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Thursday’s Magic Word
- John Denton of OrlandoMagic.com: “As the Orlando Magic’s President and the project manager for the new Amway Center the past four years, Alex Martins can have just about any seat that he wants when the dazzling, $380 million facility throws open its doors to basketball fans on Oct. 10. Instead, Martins plans to stand that night so he can fully see the awed reactions from the patrons when they step inside a building that promises to be the most modern and technologically advanced facility in North America. The Amway Center hit another major milestone in its construction on Wednesday when superstar center Dwight Howard, local politicians and celebrities, students from the Nap Ford Community School and even Martins himself participated in the Drano Royal Flush. For 10 minutes straight, people flushed the 560 toilets in unison, operated the 430 sinks and turned the other 210 drinking fountains and showers on and off. The 875,000-square-foot facility, one that is almost three times the size of the Amway Arena that the Magic played in the previous 21 years, passed the flush test. Up next is the Magic’s Oct. 10 preseason home opener against the New Orleans Hornets and fans first chance to see that the new facility passes their eye test. Martins is eager to see the looks on the fans faces that first night when they get to fully enjoy his labor of love the past four years.”
- John Krolik and Rob Mahoney of ProBasketball wonder whether or not the “small-ball” era is over: “For example, Dwight Howard doesn’t dominate games by getting the ball on the block and making a move every time the Magic have the ball, because that’s not how things work anymore. However, his ability to guard the paint has become invaluable, because there’s no way to stop faster players from getting into the paint without fouling them on the perimeter. Offensively, Howard’s ability to turn Jameer Nelson‘s penetration into an alley-oop finish is more valuable than it would have been previously, because Jameer now penetrates more.”
- Dwight Howard’s magical moment with Kay Kellogg.
- Ben Q. Rock of Orlando Pinstriped Post: “Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports reports that Denver Nuggets All-Star Carmelo Anthony would prefer Denver deal him to the Chicago Bulls or the New York Knicks. For this site’s purposes, the report is more interesting for which team it doesn’t mention, rather than the teams it does. Indeed, the Orlando Magic are nowhere to be found in Spears’ report, which indicates that ESPN’s panel of experts may have been onto something a few weeks ago when it didn’t list the Magic among contenders to land Anthony. Three weeks ago, Ken Berger of CBS Sports reported that the Magic topped Anthony’s list of possible trade destinations. But the talk linking Anthony to the Magic has calmed considerably since then, with teams like the New Jersey Nets, Houston Rockets, L.A. Clippers–in addition to the Bulls and Knicks–appearing more prominently in the rumor mill.”
- Jameer Nelson shoots a lot like a shooting guard.
- Howard is participating in Gatorade’s REPLAY event, where “members of both the Chicago-area Bloom and Brother Rice 2000 high school basketball teams will take part in a rematch between the two schools. Sponsored by Gatorade, the pairing hopes to serve as a bit of closure after Bloom won a highly contested (both in game, and after it) 42-40 Super Sectional win, after Joe Chapman managed a tip in around (some say before, some say after) the final seconds ticked off the clock.”
- Matt Barnes, former Magic player, is in a heap of trouble with the law.
Wednesday’s Magic Word
- Via John Denton of OrlandoMagic.com: “The incurable cancer that has ravaged Kay Kellogg’s body has forced her to contemplate death much sooner than she would have preferred, but the bright and bubbly 62-year-old Orlando Magic fan has vowed that when her time’s up she will leave with a smile on her face. [...] [Dwight] Howard, Orlando’s consensus All-NBA center, brought a ray of happiness to Kellogg recently when he visited her at her Orlando home. Kellogg was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma, a cancer of the white blood cells in the bone marrow, on Aug. 8, and unfortunately there is no long-term cure for the disease. [...] Orlando’s star center has been a busy man this summer, twice traveling to China for Adidas and an acting role in a basketball movie. He also was in India as part of a promotional tour for the NBA and he’s been in New York and Los Angeles filming a television show and recording a children’s music album. But upon hearing Kellogg’s story, Howard made it a point to visit one of his biggest fans. Howard was scheduled to stay at Kellogg’s house for 30 minutes, but ended up hanging around for almost two hours. The two of them talked cooking, free throw shooting and life. Kellogg said she avoided talking about her cancer diagnosis, but she was touched at how Howard’s mood shifted from playful to serious when she would grimace because of pain in her body.”
