May 10
Via Ken Berger of CBSSports.com: Of the teams [Dwight] Howard is likely to consider when exercising his early-termination option after next season — sources say the Lakers, Knicks and Nets are the strong favorites — L.A. is the one with the most attractive trade assets. The massive contracts attached to the Lakers’ most desirable players …
May 05
Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images It’s hard out here for Orlando Magic fans. The Magic lost in the first round of the 2011 NBA Playoffs to the Atlanta Hawks. There’s so much uncertainty surrounding Dwight Howard‘s future. And general manager Otis Smith‘s continued quest to to find the right combination of players to surround …
May 04
Zach McCann of the Orlando Sentinel: “Earl Clark is thankful the Phoenix Suns agreed to trade him to the Orlando Magic as part of the six-player, blockbuster deal in mid-December. The move to Orlando might have saved his NBA career. Earlier this year, when the Suns declined to pick up Clark’s $2 million option to …
May 04
Via Brian Schmitz of the Orlando Sentinel: An unconventional power forward, [Ryan] Anderson intrigues teams. He has size at 6-feet 10, can shoot the 3 and could be a better post-up player with some weight-room work. What also is appealing is Anderson’s salary over the next three seasons: $1.4 million, $2.2 million, $3.2 million. He …
May 04
Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images Via Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel: As the franchise attempts to sort out exactly what went wrong, where 2010-11 turned for the worse, they can point to a mystifying playoff shooting slump or to some superb clutch shots by the Atlanta Hawks’ Jamal Crawford and Joe Johnson or …
Apr 29
Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel: “The Orlando Magic face a long, uncertain offseason. Those months off will be filled with questions about how a season that started with such promise ended with such overwhelming disappointment. A team that advanced to the NBA Finals in 2009 and reached the Eastern Conference finals in 2010 didn’t …
Apr 28
Brian Schmitz of the Orlando Sentinel: “J-Rich scored just four and eight points in the first two games, and then was suspended for Game 4 and is averaging just 10.8 points per game in the playoffs. Most importantly, they need [Jason] Richardson to prevent Hawks all-star Joe Johnson from getting the shots he wants and …
Apr 28
Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel: “Stan Van Gundy reached into his bag of rhetorical tricks Wednesday — all the way back to his seventh-grade phys-ed class. Van Gundy and his classmates were about to do a six-minute run as part of a physical-fitness test, and one of Van Gundy’s friends asked, ‘Coach, how do …
Apr 27
Photo by J. Meric/Getty Images Before the playoffs started, I previewed Orlando’s first round matchup using data from Synergy Sports Technology. Last week, we looked at the playoff games in Atlanta. Today, let’s examine the results from the contest in Orlando. Game 5 PPP = Points Per Possession Orlando offense The Magic shot 11-26 beyond …