got the rookie, Isaiah Nelson. We don't know exactly what his status is of now, but when we find out, we'll definitely update you. Now, there's also, I wanna keep it moving with this article that has a lot of NBA fan bases, like crazy. And I understand. I definitely think that it can be tough when you see your team not getting the love that you think they should get. Like, it really becomes, it's like, it seems like they're constantly getting crapped on and you're like, what did they do? I'm talking about the Ringer's Michael Pina and his NBA rankings. It has really had a lot of fan bases just angry. Like, almost to the point where, you know, people are rioting in the comments. They are questioning his knowledge, all of that. Let's take a look at them here. Let's see, we'll take a look at it. For the most part, and I understand some of them where they're like, you got the Lakers ahead of the 76ers and the Timberwolves. Crazy. You know, you got the Pelicans higher than the Trailblazers, which I just don't know. I do not know. You have that Utah Jazz team that I said, I feel like they'll be good. You have them over the Miami Heat. Man, okay, but he had the magic at 15. So he has the magic behind teams like Minnesota, Cleveland, the one where I can see if you really wanted to nitpick is Indiana, just because we don't know what Indiana is going to look like. But if we look at how, where he has the magic and what he had to say. At number 15, Orlando has something, something has to give here. Orlando has the league's third highest payroll, a monstrous tax bill, and not for nothing, zero above average offensive season since Barack Obama was first elected president. My apologies. I switched the graphic up in the middle of that read. That was totally unprofessional. Jamal Mosley was replaced by first year head coach Sean Sweeney this year. Maybe he will turn everything around, but on the personnel side, Orlando's answer to a wildly disappointing campaign was to bring back Nikola Vucevic. What? If Paolo Bencaro, Franz Wagner, Desmond Mayne, or Jalen Suggs gets moved before the trade deadline, don't be surprised. And I mean, that seems to be the sentiment going around the league by the national media. And even a lot of fans are saying, hey, we need to make a move. This front office needs to get on it. They are just leaving this team high and dry. I've said it before. I keep on saying it. I don't think it's going to happen. They're going to give Sean Sweeney at least a full year to evaluate and see what this team is looking like. Now, if we get to the trade deadline and there is a move that is just unmistakable, say there's a star who wants out and the Magic are willing to go get them, or there is some really good move, or this team is just trash. This team is not even at 500. They're kind of fighting to even get to 500, looking like they're not even going to make the play-in. Then I can see the Magic, the front office ready to blow it all up. But I don't predict that. I think the way this team looks going into the start of the season is pretty much going to be the way it looks going into the end of the season. But you guys let me know, what do you think about the Magic adding Kevin Knox to the training preseason rotation and these rankings by Michael Pina? Where do you have the Magic ranked? Let me know down in the comments. I'm going to get up out of here. It's your big uncle, Eric. Till the next time for Magic Digest.