- Kurt Helin of ProBasketballTalk thinks Adonal Foyle is the perfect man for the job as the director of player development for the Orlando Magic.
- Ben Q. Rock of Orlando Pinstriped Post: “Marc Stein of ESPN.com reports that EA has released the rosters for Eastern Conference teams in the new version of the NBA Jam videogame. Vince Carter, Dwight Howard, and Rashard Lewis are the Orlando Magic players available, though the team also boasts two legends in Nick Anderson and Scott Skiles. Today, our question is simple: which potential combination–remember, NBA Jam is a two-on-two, arcade-style game–of Magic players are you most excited to use in the new game? There are ten possible combinations, and I’ve listed each in the poll attached to this post.”
- Go vote at OPP!
- More on the good three-point shooter/bad free-throw shooter phenomenon from Neil Paine of Basketball-Reference: “I always felt that FT% is the best indicator of pure shooting form, since unless the player resorts to a gimmicky, Rick Barry-style approach, it’s just him, his mechanics, and a basket 15 feet away. Meanwhile, 3P% can be influenced by so many more factors, depending on the player’s style of play and/or role in the offense; for instance, look at Jason Kidd’s magical transformation from a guy nicknamed “Ason” to a 43% 3-point shooter (!!!) in Dallas. FT% is far less dependent on contextual effects, which seems to make it a better indicator of a player’s underlying skill.”
- Trey Kerby of Ball Don’t Lie comments on the feel-good story involving Kay Kellogg and Dwight Howard: “Occasionally stories come around that push your sadness buttons just enough that your eyes get a bit misty, while at the same time the same story activates your smile sensors because it’s about someone doing something good for another person. You know what I’m talking about.”
Dwight Howard is a Man of the People
Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images
Via Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel:
Her bucket list included just one item.
Kay Kellogg didn’t want to climb the Eiffel Tower. Or run a marathon. Or jump out of an airplane. She just wanted to have a nice conversation with her hero.
“Dwight Howard is just such a precious, wonderful kid,” she says. “Whenever I watch him play, he just makes me feel good inside.”
And for a woman who feels so bad inside most of the time, this is quite an accomplishment for Dwight.
You think leading the league in rebounding and blocked shots is difficult? Try leading the cancer ward in smiles elicited and hearts warmed.
Kay, 62, is sitting at her apartment Tuesday telling her story. [...]
She has Stage 3 Multiple Myeloma, an aggressive cancer that searches out and destroys the blood plasma in the bone marrow. Her disease is inoperable and incurable, but her demeanor is inspiriting and uplifting.
She lives on a fixed income, but two seasons ago she decided to treat herself to Magic season tickets in the upper level. Watching Dwight play is one of the joys of her life. She showed up at nearly every game that season wearing her blue No. 12 Dwight jersey.
A few weeks ago, her daughter, Arian Clute, had an idea. She contacted the [Orlando] Magic and told them that her mother had but one wish before she died: She wanted to meet Dwight.
And, so, a few days ago, Dwight showed up at her door step. He was supposed to spend 30 minutes and ended up staying nearly two hours.
Take five minutes out of your day, and read this article.
This is about as good as it gets. Dwight Howard really is Superman.
Tuesday’s Magic Word
- Ben Q. Rock of Orlando Pinstriped Post: “I assure you I have a perfectly legitimate reason for not listing this performance as the best of [Dwight] Howard‘s career. But before we get to that game, let’s first appreciate all Howard did on this particular night. Really. 45 and 19 is a heckuva line, even before considering the blocks. And he did it against Emeka Okafor, who rated 10th in the entire league in points-per-possession allowed that season, according to Synergy Sports Technology. And as the final score indicates, Orlando needed what he gave it that night. This game was close throughout, with Charlotte holding a six-point lead after the third quarter and neither team leading by more than nine points. In addition to scoring 11 of Orlando’s 27 fourth-quarter points, he gave the Magic something that didn’t show up in the stat-sheet: a bone-crushing screen on the Bobcats’ Gerald Wallace on the Magic’s final possession of regulation, which freed J.J. Redick to sink the game-tying three-pointer.”
