Chet and Jabari didnt give them ****. No workouts and no medical reports. Not sure how you think they could have known every detail under the sun when the dude didnt want to give you his info. You want the Rox to hold them st gunpoint or what?
How is that unprepared? Stone even said this scenario was soemthing they considered in that siund bite lol. And yes what the Magic did was extremely strsnge. They had the first pick but still tried to be all mysterious about it. Like, why? Nobody gonna steal your guy from you, you got the 1st pick. People are saying they tried to dupe Stone to trading up but here we see find out Stone DID try to trade up and Orlando refused.
Magic picking Paolo had zero to do with who Stone wanted. And any team wanting to trade for #1 was no bueno. Magic was never giving up that #1. Stone should have known this.
Piggybacking the convo - I think Stone was surprised more than caught off guard. It was the wildest shake up at the top of the draft in a while. Orlando toyed with Jabaris emotions and to a lesser extent Paolo too by the way he was dumbfounded as everything played out. Stone throwing a hail mary at the end doesnt make him look bad or even suggest that he "should have known better" and not even made the call about a possible trade. He did his due diligence as GM and played it the best way he could and still had a little luck with who he preferred. I wholeheartedly believe Stone was trying to get 1 for Paolo and didnt want anything to do with Chet. Magic identified Paolo as the best player and felt he offered them more than any other player in the draft plus any additional assets. They may end up being right, but it doesnt mean we lost the draft.
