<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">In a surprising development, the Orlando Magic did not contact Darko Milicic's camp when NBA free agency officially began at 12:01 a.m. today. The Magic had said they wanted to re-sign Milicic, but by late this afternoon they had yet to call Marc Cornstein, Milicic's agent. Cornstein conceded he was surprised, because a team's call to a free agents after the courting period begins is seen as at least a good-will gesture, if not an actual precursor to negotiating. Cornstein told the Sentinel he received calls from more than 10 other teams today about Milicic, including "a few" who made offers, but added, "Curious by their absence was the Orlando Magic." Cornstein said he called Milicic, who is in his native Serbia, to inform him that the Magic had not called. "I talked to Darko. I'm not going to lie to him. I told him," Cornstein said. Milicic, a 7-foot power forward who played the past 1 1/2 seasons with the Magic, is a restricted free agent. Cornstein was still hopeful that Milicic was in the Magic's plans. The Magic had said that they wanted Milicic to return, and add a free agent such as small forward Rashard Lewis, who has played in Seattle the past nine seasons. The Magic might have quickly turned all their attention to Lewis or another free agent. Lewis' agent, Tony Dutt, reportedly was meeting with Sonics General Manager Sam Presti on Sunday in Houston. The development could mean that the Magic are trying to work a sign-and-trade involving Milicic and Lewis.</div> Source: Orlando Sentinel Oh god...
Honestly I wish the Magic would call him, but after thinking about it this doesn't mean too much. The Magic have restricted status on him, so they are letting the market determine his worth, while still talking to the biggest FA and showing him around. Best case scenario is that a team offers Darko a 7-8 mil contract(since teams likely won't be offering more than the MLE for him, since only a few teams have enough money to sign him), we match it. Shard loves Orlando and demands the Sonics to trade him to Orlando and we trade to get him for cap space and picks. Although the worst case scenario is really bad. Worst case scenario is that we don't talk to Darko, we renounce his rights and then Shard decides he doesn't want to be in Orlando and we lose both. Honestly I think at worst he will accept the 6.8 qualifying offer for 1 year that would make him an unrestricted FA after next season. I don't think anyone will offer him much higher than that and it gives him a chance to upgrade his value and possibly more teams that would be interested in him would have cap space.
They probably want to try to lock up Rashard Lewis first. Darko's a RFA anyways so we could match any offer.
I haven't really followed up with the Magic this season, but why is Darko such a commodity? I know he's a former second overall pick and obviously has some degree of potential, but looking at his stats, he played 24 minutes and averaged 8 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 1 assist. Granted, he is a young 7-footer, but I, nevertheless, don't see why his production would warrant the type of lucrative contract that some Magic fans want to re-sign him for. I read $60 million in one post a while ago. I would rather sign Darko to less than his alleged market value of $60 million and try to get someone like Lewis, a proven all-star and consistent 20-point scorer the past few years. Lewis will be better for the team than Darko, especially with Dwight around.
<div class="quote_poster">MrJ Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">I haven't really followed up with the Magic this season, but why is Darko such a commodity? I know he's a former second overall pick and obviously has some degree of potential, but looking at his stats, he played 24 minutes and averaged 8 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 1 assist. Granted, he is a young 7-footer, but I, nevertheless, don't see why his production would warrant the type of lucrative contract that some Magic fans want to re-sign him for. I read $60 million in one post a while ago. I would rather sign Darko to less than his alleged market value of $60 million and try to get someone like Lewis, a proven all-star and consistent 20-point scorer the past few years. Lewis will be better for the team than Darko, especially with Dwight around.</div> I tried to tell these guys when the magic traded for him. Darko has no fire, none what so ever. And for that he will always blow. I tried to watch every game that involved Darko and you can see it in his game no passion. His agent told him he needed to try hard in the playoffs and show something or it could cost him millions. Until I read about Darko being serious and wanted to be a good player in the NBA. He'll be a nobody that doesn't deserve the mid level exception.
