My theory is Stone told Orlando "pick Paolo and well pick Jabari and swap the two..." then Stone left Orlando holding the bag. Its the only way it makes sense for me.
Stone wanted Paolo badly too. I’d probably guess if OKC had #1 they go Paolo as well. Stone just wasn’t willing to part with assets to move up if there was even an opportunity to do so. We’ll find out soon what the ORL thought process was since this type of shakeup caught everyone off guard. Jabari is a great consolation prize and doesn’t come with the same concerns as Chet for me.
This is the only thing that makes sense to you? What didn’t make sense to me was why there was no Banchero-Magic buzz pre-draft. The Magic need a go-to scorer and Banchero fills that need.
Paolo makes more sense to Orlando who are in desperate need of a dominant alpha guy to run the offense through. The made a best fit over best player available. that at least is the only way it makes sense to me.
I think Orlando just did a very good job of keeping it under wraps. They probably told Houston they were going to take PB 10 min before the draft and they asked for a boatload to move up. I am a bit sad but it is just because I had it 100% in my mind we were getting PB. When I pull back and look at it, we got one of the 3 bigs and we are good to go. And again, it is easier to build around Sengun with Smith. PB and Alpi would have made it work but the spacing and roles would overlap a little. Green, Jaygup, KPJ and Sengun going to have plenty of space now.
