 What's the word, y'all? Every time I'm trying to book somebody to come onto the show, I'll shoot a DM and say, hey, come on and talk about your favorite team for 10 minutes or so, and then it ends up being a 20 minute, 30 minute conversation because it is going so well. I wanna say shout out to Luke and Jonathan of The Six Man Show for taking the time to really talk Orlando Magic with me. There are a lot of really intriguing young cores around the NBA, but I really do like what the Orlando Magic have going on there. Palo Ben Carro is their first overall pick. Franz Wagner surprised me. I already got love for Wendell Carter. Jalen Suggs is there. You got Markel Foss like we can name drop young people in the core all day long. It's that deep. But y'all don't wanna just hear me talk. Y'all wanna hear the die hard core fans do it. So let's get into it. And I'm joined by Jonathan and Luke of The Six Man Show to talk all things Orlando Magic. How are you guys doing today? Good bro, appreciate the opportunity man. How are you? I'm doing great. How about you Luke? I'm good man, good. Excited, been watching you for a long time. So to be able to join you and talk about our magic. It's a dream come true man, really. You guys had a lot of people vouching. So I'm excited to have you here man. A lot of people are like, we need these guys on. So here we are. Shout out to the magic fam. We can't do it without those guys. So really appreciative and happy to be here. It should be a very interesting season. I think in the last two years after of course you decided to blow it up. Vucovich coming to Chicago. So actually we're connected in that way. And then Aaron Gordon going over to Denver. I think a lot of the things that have happened for Orlando have been positives, right? Like Vucovich coming to Chicago. You guys, I'm on record. The moment that trade went down and said the magic did amazing there. So fill me in. How are y'all feeling about my boy, Wendell Carter and the seventh pick that turned into Franz Wagner? Well, we were gutted the day of the boots trade. That was the first domino. We knew we were kind of trading some guys. But that made it abundantly clear that we were blowing up the current roster that we had. Wendell is look great this season obviously. And Franz Wagner making first team all rookie. We're doing all right. We're pretty happy with that trade now. Yeah, and still getting that pick to next year coming in as well, that 2023 pick. It's going to be very interesting. I mean, obviously Wendell has been, well, affectionately, I call him Wendaddy. So there's that. But he's just been so good defensively for us as well. And I think that's where maybe surprised me most. And admittedly, maybe wasn't as keen to how good he was defensively or could be. And there's just a lot to like about him and his ability to guard and even switch sometimes. I mean, he's truthfully, he's just very skilled. Although he's not like the traditional rim protector, his rim deterrence is really kind of his style of rim protection. He just keeps guys out of the paint. So he's been great for us. Yeah, that was the point I was actually about to make. His undersize is, I guess, the word we can use for Wendell Carter for using him as a five. But when he was here in Chicago, he was basically saying to the media, I would love to play some four. He didn't say I wanted to be a full-time four, but some four and he got to, we got to see that with Mo Bamba this season as well. And then you started to see Wendell Carter stretch. And I just fell in love with watching Wendell Carter, but I have to continue to prevent my Bulls fans from jumping off a ledge because there's no guarantee that we would have drafted Franz Wagner at number seven. But man, that guy looks so good as Ricky season. I honestly think that even though he was all rookie and everything, people are underrating how good Franz Wagner was his rookie year. And now you add the first overall pick. Just a lot of good things going on in Orlando right now. We're back up. That's what we like to say about the magic. It's been a rough decade, post-White Howard. Anytime you trade a guy who's gonna be a Hall of Famer and should have been the NBA top 75. 100%. It takes a while to kind of get back to that, but with Paolo, Franz, Wendell, we're really excited about the future now. Yeah, and Kenny, if I can kind of jump in here and just refer to, I watched one of your videos here recently talking about, you know, the most underrated players on each team. And I think Dell is obviously a great choice for that just because he was being overlooked solely because of guys like Franz and Jalen Suggs just like paying attention to them in their first year in our magic uniform. But as far as like underrated goes, every time I hear people talk about the magic, they always fail to mention Markel Foltz. And it's irritating as a magic fan because he obviously last year came in, you know, late in the season, right? And kind of looking at everything to do with last season, played 18 games, only played 20 minutes a game is what he ended up averaging at and still had almost 11 points, five and a half assists and almost three rebounds. So, and the team was exponentially better with him on the court in terms of offensively. The record was much better. The sample size there was good at 18 games, it was fine. But just able to see kind of where Markel is also going to fit next year. I just want to throw it out there because there's a lot of people who don't even think about Markel Foltz and try to say maybe Cole Anthony should start over over him or something. I just think it's Markel Foltz and it's really not even a question and like for Jonathan and I. I have a guy, Mike, he's like my best friend also co-host of my podcast. He has always held his Markel Foltz stock. And