<div class="quote_poster">MrJ Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">I haven't really followed up with the Magic this season, but why is Darko such a commodity? I know he's a former second overall pick and obviously has some degree of potential, but looking at his stats, he played 24 minutes and averaged 8 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 1 assist. Granted, he is a young 7-footer, but I, nevertheless, don't see why his production would warrant the type of lucrative contract that some Magic fans want to re-sign him for. I read $60 million in one post a while ago. I would rather sign Darko to less than his alleged market value of $60 million and try to get someone like Lewis, a proven all-star and consistent 20-point scorer the past few years. Lewis will be better for the team than Darko, especially with Dwight around.</div> All I'm saying is that we had plenty of depth at the wing positions, we had virtually no room for injury last year at the big positions with Darko/Battie because we didn't have a legit 4th big. Now losing one of them, basically we now only have 2 bigs that can play at the NBA level and 1 of them is Tony Battie. If you were planning on letting Darko walk then why the hell didn't we draft some big in the 2nd round? Why the hell aren't we going to save any kind of money after this deal to sign someone else that can play the low post? Why the hell didn't we make an offer to get a first rounder to trade Darko to some team(on July 11th)? Obviously there is interest in Darko and I'm sure someone would have dealt a mid 1st rounder for Darko. It just doesn't add up. Otis better have something else up his sleeve because when Tony Battie misses his yearly 10-20 games, where is any depth what so ever? Dwight Howard is going to be obligated to play 48 minutes a game. Don't get me wrong, I love Shard. Don't take my negativity as anything like Shard bashing. Shard is going to be an amazing player alongside Dwight and will improve the Magic's scoring and give us an added dimension on offense that I am really looking forward to. He is an all-star caliber player for sure and I welcome him in with open arms. I'm just hoping there is a sign and trade involved that frees up enough cap space to get a legit big man so that all big man duties won't fall on just Dwight. <div class="quote_poster">Cdub100 Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">I tried to tell these guys when the magic traded for him. Darko has no fire, none what so ever. And for that he will always blow. I tried to watch every game that involved Darko and you can see it in his game no passion. His agent told him he needed to try hard in the playoffs and show something or it could cost him millions. Until I read about Darko being serious and wanted to be a good player in the NBA. He'll be a nobody that doesn't deserve the mid level exception.</div> Welcome back. I was wondering when you would get back considering there hasn't been much Darko bashing around the Orlando forum for awhile.
<div class="quote_poster">Cdub100 Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">I tried to tell these guys when the magic traded for him. Darko has no fire, none what so ever. And for that he will always blow. I tried to watch every game that involved Darko and you can see it in his game no passion. His agent told him he needed to try hard in the playoffs and show something or it could cost him millions. Until I read about Darko being serious and wanted to be a good player in the NBA. He'll be a nobody that doesn't deserve the mid level exception.</div> The guy is 7 foot and 21 yrs old. The guy did avg. bad stats but did avg. 1.8bpg. That's crazy for 24mpg. He also wasn't apparently used correctly by Brian Hill. The guy wasn't a good coach anyways. Darko does have potential and we traded away Cato who can't even jump and can't dunk barely and a 1st round pick that we would've used on a big anyways for Darko and a decent backup PG. We need to resign him to at least have decent backup bigmen. We currently have Bo Outlaw, James Augustine, and Pat Garrity backing up Battie and Dwight if we don't resign Darko. Excuse me if I almost throw up but those are the names. We need to resign him or try to go after someone like maybe Chris Wilcox or something.
I think Orlando screwed it up now. They wasted this year's first round pick for nothing now that Darko is gone. You guys could've picked a solid player with the 15th pick. I hope Rashard doesn't gets injured and become the next Grant Hill for you guys.
I don't think Darko is officially gone yet. His agent overreacted and hopefully he calms down. The Magic just renounced the 6.8 qualifying offer that he likely wouldn't have signed anyway. We still have his bird rights, so we can still go over the cap. We are working on a sign and trade to get enough cap so that we could get him and Darko. Otis should have contacted Darko and his agent to say what was going on, but I don't think he's really being dishonest. He has said the entire offseason that his priorities were to get a scoring wing and resign Darko and he continues to say that those are still his priorities, hence the reason for working on a S&T. Honestly the only way I think we don't get Darko is if Memphis offers him a big offer(starting at 8-9 mil). I think the Magic come back and offer a deal that starts at 6-7, but avgs about 8-9 for 5-6 years. Not many teams can really offer more than the MLE. I think when we end up offering him the biggest contract and Darko says he wants to stay here(can you imagine how much Shard/Dwight will open up his game?), he will end up staying here.