- Why is Mickael Pietrus a bad free-throw shooter? Sebastian Pruiti of NBA Playbook investigates: “The reason is because jump shooters spend all game shooting jump shots, that when they go to the line to take set shots, everything gets thrown off. After watching some clips of Mickael Pietrus shooting both threes and free throws, my theory was proved correct.”
- How will the 2011 NBA All-Star Game look?
- Neil Paine of Basketball-Reference takes a look at league continuity. It’s a fascinating read: “What’s the takeaway from this? Well, for one thing, the mid-to-late 1990s (and, to a lesser extent, the 2000s-2010s) were a great time for NBA job security and continuity among players. Both methods show that if you were an active player during that era, there was better than a 50-50 minute-weighted chance you’d be drawing an NBA playcheck 5 years later. As for the reasons why this was the case, anecdotally we saw stars enter the league earlier (often from high school) and enjoy more staying power thanks to modern medical practices that were absent from the league’s earlier periods. But perhaps the biggest factor was simply expansion: the NBA went from 23 teams in 1988 to 29 in 1996, providing nearly 100 new jobs to fill (and maintain) that didn’t exist in the past.”
- Trey Kerby of Ball Don’t Lie: “NBA teams love getting new arenas. Not only do they look beautiful, they also bring in a whole lot of money. Whether it be from fans wanting to check out the new digs or increased ticket prices, new stadiums are a serious revenue stream. Not to mention, state-of-the-art basketball facilities really help in free agent recruiting. Basically, a new stadium is baller status. However, when a team builds a stadium, there are a whole lot of moving pieces that need to be checked out. Imagine the home inspection on a new house, then multiply that by exactly 92,048. Quite intense, especially the bathrooms. Cool segue, I know, but if you put 20,000 people in a concrete box there better be a bunch of functioning toilets, lest things get zoological. The Orlando Magic understand all of this, so they’re putting together a really fun day for local children at their new Amway Arena.”
- Tim Povtak of NBA FanHouse has more on the Orlando Magic’s “potty party promotion.”
Are the Orlando Magic Being Overlooked?
Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images
Via Sekou Smith of the NBA’s Hang Time Blog:
Magic fans have been pounding the HT inbox this summer arguing that their team is being left out of the conversation of title contenders this season. And they’re probably right. Most of the insiders we’ve spoken with this summer don’t hold the Magic in the same regard they did this time a year ago, when they were the reigning Eastern Conference champions and still smarting from that ’09 Finals defeat to the Lakers.
They still have the nucleus of a team that won 59 games, finished second to Cleveland in the East and had the second best overall record in the entire league. Dwight Howard is a year older and better, as is Jameer Nelson, and there aren’t any chemistry concerns for Stan Van Gundy, who won’t have to refer to the periodic table the way Doc Rivers and Erik Spoelstra will in Boston and Miami, respectively.
An underdog tag could be exactly what the Magic need to motivate them this season. And of all the teams in the East that could play spoiler to a potential Heat-Celtics battle for the top spot, no one seems better equipped to do so than Orlando.
This is a topic that will surely be revisited in the future.
Revisiting the Topic of the Orlando Magic’s Biggest Rival
Photo by Doug Benc/Getty Images
Nearly a week ago, Ben Q. Rock of Orlando Pinstriped Post ventured into the topic of rivals for the Orlando Magic. It’s a fascinating subject that has gained steam since the Miami Heat acquired LeBron James and Chris Bosh in free agency, pairing them with Dwyane Wade to form like Voltron.
The Heat, of course, are a divisional and an in-state rival of the Magic.
