Redick 100% sure he will be with Orlando when camp starts

[mhectorgato]

I 100% believe that JJ 100% believes he will be back because that's what Otis sold him on 100%.

[damo[23]]

I 100% believe that JJ 100% believes he will be back because that's what Otis sold him on 100%.

You need a new sig; can I suggest Orlando Magic offseason sched - maybe some of the eateries they may visit, tourist locations and so on ...

[drsd]

Redick has ALWAYS been a gym rat. And he has more skill and talent than Diener, another gym rat. Redick with the right attitude can be a nice bench player. If his lateral ability to defend on the wing improves, he could emerge as a marginal starter i the NBA. One reason the Magic drafted Redick was that he is VVEERRYY coachable. He will do whatever StM says he needs to work on.

Will that be enough? We will see.

[mhectorgato]

I 100% believe that JJ 100% believes he will be back because that's what Otis sold him on 100%.

You need a new sig; can I suggest Orlando Magic offseason sched - maybe some of the eateries they may visit, tourist locations and so on ...

Unfortunately I don't have the schedule (Theif?)

I can make a sig with the tourist locations I will be visiting in a few months ...

[Catledge]

What do you guys think the chances are that at #22 we could draft a big that plays as well or better than Gortat/Battie? What are the chances that we can draft a SG that is as good or better than Evans? I think the first is more likely than the second, but I don't think either is terribly likely.

As far as I can tell, JJ and Bogans are our only trade assets, and I don't see anybody giving us anything better than Evans for them. (I will respectfully agree to disagree with people who think we should trade Turk).

Having said that, the MLE is the only real opportunity I see to improve our team in the short term, and after Childress and Pietrus, I can't think of anybody available who is likely to be an improvement over Evans (and Pietrus is no guarantee at all).

This leaves me believing that there is a pretty good chance we will have the exact same starting lineup as we had last year. If Atlanta matches an MLE offer for Childress, or it becomes clear that they would match an offer, and somebody else offers Pietrus more than we're willing to offer, I think we're stuck with this lineup through no short-term fault of Otis (though I'll grant that arguments can be made about mistakes prior to this off-season).

What I'm getting at is that we might want to start preparing for the possibility that we'll be rooting for pretty much the same guys next season. Now, I don't find this as catastrophic as some others on the board might find it, but I suspect we'll get a lot of the-sky-is-falling posts if this turns out to be the case.

PS - Thanks to the mod who restarted this thread. I think that the super-long threads tend to exclude those of us who like to be in the conversations but often have to go several days in a row without visiting the board. Restarting from time to time seems like it may help keep things more inclusive.

[BassMaster]

I don't see the team being the same as last year for the simple reason free agency. Carlos will not be back, Dooling may not be back considering he wants more then the Magic are most likely going to offer. Next season chances are Dooling will be back home in Miami.
Evans also has a chance of getting more then he has ever earned. He played so well for the Magic in the regular season that there may be teams out there willing to offer him the triple what he is earning now which wasn't a lot in the first place.
Augustine gone, Garrity gone. With all of that this will be a different Magic team then what we all saw last season.
The Magic have one draft pick, but rumors floating around keep on saying that the Magic have already gotten a second rounder from either Seattle or Portland. And this year I don't see Otis trading his second round pick like he did last year.
Then you have the MLE and LLE and veterans exceptions and yes this won't be the same Magic team from last year. It will be better.
Now if we can get Howard to practice a little on his free throws and turnovers because of double teaming before the season begins then it should be even better. Howard said something about not focusing on basketball until Team USA and then after that relaxing some more before the team goes to training camp.

PS no mod I just updated what was said by Redick on his blog about his being back with the Magic at 100% instead of the 99%. I thought that everyone should know what Redick said and how he is getting ready for the next season.

[Edrock]

From JJ's blog...

Question:
What is the locker room dynamic like? Who picks the music, who is the leader, etc?

Answer:

Let\u2019s be clear here- Dwight, and only Dwight, picks the music in the locker room and the weight room. We listen to a lot of Kanye, Lil Wayne (I love Kanye and Weezy), and, unfortunately, Soulja Boy Tell 'Em. Sometimes, during the offseason mostly, we have "White Guy Wednesdays". Pat Garrity, James Augustine, and I will lift to the background noise of 80s rock music.

LOL @ "White Guy Wednesdays"!!

[Optimus_Steel]

LOL at White Guys Wendsdays. And I guess that settles the "Is Agustine white?" debate a couple of years ago.

[mhectorgato]

LOL at White Guys Wendsdays. And I guess that settles the "Is Agustine white?" debate a couple of years ago.

But where would MoGrady fit into this? He's white but doesn't fit this classification.

Could be the that James is 1/2 white and likes 80s rock. There's still reasonable doubt in my mind.

[Catledge]

I don't see the team being the same as last year for the simple reason free agency. Carlos will not be back, Dooling may not be back considering he wants more then the Magic are most likely going to offer. Next season chances are Dooling will be back home in Miami.
Evans also has a chance of getting more then he has ever earned. He played so well for the Magic in the regular season that there may be teams out there willing to offer him the triple what he is earning now which wasn't a lot in the first place.
Augustine gone, Garrity gone. With all of that this will be a different Magic team then what we all saw last season.
The Magic have one draft pick, but rumors floating around keep on saying that the Magic have already gotten a second rounder from either Seattle or Portland. And this year I don't see Otis trading his second round pick like he did last year.
Then you have the MLE and LLE and veterans exceptions and yes this won't be the same Magic team from last year. It will be better.
Now if we can get Howard to practice a little on his free throws and turnovers because of double teaming before the season begins then it should be even better. Howard said something about not focusing on basketball until Team USA and then after that relaxing some more before the team goes to training camp.

PS no mod I just updated what was said by Redick on his blog about his being back with the Magic at 100% instead of the 99%. I thought that everyone should know what Redick said and how he is getting ready for the next season.

LOL - I left that PS note because I thought I was posting in the Offseason Targets Part Two thread. It was 3:30 in the morning and I was still on a high from watching South American World Cup qualifying.


Anyway, as to the greater point... I agree, Cougar, that many of the changes you refer to will happen, but I can see most of them happening without the starting lineup being changed:

#22 pick - In last year's draft, the bottom half of the first round produced exactly zero starters. Among the teams who drafted between 16 and 30 were Charlotte (#22) and Miami (#20), bad teams riddled by injuries, and even they couldn't find much use for their picks. The lowest picks that made significant contributions were Al Thornton at 14 and Rodney Stuckey at 15, and they combined for a total of 33 starts (31 by Thornton).

Second-round pick - Obviously, even less likely to produce a starter than our first rounder.

Mo Evans leaving - I agree that Otis is unlikely to give him the $4.5m or so that he wants, but I don't see anybody else giving it to him either. I expect that this will go similar to how the DeShawn Stevenson thing went a few years ago, with Otis refusing to go over $3m over 3 years and Evans not being able to find a better offer anywhere. The difference is that Evans, being a lot older and smarter than Stevenson, will likely just take the contract rather than play for the minimum somewhere else.

MLE - This is by far our best chance to improve our starting lineup, but Childress is unlikely to be had for the MLE and Pietrus might not be worth the MLE.

Incidentally, if we can't get Chil, my next best option would be to let Evans and Dooling walk, sign Pietrus for $4m and Gerald Green for $1.5, and resign Arroyo for $2m. If that proves impossible for any of the many reasons it might, I would resign Dooling and Evans, let Arroyo walk, and sign a PG to the vet min.