Official: Arenas/Hedo/Jrich takin talents to central FLORIDA

[paperboymafia]

holy crap. just got back online and saw this trade. not sure i can sift through 70 pages. whats the general vibe and reaction magic fans?

Gilbert for Lewis is great

Getting J-Rich is great, Hedo is hit or miss but optimistic, and Earl Clark is a total unknown

Losing Gortat hurts, but happy to see Pietrus and VC leave

Magic are currently finding a way to acquire another big (PF/C) who can back-up Howard for 8-12 minutes, possibly get rid of Duhon

Nelson/Arenas debate is running rampant on here, some want Nelson to start, others want Nelson to be a 6th man, some want Nelson to be traded, while the majority stated that we must keep Nelson

Other than that, it's go for broke attitude here in Orlando... Championship or bust

Alright great, thanks.

[grumpysaddle]

First GIlbert for Lewis is ok if we decided to trade Nelson for Big :/

i hate trade with PHX. Firstly we get ugly Hedo contract , secondly we lost our big trade asset in Gortat.
(but i like J.Richardson and i know that hedo needed to be taken:/)
too bad we were not able to do smth like that :

Hedo (needed to be taken to get J.Richardson) + JRich for Carter and Pietrus + fillers. That would be great.

then we could trade gortat and nelson for combo C/PF , but now gortat is gone and we do not have much trade assets to get another big (which for sure will be needed to fight vs BOS/LA)
(and Gortat was needed to be traded because he was just not good enough vs BOS and LA but NOT for freakin hedo)

i just hate Hedo here. imo he cannot play anymore and his contract is just ugly :/

PHX fan here.

PHX would have never done the trade if Gortat wasn't included. VC is nice as an expiring and he'll be playing for a contract. The Suns training staff can most likely revive his corpse to something near what it was a few years ago. At worst Suns have him till the end of the season and buy him out next season. Richardson would have demanded big money, and while he's been good, he's also playing for a contract. Don't know if he'd have stayed in PHX with what would be reasonably offered. Plus the Nash Factor will benefit VC greatly. People say VC doesn't play well with a ball dominant PG, but he seemed to do pretty well with Kidd in NJ... Overall the Magic win on this part...

Pietrus for Clark is highly lopsided toward the Suns, if Clark never reaches his potential. His lack of effort has been concerning (though he's tried decently hard in recent appearances). Pietrus gives the Suns a defensive player that can hit the 3. Sort of Raja Bell (when he was on the Suns) part 2.

Gortat for Hedo. I hope Hedo can get back to where he was with you guys. Don't expect it really, but I wish you guys the best with that. Gortat is the centerpiece for the Suns. Hedo at PF = disaster in PHX. Gortat is exactly the type of player the Suns needed. They don't need a scoring big man, so much as an aggressive defender/rebounder.

Suns get much better on defense with this trade, while not giving up too much athleticism and keeping players that can play in an open offensive system. Hopefully the pieces work out for the Magic as well.

But yeah... No way this trade would have happened if not for the Gortat addition. Suns didn't need to add another wing and older SG.

[vandy0925]

I hate to dampen to positive mood in this thread, but yesterday was a terrible day for the Magic. Does Otis Smith realize this isn't 2002-2003 and he isn't with the Warriors? Arenas and Hedo are washed up, JRich is the only decent player acquired, but none of them play any consistent defense. Orlando's payroll will have to balloon to ridicilous levels to re-sign JRich this summer, heading into a lockout that may cripple teams with huge salary committments. Lastly, does anyone in this forum really believe these moves will get the Magic a title this year? No, all they've done is ensured they won't be getting it in the next couple of years after either.

[RookieStar]

^^^ Well if Jrich is playing for a contract.. he better go all MJ in his stay knowing that we have the GM that gave 120m to Lewis.

If that's not motivation I dunno what is

[Cigamodnalro]

I hate to dampen to positive mood in this thread, but yesterday was a terrible day for the Magic. Does Otis Smith realize this isn't 2002-2003 and he isn't with the Warriors? Arenas and Hedo are washed up, JRich is the only decent player acquired, but none of them play any consistent defense. Orlando's payroll will have to balloon to ridicilous levels to re-sign JRich this summer, heading into a lockout that may cripple teams with huge salary committments. Lastly, does anyone in this forum really believe these moves will get the Magic a title this year? No, all they've done is ensured they won't be getting it in the next couple of years after either.

[damo[23]]

Even if Hedo and Arenas are "washed up" - are they doing much worse than Vince and Rashard? Throw in J-Rich to the equasion, do you not think we come out better?

[MagicalMan]

stop asking for Jameer to be traded for a backup big. Really you want our co-captain/leader who plays 30-35mpg traded for a C who will play 10mpg at most?

[sskillswitch]

why can't people just see how the team goes before 'trade meer for scrub A or scrub B'.
Makes no sense...

[magicfan4life05]

Good read by Hollinger:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/s ... eal-101218

Moreover, Bass and Anderson are no longer trade chips; they are now necessities. In fact, forget Arenas, Richardson and Turkoglu for a moment -- Bass and Anderson are really the keys to the deal, because their development started this ball rolling. Both players had badly out-produced Lewis over the past two seasons, leading to an increasingly loud chorus of observers wondering why Lewis was still starting. The undersized Bass is also likely to see service as a backup center -- a role he actually filled fairly productively in Dallas -- although massive rookie Daniel Orton could also be part of the picture there.