every time the magic come up he mentions basically what you said is like the sample size is small but when he was on the court he was filling the stat sheet. And if I'm not mistaken during those games the Orlando Magic were like the one of the top three defenses in all the basketball in that 20 game spanner something. So, I understand exactly what you're saying when Markel Foltz being the guy but this is one of my questions that I had to you guys because there are so many, so many talented young players on the roster between Jalen Suggs, Cole, Anthony, Markel Foltz those are just guards right there. How do you find a way to get everybody's minute everybody minutes so they develop to the point that you want them to? Yeah, we really don't envy Jamal Mosley you know, the head coach when it comes to this this is something that I mean, we're really filling the off season with at this point talking about what the lineup is going to look like. You know, you add the number on Paulo Banquero, you still have Jonathan Isaac hopefully coming back sometime this season. So, it's really a good problem to have. I think you just roll the ball out training camp let those guys compete. Jamal is going to put really the best five guys out on the floor to give us a chance to win. He's not shy about playing young guys or rookies. He proved that last year by starting Jalen Suggs and Franz Wagner on opening night. So, the cream is going to rise to the top and we're hoping that these guys are competitive enough and if they truly want to be those kind of guys in this league, you know, they'll find their way into the lineup. Yeah, and I was just to add to that really like we've talked about it and I've said it so many times especially this off season and last off season you start to do the math and you're like you have so many guys on this roster that are not only young but could have a debate for minutes, right? Like you have a guy where like the magic are going to have a hard time trying to see where Terrence Ross fits into the lineup this year who when he's on, he's on, right? Hasn't had a great last couple of seasons but it's still a guy that you would think even on a contender you could throw him out there from the, you know, out of the benches like a spark and he'd be able to get everything going. So, this team just has so many things going for them but I just hope they don't have too many things going for them and I hope that it doesn't end and I feel like it will end up being maybe after this season the magic are able to have a lot of flexibility and cap this next off season. And on top of that you kind of will be able to see like Jonathan said, cream rice at the top and is there a world where they package us a bunch of young guys for a, you know above average veteran that they can bring in because right now you've got like Gary Harris and Terrence Ross as veteran presence and you're looking at them and Gary Harris is like 27, 26, like he's not that old but he's old for this roster. And I'm sure they probably crack jokes about his age with that roster. You got so many dudes under 24, it's ridiculous but yeah, like I said, I love that it's a problem for the magic but I hope it doesn't eventually cause problems, you know, when you get to that point we have to make decisions. Well, you mentioned packaging potentially some of the younger guys but you said a veteran. I'm sure you guys have been asked this question. I've listened to Bill Simmons' podcast. I've listened to Zach Lowe's podcast and Donovan Mitchell is a name that is thrown around a ton. Jonathan has a Spider-Man tattoo. How would you guys feel about that? Now it feels like we're all just living in this fictional hypothetical world cause there's been no link between Donovan Mitchell and Yolanda Magic at all. But it seems like you guys would potentially have the pieces to make a Donovan Mitchell trade a reality. I mean, I guess it depends on what Danny Angel's really thinking because some of the rumors I've heard are insane but could he be that connector between the youth and the wind now that potentially helps y'all get back into the playoffs? I'll say not for eight first round picks. Unless it's your guy, Michael Jeffrey Jordan coming back, I'm not giving up eight picks for anybody. But yeah, I think Magic fans are really split on this. Obviously we get both sides of the argument. Like you bring in a guy next to Paolo, next to Frans and you have like your trio of the future moving forward. And then a lot of us are also, and this is kind of where Luke and I stand, like the front office has been very methodical about how they put this roster together so far and how they've drafted. Let's see this thing through at least for another year. And some people are gonna see the Magic 122 games last year and think we're idiots. That's completely fine. We're fine with people thinking that we're idiots. We are, but my point is a lot of us just kind of, we wanna see what we have with some of these young guys. You still have Jonathan Isaac, we gotta see if he's gonna be healthy. Let's see what Markel Foltz looks like healthy. Let's see Jalen Suggs with a full off season if he can improve the handle and the shooting ability. Let's see if Cole Anthony can be consistent for the entire season. Started the last year really, really strong. Let's see if Chuma Okiki can get a little bit better. Like let's see what we've got. And in this NBA, it seems like every year, year and a half, a guy of Donovan Mitchell's caliber is becoming available through trades. Whether it's a guy like Kevin Durant or a team made a move for like a Rudy Gobert, Ben Simmons, James Hardin, every year or so a guy is coming up, that's available in trade talks. So as good as Donovan Mitchell is, he's not going to be the last guy available through a trade for the magic