The term “rival” comes up far too often in sports, I believe. The New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox have a storied, decades-long rivalry, and play in the same division, for instance, but the Yankees are a cut above the Red Sox right now; the Tampa Bay Rays pose a more immediate threat to their chances of repeating as World Series champions than the Red Sox do. In a rivalry, what I look for is competitors at roughly the same level, preferably among the elite. I mean, the L.A. Clippers and Minnesota Timberwolves might have bad blood stemming from the Timberwolves’ hilarious tanking effort to avoid having to deal a draft pick to the Clippers, but because neither of those teams matters much in the NBA landscape, you’ll have a hard time convincing me I should care.
In this particular write-up at OPP, three teams were considered as Orlando’s biggest rival — Miami, as well as the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers. These are squads that have a recent history with Orlando, in some way, shape, or form.
A poll was conducted and — at the time — out of 680 votes, 52 percent of the people voted the Celtics as the lead villain in the Magic’s story. It make sense, given that Orlando and Boston have gone toe-to-toe in the past several years.
The Magic and Celtics are linked pretty tightly since both franchises made major moves in 2007. In Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen, Boston infamously added two Hall-of-Famers, while the Magic brought head coach Stan Van Gundy and Rashard Lewis. Though they didn’t meet in the postseason that year–the Celtics dispatched the Detroit Pistons in the Eastern Conference Finals, one round after the Pistons sent the Magic home–they’ve had some memorable battles in the ensuing seasons. [...] As far as competitiveness is concerned, it’s hard to get much closer than the Magic and the Celtics have been since 2007. In the 24 meetings (counting the postseason) between the teams in that span, the Celtics have scored 2206 points to the Magic’s 2197. A one-possession margin decided six of those 24 games. When the two teams play, you really ought to tune in.
My vote would be for the Heat, more so because the stakes have never been higher between two teams from the state of Florida that will be vying for a championship in the same division, let alone the same conference. To me, the storyline is more compelling with Miami. There’s no question that the Celtics are a rival for the Magic, but it’s the Heat.
It’s personal on a number of levels.
Friday’s Magic Word
- Ben Q. Rock of Orlando Pinstriped Post: “Let us not get it twisted: Miami’s goal this summer was to play catch-up with the [Orlando] Magic, Boston Celtics, L.A. Lakers, and the rest of the league’s elite. Orlando’s core players were already in place. In Dwyane Wade, Miami had but one. That’s a huge distinction. Remember, the Magic made over their roster in 2007 with the addition of Rashard Lewis, using the salary-cap space that freed up once Grant Hill’s contract expired. They further adjusted it last summer by trading for Vince Carter. Given their salary structure, and the constraints the NBA salary cap imposes, there’s no way they could have reasonably expected to land a premiere free agent this summer. Instead, they split the mid-level exception on [Chris] Duhon and [Quentin] Richardson, drafted Daniel Orton, re-signed Jason Williams, and called it a summer. In more abstract terms, they added two rotation players, drafted a project, and retained a third-stringer. Minor tweaks to an already elite roster.”
- Want to learn more about pace? Click here.
- Apparently, Chris Duhon is set to earn $1.5 million more than he should.
- Tom Haberstroh of Hardwood Paroxysm quantifies shot selection by position: “We want to outgrow the conventions of traditional positions but let’s see if we can observe divisions in the first place. Hoopdata breaks down shot types into 5 buckets: at the rim (layups and dunks), <10 feet, 10-15 feet, 16-23 feet, and 3-point shots. Here’s how the five positions look, in terms of percentage of shots in each location. So what does a point guard’s shot makeup look like compared to a shooting guard? Where do we see the biggest disparities between positions?”
- More Rashard Lewis highlights.
The Future Appears Bright for Chris Duhon
Photo by Nick Laham/Getty Images
Via Marc Normandin of Basketball Prospectus:
Chris Duhon was a replacement-level player last season with the New York Knicks, but there is reason to believe he can improve on that. He will be the backup point guard behind Jameer Nelson in Orlando, and is projected to see improvements to both his Offensive Rating (from 106.3 to 107.2) and his Defensive Rating (down to 106.8 from 107.2). Duhon is projected for 3.3 WARP—using Tom Haberstroh’s reference point of $2M per win in this offseason’s market, Duhon is making about half as much money as he could be worth this season. [...]
