<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Florida Today - According to Florida Today, the Magic and Darko Milicic have started discussions about a contract extension, but the two sides are likely to wait until next summer to finalize the deal because of the security that would offer both sides. A full season will give the Magic an extended look at Milicic, while Milicic will get a chance to improve his status with a strong season. "We've had a conversation, but whether we're going to extend him based on 30 games or not, I'm not sure yet," Magic assistant general manager Otis Smith said. "We'll continue conversations and evaluate it, and if it makes sense and it's something we want to do from a numbers standpoint, we'll do it. But if we can't keep the numbers down, we won't engage it."</div> Source This is great news. It's awesome to see that Otis Smith is trying his best to keep our core together and is already trying to re-sign Darko. This shows he is committed to the guys we have now and I agree with everything he has done so far as general manager. Our Darkwight frontcourt(Yes, I just made that up ) is going to be amazing in a few years.
I wish we would get something done this summer so that Darko can't request a huge deal that would be crazy for us to give him.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting CLos:</div><div class="quote_post">Darko is not THAT good. He is better suited coming off the bench for us.</div> He's shown signs. You got to realize that his confidence has been really low and he doesn't have much chemistry with his teammates. Since he sat on the bench for 2/3rds of the year, he wasn't really in good game shape either. He didn't have any game experience either and is playing basically like a rookie. With an entire summer to work out with Dwight and get into game shape and improve his game he is going to be a pretty solid player. I don' think any Magic fan on here is expecting him to have an All-star type season next year, but he SHOULD start over Tony Battie next year. Battie is best suited bringing energy off of the bench.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting CLos:</div><div class="quote_post">Darko is not THAT good. He is better suited coming off the bench for us.</div> He has also shown that he can be a very consistent defender and towards the end of the season he was blocking about three shots per game. That is very impressive for someone who is younger than LeBron James (a lot of people forget that) and wasn't in the best shape like Gators said. If we can sign him to a long term deal and him and Howard can gain chemistry, we will be a very scary team who could go a long way in the playoffs. Does Duncan and Robinson ring a bell? That's what we could become in a few years if everything pans out the way it's supposed too.
Like you guys said, Darko is 20 years old. He has shown that he can play and that defense is his stronger card right now. He has that 18 foot jumper and an alright post up game, but that will all come with time and playing next to dwight. Anyone in this league in Darko's position would love to play next to howard. Dwight is going to get the bulk of double teams as well as the stronger defender leaving Darko for open looks as well as weaker defenders. This frontcourt can be something special like Duncan and Robinson if they continue to play like they have. I mean come on, 2 20 year old front court players is crazy. No team that is sucessful has 2 20 years that do so well in the front court. I think we should lock him up while we can. He has shown that he can play and that with time he can be very productive.