because let's be realistic. Orlando is in a huge free agency destination. And today, most of the NBA free agency really happens through trades. Guys sign a fat deal, they're two, three years into that and they say, hey, I wanna move now. And then teams are trying to trade and signing these guys to extensions. So magic fans are kind of 50-50 on this. And Kenny, I'm sure there's gonna be more than magic fans that are obviously watching this video, this segment, whatever it might be. And I just wanna make something abundantly clear that Jonathan and I have came to accept, which is just because a star is available and maybe to you, doesn't mean you should be available to them. Like this team at this point with how young they are, yes, you are going to be exponentially better getting Donovan Mitchell, but there's a few different arguments that I've heard that just like don't hold any water, which is, well, if Donovan Mitchell comes to the magic, his lack of defensive ability will be hidden up by a hidden by guys like Jalen Suggs and Jonathan Isaac. And it's like, I don't think you guys understand what it's gonna take to get Donovan Mitchell. Like you might not be able to hide him anymore, right? And it's like, then what? Are you, do you go back to being a six, seven seed for the foreseeable future until you're able to get another star and like coerce them to come to you and do like the whole Knicks thing, like what they're having to do right now, really. And what they've been trying to do for the last few years, I would rather just homegrown. We saw it in the finals this last year, two homegrown teams really going at it in the finals. That's our dream. Obviously, like Jonathan has said, like people call us idiots and that's fine. Like we're the magic, we get it dude. Like that is, it is what it is. But even more so, like just stand firm, hold your cards close to the vest like this front office has done and continue to prove to be able to do. And I think we're gonna be just fine. It's gonna take a little bit more patience, but I trust this front office wholeheartedly. So you mentioned the homegrown teams and the way you become one of those homegrown teams is to draft well. First overall pick in this year's draft, you guys got what seems like an absolute stun. I was there for the first two games of a Summer League career and no matter who was on the court with him, Palo just looked like the man. He looked like an NBA player amongst college players. Were you guys team Palo? Because it seemed like everybody had it written in pen that it was gonna be Jabbar Smith and out of nowhere, a magic marker came out of it and the magical racer came out and took that pin away. So did you guys hype yourself up for Jabari? Ended up being Palo. How are y'all feeling about first overall pick? I will say the night of the draft, I'll let Luke speak for himself, but the night of the draft, I was legitimately fine with Palo, Chet or Jabari. We've been talking this entire draft cycle about how it was three guys at the top and then everyone else. And I had talked myself into any of those guys, but I had like very specific disclaimers. You only draft Jabari if you're confident that he's going to evolve into this number one option. A'la, like a guy like Paul George didn't come into the league necessarily with a handle, but has now developed one of the deepest bags we've ever seen. Bag talk. Not saying Jabari is gonna be Paul George, but if you think that is his projection, then I'm good with you taking him at number one. If you think Chet is gonna be what we saw in his Summer League debut, the 23 points, hitting threes, blocking everybody and you're not worried about his frame, then you go ahead and take Chet. If you wanted the surest, safest, most surefire guy, you went with Paolo. That being said, we were drinking that Jabari Kool-Aid. It was all in the news, it was all over the place. We had talked ourselves into that being the pick and we're happy to say we were wrong. Like Jabari is not Paolo, at least not right now. This front office gets paid millions of dollars a year to make decisions like this. And Paolo is the guy and we are all in on Paolo, super excited for him. The man's gonna be lifting the LOB in Orlando sometime soon. Yeah, we hope. We hope, yeah, yeah, yeah. But no, like John said, we were open to anybody, right? And we have really adopted the, really just the, I don't know if it's a mantra, but just like the idea, the concept of we trust this front office until we, they lose our trust. And they have done some great things. They have done really great things, like the bull's trade as well, being one of them. Like you, how, and then drafting Franz Wagner. Like there is just so much trust that we have in this front office. But I will say that I was heavily leaning Jabari. Like that was my, that was my preference and everything. But at the end of the day, my, you know, what I kept telling Jonathan and everybody and all of our listeners was, whoever it is, I'm gonna be cool with it. I don't have any type of issue with it. I'll trust that they, you know, made the right decision. So that's kind of where we were at. And then, you know, recorded that night at Amway and was able to talk about where, you know, where we thought Palo fit in. And it's just kind of comes down to it. Like maybe we overthought the, the draft process, right? Like maybe we overthought, who's going to be the guy? Your team is terrible for 10 years. And is the laughing stock of the NBA. The last thing that you want to do is screw up the Kings. All right. Yeah. There's a lot of stress with having the first overall pick. I know that. Well, I guess I don't. The last time we had the first overall pick, it was pretty easy. Go with the hometown kid, Derek Rose. But I know how much work it goes into making sure you