SCHOENE sees increased usage in Orlando and shooting that more closely resembles Duhon’s 2008-09 than his previous campaign—it’s easy to see why he will improve. The roster around him is significantly different than what he was playing with in New York thanks to Dwight Howard, Rashard Lewis, and Vince Carter, three scorers whom Duhon can feed. There will be less pressure on Duhon from the opposing team’s defense because of the presence of this trio, and having someone who can stretch the defense like J.J. Redick on the second unit also bodes well for his game. Context is important when projecting performance, and moving from a team that didn’t win 30 games to one that reached the conference finals is a significant contextual leap.
That’s good news for Chris Duhon.
Last season, Jason Williams pumped out a WARP of 2.1 so if Duhon can come close or exceed that number, it bodes well for the Orlando Magic. Granted, Williams was good value because he was (and still is) signed to the veteran’s minimum but the point remains.
Relative to his contract, the Magic may have found another bargain in Duhon.
Grading the Orlando Magic’s D-League Usage
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I’m a little late on this one.
Recently, I was asked by Matt Hubert of D-League Digest — as well as other writers in the TrueHoop Network — to grade the usage of the D-League for the team I cover as part of the collective. In my particular case, I chimed in on the Orlando Magic.
Here what I wrote:
Orlando Magic: F
The reasoning is simple — the Orlando Magic have little use for the D-League, given that they are one of the elite teams in the NBA. Some might say that the cupboard of talent for the Magic is overflowing, since head coach Stan Van Gundy could go 12-deep with the roster if he wanted to. Right now, rookie Daniel Orton is the 13th man for Orlando and there’s no guarantee that his peer, Stanley Robinson, will make the team after training camp is completed. Essentially, there’s no room for call-ups and things of that ilk. These aren’t your Golden State Warriors.
The Magic have been affiliated with three D-League teams in the past couple of years and have made a whopping total of zero moves during that timeframe. The last D-League transaction took place in December 2007, when Marcin Gortat was called up from the Anaheim Arsenal. That’s it. For general manager Otis Smith, he sees little use in the D-League because he feels that players like Orton and Robinson benefit more from a higher level of competition in practices, while learning various schemes directly from Van Gundy. All in all, it’s an organizational philosophy.
It’s harsh but honest criticism.
Wednesday’s Magic Word
- Ben Q. Rock of Orlando Pinstriped Post: “The [Orlando] Magic/Heat rivalry has proven fairly one-sided in Orlando’s favor since 2007, but the Heat’s appearance has more to do with their future roster than the one that’s struggled against Orlando in the recent past. Indeed, among the 18 players the Heat have under contract, only Joel Anthony, Mario Chalmers, Udonis Haslem, Jamaal Magloire, and Dwyane Wade have suited up as members of the Heat against Orlando. But in adding LeBron James this summer, Miami has certainly vaulted itself into championship contention, and made its relationship with the Magic more interesting. James’ incredible showing in the 2009 Eastern Conference Finals wasn’t enough to get his Cavaliers over the hump against the Magic, but it did establish him as an individual rival of Orlando’s. And it’s valid to compare him to [Dwight] Howard, insofar as they’re both among the best players in the league who entered it just one year apart.”
- Dan Savage and Josh Cohen of OrlandoMagic.com review Vince Carter‘s restaurant in Daytona Beach. Two thumbs up.
- Grade the Orlando Magic’s off-season.
- Dwight Howard: “How’s ya’ll’s summer going? Mine has been crazy traveling all over the world. I just got back last week from going to India for the NBA and China to shoot a new movie with my man, Carmelo Anthony. I know there has been a lot of talk about Melo getting traded this summer, but trust me ya’ll, we were just shooting a movie together and didn’t even talk ball that much. The movie is called, “Amazing” and will be out next summer, so I hope you guys can check it out!!!”
- Howard is also raising money for the earthquake relief efforts in Haiti.
