J. Kyle Mann

I don't know if pulled out is the right way to put it, but it just hasn't been in stasis enough.

Franz has been out of the lineup who's been hurt.

We hear Magic fans just being like, well, all the criticism comes with that asterisk, which is availability.

And the other thing, too, is just the...

Paolo not being Paolo, you know, it's just kind of like Bane has come in to be the supporting actor when the leading man isn't kind of there to anchor all the scenes.

Right.

And I kind of think that that's been the biggest thing that's undermined the magic going the direction that we thought that they might go this year.

I was going to ask you what their offensive identity is because I don't feel like that's clear at all.

And whenever you lack an offensive identity, I think that that purposelessness can just get guys feeling like they're expending a lot of energy that is going nowhere.

It just feels like futile to a point.

And whenever you're doing that, it's,

Asking a human being to do that over time, it's just something that is... You're going to end up having this loss of return over time where guys are just like, we worked so hard to just be an inefficient basketball team.

And then you're asking them to be like, all right, well, our defensive identity, it's just going to be the thing that drives it.

I kind of feel like that has been the circle, cycle, whatever it is, of frustration for the Magic to cause them to spin wheels.

I don't know ultimately where this is going.

It just kind of feels like this is going to hit a point where they're making a tough decision to have some kind of surgery on this to choose a level of survival that they're willing to live with, right?

Because it's hard to feel optimistic about the direction that it's going with their two stars, which I feel like is not Bane's fault, but it's at the center of it.

Yeah.

Yeah, you're mentioning the Pistons is an interesting comparison because is the difference that you just kind of have to have an elite heliocentric type guy?

Yeah, and the threat to score for that passer, too, is a big thing, too.