have the guy, because do our history having the first overall pick hasn't meant that you got the best guy, you know, long term. But Palo just, just looks so much better than everybody else out there. And I know there are a lot of people watching this video. I'm not saying you too specifically because you're down in the weeds of Orlando Magic fandom that had given up on Jalen Suggs already. I met Jalen Suggs at a shoot. They flew me out to California for this Chipotle shoot interviewing the draft prospects. When I tell you, he was the most polished interview I've ever had. And I've talked to, I don't know, at this point, 50 NBA players and athletes in the world. He was the most polished guy. A lot to be desired. But you get to the defensive side of the ball. He gave it his all. And you mentioned him. You mentioned Marquell. You mentioned Jonathan Isaac, who eventually we hope is gonna play basketball someday. You mentioned Wendell Carter. The defense is about to be there. And at the end of last year, on my channel, I said if I was going to pick a team that I think will have the biggest jump going into next year, this is before the first overall pick. I picked the Orlando Magic. It was between them at Detroit. Detroit has a lot going on there as well. But I picked the Orlando Magic before Palo. And I'm just super excited to see if that's going to be true. Would you guys be disappointed if somehow you did end up only winning like 22 games again this season? Or do you guys set the expectation higher now? Kenny, if we win 22 games next season, fire the coach, the front office, trade everybody, start over. Yeah. This team was so injury riddled last year. Jalen Southern's missed a ton of time. Cole Anthony missed chunks of time. Towards the end of the season, the Magic were trying to lose games. So Wendell missed some time as well. Marquell Fulton only have him for 18 games. Jonathan Isaac misses the entire season. If this team is anywhere near relatively healthy, this team should not be anywhere near 22 wins. Like 30, I would be like, okay, the season didn't go perfectly, but that's understandable. But we are expecting that if everyone is healthy and things go right, we should be at least flirting with the play-in come March and April. We might not make the play-in, but you should be playing for something those last couple of months. Yeah. And you look at the standing sith, really what it comes into, Kenny, is like, you so often get caught up in this like, oh, I think we could win this amount of games, but you completely forget to think about everybody else in your conference of like, who also is having to win games. You look at the East last year, was it Charlotte like 41, 42 wins as the 10 spot? That's, if the match would go from 22 to 41, that's ridiculous and you don't see that very much, like the Knicks of a couple of seasons ago who made that huge jump and that's really as rare as it really can get. So I don't know that that happens, but if it's 22 wins, it's over. Like we're, the podcast- I'm about to argue with my co-host here on Kenny's show. I love it, I love it. Luke, wouldn't you agree though that if this magic team, even before Paolo last season was healthy, 30 games easily. Yeah, healthy. So 30 to 41, isn't that big of a jump? 22 to 41, I get it. Let's get the context here. J.I. and Markel both healthy. Markel not on a 20 minute restriction either, playing 18 games. Absolutely, I think this team wins 30. Kenny, we're over in magic land, right? And we say it so many times, like we are biased, obviously. We do a magic podcast. We only own magic jerseys, like that's what we do. We record twice a week, of course, we're biased. It would be boring if we weren't. But so to ask you Kenny, do you think the magic, do you have expectations? Have you thought about the magic at all in terms of what this team looks like fully healthy in terms of how big can that win jump even be? So yeah, I do have some expectations, but with that said, if they are disappointing in a way, I'm not really upset about it because the court is so extremely young. Paolo year one, window card in what year five at this point. So I have my own personal expectations, but losing in this season, don't seem like a bad thing considering how deep the 2023 draft could potentially be. Little Paolo, Victor Webby and Yama, you know exactly that. I honestly, while that would be great, Kenny. No, I don't want that. Going through this last season and the last few, as long as we've done the podcast, right? Like it has been, it is miserable. This last year was miserable to be like, man, you ready to record tonight? I'm like, nah, not really. Let's talk about this 15 win team at the all star break. Yeah, right. So I don't know. Like obviously the reward would be great, but we got burned by the lottery so badly, even two seasons ago, they're getting the fifth pick. It was kind of like, do we really want to do that again? I'm not a believer in the lottery, even after getting the first pick, even after the magic have an incredible track record of the first pick, right? I mean, you've hit on every first pick you've got. So I just, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if I want to put myself through that again. Fellas, I appreciate you stopping by to talk some Orlando magic. Let the world know where they can find you. So yeah, you guys can find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, at six man show. You can find us on YouTube, youtube.com slash the six man show and just want to shout out our listeners that vouched for us on Kenny's channel here to get us on here, but we are like internally grateful to Kenny and everything that you do. Thanks for bringing on small creators for this massive fans of yours. Just keep doing what you're doing, man. It's been a pleasure. Thank you guys.