[drsd]

stretch 4

meer
arenas
jrich
hedo
dwight!

Turkoglu will get minutes at the 4, but won't start there.

..

[6_Rings]

great moves. imho u got a bit thin in the PF position. r u guys still dealing?

[davidse]

fwiw - dont' think anyone mentioned it, but you guys got two trade exceptions from the two deals - imo they're worth about 2.9 mil (phx), and 2.8 mil (washington).

- and although those two can't be combined among themselves, or combined with other salaries going out - they could come in handy if there's a cheap enough big man that some team wants to dump for no salary back...

most logical targets in this case are the "tax paying" teams...

i think the jazz make the most sense - they have two semi-serviceble big men they don't really need now that okur is coming back (elson and fescenko), both make about 1.2 mil, and the jazz are paying lux tax which means that dumping one of them would save them about 2.4 mil.
use the trade exception + offer up cash - and the jazz stand to save a cool 5 mil $ in exchange for trading away a 4th string center...

this can also help on the bobcats front - and aparently they're very much into savings right now...
you can absorb a guy like najera for one trade exception, and in exchange get kwame for malik allen or something similar...

tpe's are a usefull tool, but i dont' see too many options at that price range.

[drsd]

great moves. imho u got a bit thin in the PF position. r u guys still dealing?

Local media reports that a small trade might follow. I personally expect Redick to be shipped for a combo big.

[drsd]

We've talked a lot about Orlando's starters and their rotational minutes for core back-ups. Now let's look at the current practice squad.

Duhon/Williams
Redick
xxx
Clark
Orton

As far as "scrubs" go, this is an interesting set of names. There is talent and trade-ability assets in those 5.

..

[Magic#1]

One thing that hasn't been mentioned yet: Gil's attitude is a great fit with Dwight. Same with Hedo. As much as it might bug some fans, we're going to lead the league in laughs and smiles. VC never fit with Dwight. I can see Dwight loving being around that guy, and we know he loves Hedo as well. Dwight has a guy who might actually joke more than him now.

[maginno]

I say the moves as a whole seem pretty good, but taken separately, I think Phoenix definitely got the best of us.

They took in Carter and Pietrus' expiring deals, brought in a young starting caliber C and all they needed to give up in exchange was Richardson. Earl Clark was a raw prospect they had no need for and Hedo, well, that's self-explanatory.

Great post. Pretty much how I see it. I 'm with it because I already saw that our pieces were not too fantastic. Phoenix to me clearly won this trade by sticking Hedo in it. I'm being a realist here. We've acquired lusy pieces and contracts over the years so I grade it on the basis of what we really had. To answer your question (kind of ) Was an expiring Carter that the whole league recognizes is past his prime and not going to put you over the top when it counts and Gortat going to get you back a prolific scorer? Nah. We could dream about it but it wasn't going to happen. So the price of admission was taking back someone elses garbage and with all due respect to Hedo and his fans
(I'm ome myself) thats what we did and Phoenix held their ground and demanded it.

Yeah he could have stopped at Arenas and he would still have a backup center and do another trade for a more role oriented player but I guess Otis figured he was putting all his eggs in one basket with Gil. With JR if Arenas isn't even qquite superstar material anymore he still gets a side kick combo to Dwight. On offense it makes alot of sense. So what makes this painful is the Hedo contract (whcih I didn't even look up until late last night - its putrid for what Ithink Hedo is now and two years from now even worse).

[spinedoc]

I just watched the interview with Arenas, he looks as giddy as a school girl. You can't deny that there will be a rejuvenated spark to this team getting Arenas, J-Rich, and Otis back together again. Add that with Hedo coming back to where he had the most success in his career, along with the guys wanting to show the new recruits something, and we might have a very motivated team in Orlando. It was also interesting to hear that Gil thinks he might be the one coming off the bench and he's totally cool with that, as he was doing the same in Washington. I'm feeling better about the whole thing one day removed and listening to the players reactions. Here is the link to the interview, but I'm sure its been posted already somewhere.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/o ... 7849.story

[Orlando Dawg]

great moves. imho u got a bit thin in the PF position. r u guys still dealing?

Local media reports that a small trade might follow. I personally expect Redick to be shipped for a combo big.

They aren't going to just trade Redick for some knucklehead .. he's a fan favorite and a great backup to J-Rich

By the way J-Rich is the man!!! ..This dude blows Vince Carter away. Anyone who write's it's near even is clueless. The dude is a top 5 playoff performer last year and the perfect workhorse ... will soon be everbody's 2nd favorite player on the Magic ... shooting like.470 for the last 2.3 years .. THAT is what we need a consisent scorer who doesnt take dumb shots and is money .. plus hes like 2nd or 3rd in SG rebounding or something .. dude's got hussle as well

[spinedoc]

great moves. imho u got a bit thin in the PF position. r u guys still dealing?

Local media reports that a small trade might follow. I personally expect Redick to be shipped for a combo big.

We'll probably use one of those exceptions we got, or a minimum contract player roaming about, but Thabeet was rumored to be on the block recently. We could get a cheaper sg from Memphis to backup Arenas and J-Rich for depth to make the salaries match.

[Sweet J]

Love both moves. A shake-up was needed.

One thing is certain, J Rich has to start, with either Hedo or Gil coming off the bench. Personally I would like to see Nelson used as the sixth man, but Stan has publically ruled that out. A big month to look forward to for us magic fans!!!